Rome was fabulous. Chilly, sunny and very, very Roman. The city never fails to amaze me with its passion for beauty and the sense of style it, and every one of its native inhabitants, displays oh-so-casually, on an everyday basis. The food is wonderful, eaten with total involvement and appreciation over many hours. The architecture is sublime, history revisited in every brick, arch and moulding. And the people are friendly – sometimes startlingly so – with big smiles, big hearts and, the men, a big, bold eye for beauty. They ogled me and my friend (stout teenagers that we were then) with as much interest as they surveyed my mother (far slimmer, more mature and totally gorgeous), all with a very amicable oeillade that couldn’t be objectionable if it tried!
A visit to the Vatican City was, in a strange way, odd. It was my second time there and seemed overly familiar. But it was also new, because I was seeing it with my friend, who had never been there before – a sort of a rediscovery, through another set of eyes, almost as if I was another person. We gawked in the main square outside the cathedral of St Peter, gaped at the massive and ornate main altar, gazed up at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel that Michaelangelo had painted lying for months on his back. I was not as verbal about its beauty as I had been on our previous visit, but was as awed. And I wondered at a man who, all those years ago, had led such a turbulent life and worked so hard to get the recognition that he earned so much later, long after his bones would have been dust. At the Vatican Post Office, we waited in long lines to buy stamps to send picture postcards to each other and to various friends and relatives, telling everyone what a fabulous time we were having.
From there north-east to Ravenna was a hideous nightmare. Too young to drive, both my friend and I were thoroughly sick, leaving a trail of plastic bags all the way along the very long and winding road through the mountains. We got to the pretty little town quite green in the face and wanting nothing more than to die, in one piece, even though we knew it was not possible. But with the resilience of the typical teen, we were hungry soon after we were let out of the confines of the Golf, demanding food to fill the void in our insides. We walked the cobblestoned streets of the city with the wind blowing roses into our cheeks and our hair into tangled meshes. Remains of snowdrifts peeked from kerb corners and a young man on his Vespa grinned cheerfully at us as he putted past. We ducked into a small, warm chapel, left a prayer and a candle for the lord and proceeded onwards.
We arrived in Venice in the evening. Finding our hotel, very close to St Mark’s Square, was a bit of a challenge, but well worth the hassle. If you opened the imposing front door in the lobby, and opened the main door of the building next door, you could walk right through a carpeted, nicely warm passage from the hotel into a movie theatre! It’s The Aristocats, I squeaked, and we sat through the movie three times, once with my parents and twice on our own, chatting up the friendly ushers – fairly elderly, I should assure my father – who wanted to practice their garbled English, while I further massacred my scant store of Italian. When we finally went back to our room, we were seeing double after staring up at the screen for so long, and singing songs from the soundtrack, vowing to do this again the next night.
Very early the next morning, we strolled down to St Mark’s Square, determined to show off our photographic talents and take pictures of the cathedral at sunrise. The vast piazza was thigh deep in water, but we were obstinate. There was a strategically placed flagpole in the centre, which was on a raised plinth and that would make the best vantage point for pictures. Before we could be intelligent about it – it was winter, after all, January 1, actually, and very cold – we had rolled up our jeans and waded into the wet. It was cold. Before I had gone more than three steps, my feet had gone numb and I was seriously contemplating retreat to where my very sensible parents stood, warm and dry, holding our shoes and laughing at our silliness. But since my friend forged on, I couldn’t chicken out; later, I found she had had the same idea and the same reason for continuing with the great wade.
Finally we reached the plinth and stood there, triumphant, watching the tide slowly retreat out to the sea. Gradually, the stones of the huge square emerged from under the water, like a great grey monster’s back. The sun rose, sparking light off the gilding on the frescoes fronting the enormous church. And our cameras clicked, capturing the moment and making the freeze worthwhile.
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