Auguri di Compleanno, Bon Anniversaire

Another year, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer water down your pants. (Quote from the Mary Tyler Moore show). Birthdays are a funny thing for me, each year is different, different cities or continent, in all kinds of places. This year in Ottawa, though we are suppose to be in Spring now it is still cold and full of snow, however all this is set to change dramatically by Thursday when temperatures soar to 10C over night and a massive melt will start quickly, meaning floods, ah Spring in Ottawa.

I have many things to be thankful for on this Birthday, good health, good teeth, my dentist told me this week that for a man my age having all my teeth is remarkable. It seems that like 300 years ago most people in their fifties today have lost a large amount of teeth or are looking at dentures.

We have a nice home, friends, our dogs and each other. We still travel a lot, I have taken in my lifetime more trips to exotic, strange and foreign lands than anyone I know. I have seen 45% of the planet and have lived in many countries for extended part of my life. Going abroad for a few days does not appear on my chart. I have studied and learned foreign languages. I understand quite a few others and am not lost or put off by foreign cultures or mores when I travel.

I now work as a volunteer in two National Museums in Ottawa and I enjoy it immensely. Spending easily upwards of 50 hours a month doing volunteer work, it is like a second career and it is fun, something I always wanted to do and can now do. Not a bad life Maggie Muggins.

Here are some pictures of little me through the ages.

In Ville Saint-Laurent in our backyard in the little pool, I am about 5 yrs old with my little brother.

My first morning going to school, grade 1, on my own in Quebec City

On the train in Poland going from Warsaw to Krakow, 1998.

Italian Cooking School near Rome 2009

In Rome in 2013 at dinner at our friends house

With our Reesie in Rome in 2008 our first apartment on Via Asmara

 In Assisi in 2010

At dinner in Salzburg at the Sketch Bar, Hotel Bristol

With Nicky in Rome on Via dei Villini

On the old Via Latina, with one of the many old aqueducts, Rome

At the monastery of Pedralbes in Barcelona

 At Cap Sounion near Athens at sun down 2010

In the Silk Merchant Guild Hall in Valencia, Spain

Breakfast Italian style at the Hotel in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily  

On the Island of Capri

At the Festival in Salzburg the Karl Bohm Hall 

Infamous photo abroad the Azamara where I was mistaken for Karl Lagerfeld 

Café Bazar, Salzburg, my favourite café at Festival time.

The little wood house in which Mozart wrote his music, beautifully preserved in the garden of the Mozarteum in Salzburg

This for me is the most beautiful fountain in Rome, the Turtles fountain in the area of the Portico Ottavia and the old Ghetto

With Professor A. Testa on Easter Sunday in Rome 2010 

On Via Appia looking for Spartacus 

On board Air Transat going to Italy, a good airline 

Roma arrival

Today we travelled from Ottawa to Montreal to Rome. We were all packed and prepared to leave. Met with the dog sitter, puppies were a little confused with the luggage and this person who appeared to be now in charge. So they of course wanted to be cuddled and petted, we obliged and gave them little biscuits, which always helps a lot. We did take a lot of arrangements for their well being. Taxi took us to the Bus depot in Ottawa, a place I do not recommend, it is derelict, Grey Hound should be ashamed, it has not been updated since 1980 and looks it. They make a parody of security measures none of which are implemented and this after a string of gruesome and deadly incidents on their buses. The trip on a broken down bus to the P.E.Trudeau Airport (formely Dorval) Montreal took two hours.

The airport in Montreal has changed a lot in the last 10 years, I remember Dorval as it was then known in the days of the DC8 when flying anywhere was a luxury and exotic. It had one restaurant the Kebec and the menu was prime roastbeef and a huge buffet. People would come and have a huge festive meal prior to their flight. It was very nice and the food was wonderful. The airport today is many times the size it was then, we went for a bite to eat at the U Bar, the light changes from blue to red to white with the music, the food is good and they have good wines. Our flight on Air Transat left on time. This is the second time we take this airline, they brought us back from Rome in 2011. Good service and a pleasant flight, they do not serve a full meal on the evening flight which takes off after 9 PM, a good idea since most people do not have the stomach for a full meal late at night. The light also in the cabin is shade a light blue which is very pleasant, then it turns to soft pink, more relaxing to help you sleep. There is an attention to small details, including the bread buns and at breakfast nice hot cinnamon buns, good coffee and the fruits were very fresh.

