Italy Impressions #5 Santa Maria degli Angeli
The interior should have been captivating, but nothing in me responded—at least at first. I finally perked up when I noticed scaffolding in one chapel to the side, and two girls up on it...
Hello from Paris!
It’s Thursday—which means we’re returning to my impressions of Italy!
Enjoy!
Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
There was an electric kettle in the room, and one of those tiny espresso makers that work with tiny plastic capsules that you shove in, pull a lever like a slot machine, and win a delicious cup of coffee every time.
I would never buy one back home, because with every glorious sip I’d feel guilty about creating unnecessary plastic waste for the recycling bin. On vacation who cares? Though in my environmental defense, I still didn’t turn up the air conditioner as high as I dreamed of, just enough to keep from feeling sick.
And we did—feel sick. We were in Rome seven days and most of them were over 103 F. One day I think was 105 F! Forty point five degrees Celsius. But we’d been looking forward to the trip for so long, we slathered ourselves with sunscreen and ventured out anyway.
The first whole day had definitely been worth it, the visit to Santa Maria Maggiore, then San Whatshisname, Clemente, that was layered like a cake or a lasagna, with basilica on top of basilica on top of a temple to Mithras and mysterious spring.
In fact, maybe that’s why the morning afterwards I woke up feeling dull, even hungover—I’d gorged myself on sensation the day before. And when the bus dumped us at Termini station, I couldn’t find my groove. I spun around like a dog chasing its tail, going this way and that, trying to make the Google map dot which represented me head in the direction of the other dot that represented our destination, Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, which Michelango converted into a Renaissance basilica from baths dating from the emperor Diocletian who ruled from 284 to 305 A.D.
I thought we’d never get there. The phone said it was a seven minutes walk. In the heat, moving slowly, it took ten and felt like sixty. Worse, when we arrived, the massive bronze doors were still closed.
There were other people waiting, too, some Asian tourists, some Latin Americans. They’d linger a few minutes, then wander away after gazing up at the facade which my guidebook said was part of the original structure. As for the enormous bronze doors which remained resolutely closed, those you could blame on twentieth century Franco-Polish artist Igor Mitoraj.
Holding an umbrella over our heads to shelter us from the already brutal sun, we stared stupidly at them as if our gaze could force them open. And maybe it did. I was mustering the will to plot the route to our next objective when a disgruntled looking man came and slowly swung one open.
The interior should have been captivating, but nothing in me responded—at least at first. I wandered around slowly. All the marble made it cool at least. I finally perked up when I noticed scaffolding in one chapel to the side, and two girls up on it restoring a painting.
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