Roadboy Returns to Rome

Post 2: The Vatican Museum, The Sistine Chapel, St. Peters and a Gelato Tartufo

                                                              The Vatican at Night

 

I've never encountered a visitor to Rome that didn't fall madly in love with it.

 

Maybe it is the impossibly romantic imagery of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck riding that Vespa in Roman Holiday.

Perhaps it is realizing that Rome is a city of full of contrasts. Although 4.3 million residents call it home, it also plays host to 35 million annual visitors. 

 

Rome is an epicenter of western history full of majestic architecture and much of planet earth's most sublime art. And the lucky visitors that visit Rome will experience trendsetting design, enjoy wonderful food, and be surrounded by beautiful people that are impeccably dressed. 

 

A Favorite

Linguini Con Vongole
 

Roman dinners, prepared in very casual restaurants, seem to consistently deliver simple, yet wonderful, food.    

 

The Eternal City is a hard working modern city that happens to rest upon layers of ancient history. 

Arriving

Rome is very accessible. Tourists arriving into FCO by air find many transfer options into the heart of the city that include: rail, bus, rental car, and taxi. Personally, I'd never rent a car in Rome (see accompanying photo). For this trip I climbed aboard the Leonardo Express and enjoyed its direct express rail service to Rome's Termini station.

 

 Driving (and Parking) in Rome - Not for Wimps

There was a time when Termini was downright raunchy, but on this trip it was clean, efficient and offered direct connections to my AirBNB via Rome's petite, but efficient, subway system. 

 

And, once you arrive in Italy, traveling throughout the rest of the country is a joy using its truly wonderful intercity high speed train network. Italian trains offer a relaxing center-to-center alternative to hectic commuter flights. Sadly, Americans have so far have missed the boat on developing a coordinated high speed inner city rail network. Instead we bought miles of concrete ans asphalt, endless traffic jams and road rage. Here in Arizona many motorcyclists (and even some bicyclists) flagrantly travel with handguns holstered on their hips. Sidearms and gated communities; sure signs of a society in distress.

Once you reach the heart of Rome there is the full gamut of visitor accommodations from luxe hotels to cheerful hostels. My never-to-be-forgotten Roman hotel memory was a week spent at Rome's Cavalieri Hilton (now Waldorf Astoria) from the day after Christmas to NewYear's day.

 

Our spectacular room came with views of the Vatican Observatory, the hotel's lush grounds by day, and the illuminated dome of St. Peters by night.

 

The Exquisite Cavalieri

(website photo)

Fast forward to this trip. Knowing a major goal this visit involved a return to the Vatican Museums, I booked Vincenza's VRBO near the Cipro Metro station. Here spacious apartment was also an easy walk to grocery stores and the Vatican. Even nicer was the fact that it was in a neighborhood didn't feel touristy.

 

Sights to See

I know my posts are out of sequence but for those that read Post #1 you may have noticed that after many previous visits to Rome this trip purposely skipped Rome's typical "must see" sights. 

 

So if you will be visiting the Eternal City for the first time, check off all the boxes; go visit the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Borghese Gardens, the Vatican, the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and even maybe venture out onto the Via Appia or to some outlying sights like Hadrian's Villa. 

 

Unless you have no heartbeat everywhere you choose to explore will be amazing.

 

For me this visit was surgical. Get in, intensively hit two to three specific stops, then move on to Florence to start a bike trip. So this post (much like my last focusing on the Villa Borghese), has a limited focus: the Vatican Museums / Sistine Chapel with a few odds and ends tossed in.

 

The Refreshed Sistine Chapel

A major priority this trip was a return to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. My last visit was in 1974. And, at that time, Michelangelo's magnificent art was coated with more than 500 years of accumulated candle wax and grime. The chapel was dark and the art felt eerie. It only hinted at its original glory.

 

Fast forward to 1984 when the Vatican commenced a controversial restoration of the Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel's frescoes. After seeing some photos of the refreshed chapel I promised myself to return and see the chapel again minus all that grime. 

