a stroll in Rome on a Friday afternoon

Usually on a Friday afternoon after lunch I like to either get my haircut or go out to see something. This friday I thought I would go out and get my haircut since we are going on vacation next week to Austria. So I called Mimo and made an appointment.
Photos here are of the streets I walked to get to my appointment and then the walk home.

I walked down Via Palermo which is a back street parallel to Via Nazionale. Went by the Opera House of Rome, then by a series of shops, many are specialty shops, like the one selling decorated cakes and designer handbags, well that is what I thought walking by. I was intrigued by the fact they were selling cakes and handbags, what a strange combination. I looked more closely at the Chanel Bag and the Ferragamo and the Louis Vuitton, they were very nice but then I realize they were made of marzipan.
What a fun thing to do for a party as a novelty, am sure they would be as good to eat as they are to look at.

Then I arrived at the corner of Vincolo dei Serpenti (alley of the snakes) it's a very old street in Rome, it is also the street where the private home of the President of the Italian Republic is located. A little street nothing special, in an old neighborhood. It took me a while to realize that something was odd about that street, no cars are parked, except for one with 2 fellows sitting in it, they are policemen, guarding the street.

President Giorgio Napolitano is 84 yrs old and has been a politician all his life, a communist Italian style. He is much respected by the Italians, a very dignified figure, a defender of Italian democracy and the Constitution. While he is in Office he lives at the Quirinale Palace just about 2 blocks away. Then I turn the corner and am at the barber shop, just across the street from the massive Palazzo Koch which is the seat of the Bank of Italy. The President and I share the same barber.

After my haircut, I decided to walk a little down to the old Market of Emperor Trajan, it was in its time the first shopping mall of antiquity, 5 floors of shops. Today it houses the exhibits of the Forum of Emperors Trajan, Nerva and Augustus.
These forums were fairly well preserved until 1605 when Pope Paul V decided he needed all the marble for a palace and a fountain he was building, what you see today is the result of this act of vandalism by the Pope. From the market platform you can look directly at the Altar of the Nation, this white marble monument was built about 130 yrs ago to commemorate the Royal House of Savoy and the unification of Italy as one country in 1860. It is the largest marble monument built in modern times. The belly of the horse on which sits the figure of King Vittorio Emmanuele can have inside a dining table and 9 men around it for a meal, there is an actual photo of this feat.

I then crossed Via Nazionale and walked up to the Quirinale Palace on my way home passing by the back gate of Prince Colona's garden where once stood the massive Temple to Serapis. The Quirinale was once a Papal Summer Palace, then in 1860 it was confiscated and became the Palace of the Italian King and in 1946 it became the Presidential Palace under the new Italian Republic. However it retains all of its grandeur and the President is housed like a king with all the ceremonial and protocol this entails.

I then walked up along the palace towards Piazza Santa Suzanna where the fountain of Moses has been cleaned after years of neglect, the stone has this soft butter color, it use to be part of a Cardinal's Palace, the palace today is the St-Regis Hotel. The fountain is in fact just a facade, it hides a beautiful apartment attached to the back.

Then onwards towards Porta Pia and home, the street lined with orange trees, full of oranges, they are apparently good to make jam but not to eat. I thought to myself, when would I ever be able to do this back in Canada. This is what I will miss most of Rome when we leave, this certain theatre of life and the elegance of this old city. Will continue to enjoy our stay and make most of it.