Wednesday, May 25.
My feet hurt. Since we spent the good part of Tuesday walking everywhere—even dinner, after which we got locked out of a subway, missed any available bus nearby, and had to walk home—my body was aching as it never had before. It didn't help that I chose Wednesday then to wear my new flats, which were seemingly comfortable upon purchase but pretty much a pedestrian apocalypse if you walked more than fifteen minutes in them. Which was what I did even before we went to the Musei Capitolini. My feet are so covered in band-aids they look practically Zombified. But for all the walking I had to do on the stone floors of the museum, and for all the standing we did in the remains of the Tabularium, looking out onto the Roman Forum, it was a beautiful exhibit and an enjoyable half day. Of course, I should have gone home afterward, soaked my feet in as much ice as I could find, and slept, but I hadn't eaten yet, and I was starving. So as our group split into different sections, a majority of us stayed with Dan, in search of a place to exchange money and procure food. It turned out to be a long walk.
The banks in Italy are frustratingly fortified. To get into them, you have to pass through a small glass cubicle, where the door slides open to admit you, and then you have to wait a few seconds before entering the bank. For the first one we went to, the cubicle was also a metal detector and x-ray—before we went inside, we had to leave our bags behind, which meant a few of us sat around on the floor in exhaustion while we waited to see if the bank would exchange American dollars. It wouldn't. Not without a valid passport. So from there our group split up again, half going to search for lunch while the other half sought another bank. I went with the bank group, but when we happened upon the next bank the wait was so long that we had to set out again. Finally we found a place that would exchange money with only a driver's license ID, which meant we could finally eat (and that meant sitting, which I was praying for at that point). We had lunch at Insalata Ricca, a really cramped restaurant that made walking around people difficult, but it served massive salads. I'm pretty convinced at this point that anything Italian-made is simply superior, because I've never had such a delicious salad before ever. I mean, it's salad, a filling appetizer at best. But apparently in Italy even the salads are fine cuisine.
From there we set back out—walking, of course—to the Capitoline and the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. It sits at the top of the left set of stairs, a rather nondescript and, to put it bluntly, ugly brick building with tiny windows and a cross over its center door. It's an extremely wide building, block-y and simple in its basic rectangular geometry. Its simple brick exterior looks much like the Curia Julia (which was converted into a church itself), and compared to the elaborate churches with impressive domes and looming towers Santa Maria's modest facade doesn't really seem worth the 124 (or 125) steps it takes to get to its doors.
My feet hurt. Since we spent the good part of Tuesday walking everywhere—even dinner, after which we got locked out of a subway, missed any available bus nearby, and had to walk home—my body was aching as it never had before. It didn't help that I chose Wednesday then to wear my new flats, which were seemingly comfortable upon purchase but pretty much a pedestrian apocalypse if you walked more than fifteen minutes in them. Which was what I did even before we went to the Musei Capitolini. My feet are so covered in band-aids they look practically Zombified. But for all the walking I had to do on the stone floors of the museum, and for all the standing we did in the remains of the Tabularium, looking out onto the Roman Forum, it was a beautiful exhibit and an enjoyable half day. Of course, I should have gone home afterward, soaked my feet in as much ice as I could find, and slept, but I hadn't eaten yet, and I was starving. So as our group split into different sections, a majority of us stayed with Dan, in search of a place to exchange money and procure food. It turned out to be a long walk.
The banks in Italy are frustratingly fortified. To get into them, you have to pass through a small glass cubicle, where the door slides open to admit you, and then you have to wait a few seconds before entering the bank. For the first one we went to, the cubicle was also a metal detector and x-ray—before we went inside, we had to leave our bags behind, which meant a few of us sat around on the floor in exhaustion while we waited to see if the bank would exchange American dollars. It wouldn't. Not without a valid passport. So from there our group split up again, half going to search for lunch while the other half sought another bank. I went with the bank group, but when we happened upon the next bank the wait was so long that we had to set out again. Finally we found a place that would exchange money with only a driver's license ID, which meant we could finally eat (and that meant sitting, which I was praying for at that point). We had lunch at Insalata Ricca, a really cramped restaurant that made walking around people difficult, but it served massive salads. I'm pretty convinced at this point that anything Italian-made is simply superior, because I've never had such a delicious salad before ever. I mean, it's salad, a filling appetizer at best. But apparently in Italy even the salads are fine cuisine.
From there we set back out—walking, of course—to the Capitoline and the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. It sits at the top of the left set of stairs, a rather nondescript and, to put it bluntly, ugly brick building with tiny windows and a cross over its center door. It's an extremely wide building, block-y and simple in its basic rectangular geometry. Its simple brick exterior looks much like the Curia Julia (which was converted into a church itself), and compared to the elaborate churches with impressive domes and looming towers Santa Maria's modest facade doesn't really seem worth the 124 (or 125) steps it takes to get to its doors.
Inside, though, is a different story entirely. The church is incredibly spacious. All along its central nave blue, crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling, sharing space with the arches and columns that line the left and right. They're elegant and luxurious, though they hardly need to be lit for all the natural light that pours through the windows at the top, near the ceiling. The ceiling, too, is beautiful, ornate as all churches I've seen in Italy so far are, gold-colored with embossed carvings that you willingly crane your neck to look at.
All these details draw your attention to the main altar, which glows yellow and is richly decorated with candlesticks, flowers, and a painting (most likely of Mary) at the center. There are seats near the front of the aisle, where the devout go to pray, but many of the people gathered were tourists like me, taking pictures of the engravings marking the tombs of those buried beneath the floor and the ornate ceiling towering overhead. Nonetheless, the altar is a pretty magnificent sight, far more embellished than the rest of the church because of its significance. The chandeliers light the white altar, and on either side religious paintings flanked by carvings accent it. It's certainly far more beautiful than churches back home, with a quiet, serene atmosphere that causes you to stop and stare for a long time at it, just taking in every detail.
The Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is famous for the statue of baby Jesus, thought to have magical healing powers because it was carved from a tree in Gethsemane. Though lost now, stolen sometime in the nineties and replaced by a replica, people still send their prayers to it in letters and pray the rosary in its respective room, sitting to the sides and just taking in the baby statue encased in glass. Though not my favorite part of the church in all, the statue was still quite beautiful, and the sentiment behind it even more-so. Much like the exterior of the church, this replica statue is not what it seems, but all the same they both have a hidden power and beauty behind them, if only you take a closer look.
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