harasness: Day 3

I was up early again the next morning for round 3 of 'Sarah walks across Rome'. My first planned stop on this day was the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, to see La Bocca della Verita - the Mouth of Truth. I caught the metro Termini to Circo Massimo, and then walked along the side of Circo Massimo itself. This used to be a grand stadium, where races were held - up to 12 races per day in Augustus' time. Caligula liked to gamble a bit more, and held up to 24 races each day. These days the area is just a place for locals to walk their dogs, but you can still see where the track would have been.

Anywho, it was just a short (wet) walk up and down the hill to the church. I'd gone out of my way to go there because I knew that it was a central scene in the film "Roman Holiday", which I figured I'd be watching when I got home. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I hadn't seen it before I went, and I haven't seen it yet - but I have the DVD here and it's a current plan for this weekend! I could see the Mouth of Truth as I arrived at the church, but wanted to take a look inside first. Turned out to be a great idea - inside I discovered a relic of San Valentino - yep, you guessed, good ol' St Valentine himself. It's kind of morbid to be standing there looking at a skull, but that's just what I did.

There wasn't much else to see inside this particular church, so I wandered out and joined the queue to have my photo taken with my hand inside the mouth. For those who don't know, the legend has it that if you put your hand into the mouth of the sculpture, and you tell a lie, it will bite your hand off. I can testify now that the legend isn't true, but the lie I told wasn't a big one, so maybe there's just degrees of lying!

I went inside to buy a souvenir, and discovered a piece of an 8th century mosaic on the wall there. Apparently it comes from the Old St Peter's Basilica. I loved the fact that there was no glass over it, and no apparent security system - something that's at least 1300 years old, and it's on the wall of an old, small church in a city known for its thieves. Britain would guard that with several armed forces units, heat sensors, motion detectors, and a donkey.

I left the church and jumped onto a bus, taking the scenic route through the city before eventually finding my way to Barberini. From there, I walked up the hill to the top of the Spanish Steps, which I had avoided going to a couple of days before. I'm not sure in the end if it would have been better to approach them from the bottom or the top, but nevertheless I did get lots of photos. I'm still not sure what's so special about these steps. I mean, I know the history of them, I know that they're in a few movies, but really? They're just steps. Slippery steps, covered in tourists and freaky guys trying to give women flowers. I did kind of like the fountain at the bottom of the steps, the Fontana della Barcaccia (Fountain of the Old Boat).

Right next to the Spanish Steps is the Keats Shelley Memorial House. I got all excited when I realised that, because of all the English poets, Keats is a favourite. Naturally, it was closed. I said a few naughty words quietly, turned around, and realised that I was at the end of Via Condotti, one of the premiere shopping streets in Rome. Somehow though, I restrained myself, however temporarily, and headed in a different direction - towards Piazza del Popolo. I didn't know what was supposed to be there, but it was highlighted on the tourist map I was following, so I figured it must have been worth a shot. It was a bit 'more of the same'-ish, so I didn't hang around there long. Can I just say though, it's no wonder I don't understand modern art. There were a couple of sculptures on the street on my way to the piazza, and lets just say I don't think anyone around me really got the point of them.

Got a little excited again when leaving Piazza del Popolo!

I wasn't really sure where else to go from here. I covered a lot of places much more quickly than I had anticipated, I think because I hadn't realised how close they all were to each other. I'm too used to big distances. I decided to go to Rome's cathedral, Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. I'd already seen a lot of churches, but what's a trip to an ancient city without a whole lot more? The cathedral was huge. I'd figured that with so many churches in such a small area, that the cathedral wouldn't actually be that big. Wrong. It wasn't huge as in the size of the Vatican huge, but it was certainly big enough.

From there I headed down the street, looking for the Scala Santa. This is supposed to the the staircase that Jesus walked up in Pontius Pilate's palace in Jerusalem. I don't really know why I couldn't find it, but I never did get there. I went into Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem. There was a lot of interesting things to see there, not the least of which was a shrine to a young girl who is up for sainthood, but there is was is reported to the holy relics from Jesus' crucifiction. I wasn't sure if they were real when I was there, but I did a bit of research afterwards and it seems that they are. The relics, known as the passion relics, include: a large fragment of the Good Thief's Cross; the bone of an index finger, said to be that of St Thomas, which he placed in the wound of the Risen Christ; pieces of the Scourging Pillar, Christ's tomb and Jesus' crib; two thorns from the crown of thorns; three fragments from the True Cross; a nail used in the crucifiction; and the Title of the Cross. There is also a copy of the Shroud of Turin there. I wish I'd taken it a bit more seriously now - I snapped a couple of pics while I was there just to record it, but didn't really believe it, and left relatively quickly.