The flight was wonderful and we arrived at Fiumicino-Rome Airport 90 minutes ahead of time and got our luggage in 10 minutes, unheard of really. Shaving that much time on a flight is wonderful.

 The view from our room at Baylon Suites in Trastevere.

 On the old bridge from Trastevere to the Isola on the Tiber
which has been used as hospital island since antiquity. The temple to Aesclepius has been 
replaced by the basilica to Saint Bartholomew (skinned alive).

Ponte Rotto (broken bridge) next to the Palatine bridge.

Looking towards the Gianicolo Hill 

It was wonderful to see the Pines of Rome, those great big umbrella like trees everywhere you look.

When we arrived at our B&B we had a shower and then slept for a few hours. Around 4 pm we went out for a coffee on Piazza Piscinula at Bar Marcucci, the waiter recognized us and greeted us like long lost friends, it was such a pleasure. The coffee Espresso and a Tramenzino (white bread sandwich with white cheese and ham toasted hot).

Next to the bar is a small 4 century AD Church San Benedetto in Piscinula currently housing the statue of the Virgin of Fatima. The statue has been brought to Rome for a few days and is said to be miraculous. It is guarded by a Confraternity who wear highly polished riding boots and a uniform of a penitent knight. The Virgin statue is only a painted plaster statue not very nice looking but of immense importance in the RC Church. The Pope himself blessed the statue in St-Peter's square and thousands of pilgrims came to see it.

We then crossed over to the Rome side of the City by using the antique bridge over the Tiber river and walked into the old Jewish ghetto at the Portico d'Ottavia and the Teatro di Marcello area. The swallows by their thousands were circling above as they do in Rome at this time of the year. It is an incredible spectacle to see at sunset. We had dinner at the Old Taverna of the Ghetto, a favourite of ours. Jewish food in Rome has nothing to do with the European Jewish food known in North America. In Rome most recipes date from Antiquity from the time of Herod and as the Roman Jews say ''We have been here for 3000 years so we got stories to tell. We also went to see two renovated temples in the Forum Boarium near the Arc of Janus, one is the Temple of Virtue Virilis and the other of Hercules often called Vestale temple because it is round but there is no connection at all. The temples have been under renovation for at least 25 years and the final results are beautiful, considering that the building are at least 2200 years old.

 Temple of Virtue Virilis

 Temple of Hercule 

Fountain of the Tritone and the Church where is located the Boca della Verita

Fountain of the Turtles

Prior to our dinner we walked in the old ghetto to the Fountain of the Turtles my favourite and on Piazza Campitelli we went into the Church of Santa Maria al Portico della Piazza Campitelli. There is a shrine there to the patron Saint of Pharmacist, San Giovanni Leonardi.
The bells of the church were pealing as it was the end of Vespers. On Sunday night most churches are open for Vespers and at this time of the year only the immediate area where the service is held is lighted, the rest is in total darkness. I had a scotch and water at a Pub prior to dinner, love it for $7 dollars you get 2 oz of single malt scotch, now that is a drink. Served with 3 small pieces of 70% dark chocolate, goes very well together take my word for it.

Scotch single malt and 70% chocolate

After dinner we walked back to our B&B and will try to recuperate now.

That fateful day 27 July 2011

Some dates come back every year and it brings back a flood of memories. One such day was 27 July 2011, the day I left Rome to return to Canada.  W and the puppies had left 10 days prior and I was alone at the apartment, it was empty all our belongings had been packed up and shipped to Canada by boat, I had a so called pack-up kit, which meant I was camping at home. But I simply went out a lot to enjoy my last days in the Eternal City.

