Rushed to Mass at the Basilica de Santa Maria Maggiore - one of the 4 main churches of Rome (along with St. Peter's in the Vatican). It's right down the street from the B&B but it took a bit longer in the rain. Still we made it in time. The Mass was wild - beautiful Latin singing, at least 10 priests who moved around the church during Communion going where they were needed, gorgeous paintings on the walls and altar to distract you. Pat made a separate post on the Basilica, so I'll leave it at that.
After grabbing a quick cappucino at the bar, we left the caffe and returned to the hotel. With our plans of going to Tivoli rain-delayed, we decided to check out the Forum. Despite my fears of ruining my new camera, I was pursuaded to take it out and grab a few (um, more like 50) shots.
One place we didn't photograph was the Church of St. Bonaventure at the top of the Palatine Hill. Lovely little church with what I suspected was a large El Greco painting but I can't find out any info online about it. Plus, our first monk sighting!
Wandered around the Forum, into the supposed cell of St. Paul & St. Peter (basically a hole in the floor) & dodged large German tour groups. Exhausted, we stumbled home to rest.
The rain let up a bit so Patrick conviced me to walk out for dinner at Due Colonne. We stopped by and made a late reservation then wandered through the streets outside the piazza Navona searching for Jonathen's Angels. I was accidentally burned with a cigarette, harrassed by icky boys & almost hit by an impossibly large van on a tiny street, but eventually we found it. Was it worth it? Well, I've never seen a sarcophagus in a bathroom before, so that was cool. Plus if you were to translate the aesthetic of New Orleans into Italian, this place would be it. Kitschy angels were plastered all over the walls along with some questionable erotic "art" and wax-dripped Chianti bottles. They served my wine with corn nuts.
We easily found our way back to Due Colonne for dinner. After splitting fish & pasta, we tried our first tiramisu. Awesome. But no gelati to report for today. Che ingiustizia!
