Vivere a Riva: Italy Part 4 -- Roma!

Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano

February 28, 2012 -- 4:56PM

The last destination of our giro d'italia was Rome. We stayed in Rome for 3 nights. The weather finally started to get tolerable and almost warm at times, which made it that much better. Our hotel was right next to Piazza di Fiore which is really close to Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. My room was on the top floor and opened right out onto our roof terrace where we spent most mornings and nights hanging out eating and drinking beer & wine. We arrived sort of later in the evening so we had a little time to roam (no pun-intended) over towards the Pantheon and see it with the sun down. It was incredible. Such a beautiful structure that was built 120AD. It's amazing it still stands today. I believe we had group dinner that night and then a couple of us decided to walk up to St. Peter's which is absolutely gigantic! We got asked to leave around 11pm when they were closing down the area for the night so we walked over to the Spanish steps and enjoyed those for a little while. My knee started acting up a lot from all the walking from the week, especially on cobblestone. We called it a night.

View from our roof top terrace just outside of our hotel room

We had an early morning to tour the city as a studio. We first went to Piazza Navona to see Bernini's Four Rivers sculpture and Borromini's Church. We then went over to the Pantheon for a bit. It was awesome to see light pour through the completely open oculus. We then went to see some more Bernini vs. Borromini; Chisea di Sant Andrea al Quirinale by Bernini &
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini. Both churches on the same block with ovular domes. Frankly, I think Borromini's was better than Bernini's in this instance, but typically I prefer Bernini work over Borromini. We then went to see Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa sculpture in the Cornaro Chapel.

Piazza Navona

The Pantheon

Chisea di Sant Andrea al Quirinale by Bernini

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini

Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa sculpture in the Cornaro Chapel

Paola cut us loose for Lunch and the afternoon so Jess, Erik, Blake, Sam, and I went towards the Coliseum and the Roman Forum (aka the ruins). The line was pretty long to get inside the Coliseum so we just walked through the ruins instead. That night I went to dinner with a smaller group of people and we were actually able to eat out on the street which was awesome. We drank on the roof terrace that night and I met some kids who are studying in Florence from MICA, which was pretty cool.

Coliseum

The Ruins

The next day, Saturday, we decided to walk up to the Vatican City and try to get into St. Peter's basilica. What we didn't know was that the Pope would be inducting a bunch of Cardinals that morning. So we weren't able to get in but we were able to watch the Pope speak (in Latin) for a little bit on the screens in front of St. Peter's. Blake, Erik, Jess, and I then walked up the hill towards Il Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio and got a pretty sweet view of Rome from a little higher up. We then had to meet with the group to head North towards the Olympic Park, Maxxi, and the Parco della Musica. I was kind of disappointed with Maxxi by Zaha Hadid. The form was cool and the stairs and walkways were awesome but the galleries kind of sucked. Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano was absolutely gorgeous. It was so inspiring and really nice to finally see some architecture from the 21st century. After seeing this complex, it has really inspired me to really consider getting into concert hall, auditorium, and acoustic design. We were able to see a Jazz Orchestra concert in one of the concert halls that evening which was absolutely incredible. I really miss being able to play music.