On the morning of the 27 July I was all packed and when the driver arrived, I took the suitcases and walked out, only after I closed the door behind me, did I suddenly realize that was it. We were not really ready to return to Canada, I had been away for many years at that point and did not see what there was to return to frankly. It has to be said that when you live in a foreign country or on various continents for many decades coming ''home'' is meaningless. Where is ''home''? Rome was home to us, I could not imagine another home. We had a home in Warsaw, in Cairo, in Mexico and Chicago.

Reesie died in Rome and that is where he is buried. We had wonderful friends and a busy social life. In returning to Ottawa we had to re-invent it all and with some difficulties. It has been two years now and we have kept a strong bond with Italy and Rome. I can understand that for someone who has not lived abroad, it may be difficult to understand. We did not take the trip of a lifetime, our life was one long and enjoyable adventure around the world. So often when I hear someone say something or a piece of music or taste a dish or some wine, it brings back memories. Per example I can never listen to Madama Butterfly without thinking of the Summer Opera Season at the Terme di Caracalla in Rome and that evening when in the open air we saw this giant moon rise over the ruins and the Roman Pines as the music of the first Act was playing. http://www.operaroma.it/eng

However upon my return to Canada I was seriously thinking of retiring, so Rome was our last post.
Not that I regret retiring, on the contrary. We continue to travel but it will never be quite the same as living in a foreign country and having a life style which suited us fine.

Here are some photos of our street and neighbourhood.

                                          Our street Via dei Villini

                                          the driveway at number 26.

                                          a corner of the living room

                                part of the view from our balcony terrace, at each sunset we would be entertained          by small dancing bats as we finished dinner and then the owl would make his usual hoot hoot noises.

At the end of the street were the massive Aurelian Walls, built by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. We were outside the walls. Outside the walls of Rome until 1910 meant the countryside, after 1920 suddenly the city expands and with the arrival of Mussolini to power in 1923 entire new neighbourhood spring up in what was once considered countryside. The grand homes of our neighbourhood where built around 1880 and 1900 and all considered to be villas in the countryside.  Some of these villas were small palaces and built by the Italian Nobility and well to do families with great gardens often the size of a city park, like at Villa Torlonia now a public park. Today many have been converted into offices or apartments. The gardens where sold separately to make way for more buildings. They are still grand in architecture and design, memories of a bygone era. We loved to walk the dogs looking at these places. It is an easy city to walk in, everywhere there is something to look at, a view, often designed as if a theatre set.

 former villa converted into the office of the Actors Guild on Via di Villa Patrizi

 Beautiful fresco on a former villa now a condo building on Via Savoia

 modernist style building now a condominium Via di Villa Albani

Some like this villa has a roaring lion perched on its roof.

 I always like this little villa with its pompeian red walls and wysteria growing on the facade.
Those neighbourhood streets were quiet and it was nice to simply walk along them. There was always something to observe and the changing light of day made it more beautiful.

 Side entrance to the Italian Presidential Palace, formerly the Royal Palace on Via del Quirinale. The inscription above the door mentions that 3 Popes built this palace as a then Papal summer residence on the ruins of the great Temple to Isis, Innocent XIII , Alexandre VII and Clement XII. The Carabinieri police guard is wearing is ordinary summer uniform. At the back a Corazzieri Guard.

Corazzieri in gala uniform on the terrace of the Quirinale Palace. You would see them at functions.
Certainly elegant, dignified and stylish.

Porta Pia taken so many times to enter into the City down Via XX Settembre. Today this ancient gate of Rome is at the centre of the City. Nero took this gate when he fled Rome with his Pretorian guards in hot pursuit. Garibaldi entered Rome with the Bersaglieri Regiment liberating the City from the Popes.

Not in our neighbourhood since it was at the other end of town across the Tiber. Could not resist, the Vatican Academy of Sciences, this building is a copy of Nero's palace built 500 years ago by St-Charles Boromeo as a pleasure palace for parties etc... He was the wild nephew of the Pope. Located inside Vatican grounds and not open to the public. The mosaic are made of coloured sea shells by the thousands, imagine the picking on the beach and sorting out afterwards. We had a special private visit of the Academy, what an incredible place for a party.

All in all nice architecture, lots of style, elegance and beautiful memories.