 

Before and After 1984 Restoration
 

The Brilliant Colors of Michelangelo's Refreshed Last Judgement

(This is a photo from a descriptive panel outside the chapel - alas photography is prohibited in the Chapel)
 

The meticulous restoration took a decade. So on this trip (already three decades after the completion of the restoration) I viewed fresco's that, once again, hint of their original magnificence.

 

Buy Tickets in Advance

The other big change 50 years later is finding out how mobbed the Vatican Museums are now. Unless you want to spend 6 hours (or more) waiting in an endless line to buy a same day ticket, I strongly advise buying a "skip the line" (scheduled) entrance ticket well in advance. 

90 days before my trip, I checked the official Vatican website and saw it offered lots of skip-the-line so I figured I'd buy them closer to my travel dates. But, when I returned about a month before my arrival all the direct purchase tickets were gone. 

I was now compelled to reserve a guided tour at about three times the price.

However, when walking past the Museum a couple of days before our scheduled tour we were approached by a tour guide who still had some same-day tours left. Knowing he'd eat any unsold tickets, he offered a great tour at about half the price of the online Viator tour I'd booked. 

I cancelled Viator and pocketed about 184 euros in the process. Our replacement skip-the-line small group tour had a marvelous guide and efficiently presented the museum with a final stop in the Sistine Chapel.

The Vatican and it's Museum

First off a little background on the Vatican itself. It is more than the physical seat of the modern Catholic Church, and typically referred to as a "City", it is a tiny sovereign nation surrounded by the City of Rome. It has its own police services, banking systems, and governance.

 

The Vatican City

(The Vatican Museums are Shaded on the Map) 

 

Model of the Vatican From Bernini's Colonnade

 

If examined from Google Earth you will view apartments, office structures, the museum, and St. Peters Basilica all set in a highly secured walled oasis of manicured gardens few tourists will ever experience.

The View from the Dome of St. Peters

(The quality of the photo is poor. It was captured in the evening about 20 years ago and lightened)

While the Vatican as a nation is tiny, the shear size of its Museum is incredible. Second only to The Louvre in Paris, this is the worlds most visited museum. It welcomes nearly 7,000,000 visitors a year and employs an army of staff to care for, and protect, its priceless collection. To put the size of the palace in perspective it offers eleven miles of gallery space. You are gonna get your steps in. 

 

A comprehensive visit here would take weeks (or a lifetime).

 

Our guide curated a tour of the "don't miss" spots saving me from wandering around being lost. It allowed for us to finish in the Sistine Chapel and now armed with an overview we could continue on in the museum to wander on our own.

 

All Gallery Surfaces are Embellished
 

Where to Look? 

The Artwork, the Floor, Wall or the Ceiling?

The Hall of Maps

 

The 395' long Hall of Maps is located on the west side of the Belvedere Courtyard. The Hall was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1580 and its walls contain 40 maps completed by Friar Ignazio Danti. The maps are said to be 80% accurate even by today's standards. Yet it was the Mannerist ceilings of the hall that left me speechless.

 

A sculpture that stopped me in my tracks was the Belvedere Torso. This fragment of a naked male torso dates back to the first century BC. Rediscovered in the 15th century it is one of the museums only original Greek sculptures. It's absolute anatomical perfection is said to have influenced Michelangelo and Raphael.  

The Belvedere Torso

 

The culmination of our tour was the Sistine Chapel. It is a sensory overload, but time for visitors is limited to just 20 minutes.

Even leaving the museum is an event. Visitors exit by descending a massive double helix set of bronze stairs cast in 1932. This is the staircase said to have inspired Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum.

 

This bronze and marble staircase is frequently and incorrectly referred to as the Bramante Staircase. It is actually not the Bramante staircase. Instead it is actually a modern interpretation of Bramante's 1505 staircase found in the Pio-Clementine Museum. The actual Bramante Staircase is typically not available for tourists to view. 

The Bronze "Bramante" Departure Stairs

The day of our tour coincided with a day St. Peters was closed so we deferred our visit to St. Peters for early the next morning before we were to board our train to Florence.  

 

Instead after the museum we strolled across the river and stopped for slices of street pizza near the beautifully illuminated Pantheon.

