I spent my last night in Rome dining on caviar and private label champagne with some Italians and some Russians I’d only known for a few hours. Interesting things happen when you trust people. Sometimes you lose a few hundred bucks to a con artist, sometimes you end up with a bunch of strangers in a luxurious apartment, filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling with artwork and with a incredible top floor view of the Santa Maria Maggiore church.
My last day in Rome went well from the beginning. I woke up early, headed out to visit the catacombs of St. Sebastian (no mean feat, considering that it involved a metro ride and a bus ride on a limited service religious holiday and I’ve only been studying Italian for a week). The catacombs were fascinating, and I spent the hour afterwards wandering along the Appian way – a gorgeous, tree-lined cobblestone path that millennia ago was the main thoroughfare in and out of Rome. Following that, I wandered around the Castel San Angelo, which had a special May 1 entrance fee of only 1 euro.
That evening, I found myself outside the Santa Maria Maggiore church, waiting for a restaurant to open up. Turned out the guy next to me was also waiting around to meet a friend visiting from Russia. We chatted, him in broken English, me in broken Italian, until he invited me out to dinner with them that night. A few minutes later, a different friend of his showed up and we all went back for drinks. Going back to the apartment of someone I’d only known for 30 minutes – that could only end well, right?
The apartment was amazing. Every square inch of wall was covered with artwork, as well as most of the tables and shelves. I learned more about art in the half hour tour of his house than I did during the rest of my trip.
Eventually the Russian friend showed up with his new wife and the five of us – an Italian with no English, an American with little Italian, an Italian with little English, a Russian with great English, and a Russian with little English – settled down for dinner. The planned restaurant had closed, so my new friend went through his fridge to see what he had on hand.
And so we ended up beginning with caviar and champagne from a private vineyard, followed by pizza and homemade pasta matriciana. The pasta was amazing – I ended up so full I could barely get down any of the main course of fresh baby squid.
Derby Pie alone would have made this day worth it, but the fantastic day in the infield, the millionaire’s party, and the post-Derby VIP party were all quite memorable as well. Peyton Manning says I look like his sister’s boyfriend.
When you attend the derby, you can pay a ridiculous sum of money to sit safely in the grandstands, or you can pay the slightly less ridiculous sum of $40 to wallow in the frat party mudpit in the center of the track. I was in the infield, of course. Turn three, to be exact – frat party central (“turn three is the place to be!”). I had a mint julep, drank booze from ziplock bags (hide them in maxipads, no one looks there), saw several boobs, and even a horse or two. The experience was everything I had hoped for, and I even made $5 at the betting window.
Craig and swung by a party thrown by a very wealthy friend of his afterwards and then headed to the main strip of bars in Louisville, where covers ran up to $40 for Derby weekend. Craig talked us into the Makers Mark bar for free, following which I befriended a group of girls who got us into Saddle Ridge for free. We bounced between the two bars and the street until about 3 am (bars open until 6 am Derby weekend), when we found ourselves too exhausted to go on. But on our way out Craig recognized a girl he met last year who said she could get us past the $40 cover and dress code for Felt. And within an hour she upgraded us to the VIP party in the back where Peyton Manning told me I looked like his sister’s boyfriend.
(1) The Grand Canal, (2) a side canal, (3,4,5) Venice at night, (6) Arriving at the Piazza San Marco, (7) Basilica di San Marco, (8) Palazzo Ducale, (9, 10) Piazza San Marco, (11) Traffic light in Venice, (12) I am not sure what this sign means
From Roman debauchery to Kentucky Derby uhh… debauchery… This should be interesting.
All right, Kentucky Derby, I’m here. Show me what you got!
The Duomo took my breath away when I first saw it. It towers over the city and the ornate details of all the different shades of marble are like nothing I’d ever seen. I can’t even imagine the time, and money, and talent that it must have taken to build
I spent most of my day at the Basilica de San Croce. It holds Michelangelo’s tomb, Galileo’s tomb (which is pretty elegant – I wonder how long after his death it took for him to be really celebrated), and Machiavelli’s tomb, among others. There are still frescoes inside from centuries ago as well as a stunning art collection.
The Piazza della Signorina is most famous for Neptune’s fountain and Michelangelo’s David (the original now being inside the Uffizi for safekeeping), but there is also the Signorina’s statuary. Some of the statues are from the second century AD – nearly ten times as old as the United States. And they’re just standing out in the open. I spent a while just standing in the middle of the square imagining what it was like to be there hundreds of years ago. I saw some children playing on the steps of the Basilica de San Marco and realized that five hundred years ago, there were probably other children doing the exact same thing.
The Ponte Vecchio, with its famous overhanging shops. Originally lined with noisy butcher shops, the Medicis had them replaced with silver and gold smiths who, to this day, sell extraordinarily beautiful and extraordinarily expensive jewelry to passersby. If I lived here, I would still be rowing.
I like this photo. It’s got potential if I retouch it a bit. I would have preferred to take it from another angle, but access to the cemetary was restricted.
Sunset from the Piazzale Michelangelo.
