I had an unexpected free day
on Friday (if I juggled my workload a bit), so I decided to take a mystery
train trip. It was only a mystery between home and Florence's Santa Maria Novella railway
station, because I chose my destination from the departures board when I
arrived. I had just enough time to get a piadine (a pita bread pocket with
prosciutto, mozzarella and salad), a bottle of water, and a ticket to … Rome! I’d
thrown some basic toiletries and a clean top in my shoulder bag just in case my
mystery trip turned into an overnighter. I didn’t buy a return ticket.
It’s easy to forget that Rome is only an
hour and 40 minutes or so from Florence by fast train. I was last there in 2007,
during a seven-week trip from Oz that preceded my becoming a full-time bag
lady.
The weather was perfect for being a
tourist: warm and sunny. There were lots of street performers about. A very
cheerful sort of day.
I ended up walking all over the city for about
seven hours, revisiting all the popular tourist spots. Lunch was pizza and water “with gas” in a cobbled lane near the Trevi Fountain.
Just off Piazza Navona I
went to a Brueghel/Flemish Art exhibition (Peter the Elder, Peter the Younger,
Jan the Younger, etc.).
At St Peter’s I climbed to the top of the basilica for
views down over the piazza, and across all of Rome in front and the Vatican
gardens behind. The wonderful basilica inside the Pantheon, on the other side of the river, is open to the sky and is just stunning.
Late in the afternoon I walked back along the river for quite
some way before heading vaguely in the direction of the railway station and
looking for a cab. In the taxi, we passed the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, where
a huge banner hanging out the front announced a major Helmut Newton photography
exhibition. “Stop the cab!” I screeched, and jumped out.
I didn’t know the timetable for trains back
to Florence, but this was an opportunity not to be missed.
I spent over an hour checking out the three
bodies of work: “White Women”, “Sleepless Nights” and “Big Nudes”. Fabulous. It
included some works mentioned by name in a book I’ve been reading about Yves
Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld in the 1970s and 1980s, and photographs of
some of the people mentioned there: Loulou de la Falaise, Paloma Picasso,
Lagerfeld and others. A nice way to finish off the book, too, which I’ve really
been enjoying.
The station was within walking distance, and I had just a 20-minute wait before the next high-speed train left for Milano via Firenze. Perfect.
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