 

Twilight The Pantheon

 

We capped the evening with a sentimental visit to Tre Scalini in Piazza Navona for a Gelato Tartufo.

Gelato Tartufo

For those poor souls that have never experienced a Gelato Tartufo; it is a confection created in 1946. This little chocolate gelato flavor bomb is composed of 13 different Belgian and Swiss cocoas wrapped around a cherry at its heart. It comes covered in rich soft (whipped) cream and is topped with a crispy wafer. 

 

I added an espresso and a crock of more cream (so decadent!) to this mood swing on a plate. I am in good company in my adoration of this confection, Elizabeth Taylor was reportedly made special trips to Tre Scalini on her visits to Rome. 

 

As I had one of these on my student trip back in 1974 and every bite brought back memories.

 

Twilight in Piazza Navona

 

Alas the next morning was to be our last day in Rome and we still had not achieved a goal of revisiting St. Peters. So we got up very early to beat the lines at St. Peters and where there when it opened and walked right into the spectacular church minus the normal crowds.

Looking Up

 

Compared to my last visit I was very impressed how wonderful the church looked. Every surface sparkled. Regrettably, we were unable to view Bernini's spectacular baldachin as it was under wraps.  

Bernini's Baldachin is Under Wraps During Refurbishment

 

Although, our viewing of St. Peters had to be brief, we appreciated the dazzling array of incredible detailing found in this sacred space. An example was some amazing cast bronze doors. 

 

Bronze Martyrs on the Doors to St. Peters

 

Even at 6:30 am, the serious Swiss Guards ever resplendent in their magnificent uniforms were on duty providing Vatican security.

A Swiss Guard

 

Our tour complete we quickly returned to the apartment, collected our luggage, and caught an exprerss train to Florence. 

 

As we made our way to Termini I encountered this challenging bit of street art. 

Buy A New Soul

 

Perhaps besides all else, the enigmatic soul of Rome contributes to what truly makes it eternal. 

  

 

Roadboy's Travels © 2024

Roadboy Returns to Rome

Post 1: The Magnificent Borghese Gallery & The World of Bernini

  

                                    The  Iconic Pines of the Villa Borghese

 

Thoughts on Rome, Bernini and Baroque

During my recent visit to Rome I found myself absolutely smitten by the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. More commonly just referred to as Bernini.

Simply put, when you visit Rome, you soon realize that the art and architecture of Bernini is inseparable from the soul of the Eternal City. And Bernini, perhaps more than any other artist, defined Baroque.

My Backstory

Before I dive into this post about the Borghese gallery, Bernini, and Roman Baroque, let me set the stage for my very first visit to Europe and Rome seemingly a lifetime ago..... 

It is admittedly self-indulgent, so I take no insult dear readers if you'd prefer to skip ahead to the actual travel post itself. But for the rest of you, here goes....

Like most boomer kids (think the Summer of Love), summer vacations were spent camping with my family. For us it was usually at one of Northern California's beautiful lakes. The exception was one amazing summer when we packed up our huge red plymouth station wagon and drove it all the way up the Pacific coast to see Seattle's awesome Century 21 World's Fair. 

A couple of winters we traveled to Colorado to see relatives for Christmas. One of those trips was made by rail aboard the City of San Francisco and began by crossing the majestic snow filled Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our trip home was through the Southwest aboard Santa Fe's Southwest Chief. The train ended in Los Angeles at its Magnificent Union Station. On both directions the trains were full of young soldiers and hippies. Everyone was strumming guitars and chain smoking. In the morning there was fresh snow between train cars. 

Those were amazing trips.

In the years that followed my parents began to take longer road trips throughout the US and Canada in a series of RV's. I only went on a few of those trips with them.

All those modest trips ignited a lifetime of wanderlust in me. And as I grew I just kept pushing the travel envelope.

So beginning in high school I engineered my first international trip. It was a student tour to Europe departing just after graduation. 

It was 1974. I was 18. I needed to get a passport.

I financed the trip by working on parking lots in downtown Oakland and in Jack London Square. In "The Square" I worked the "bar" shift (Friday and Saturday nights till 2:30 am well after the bars closed and the last drunks found their cars). 

Those early morning shifts brought cash and a regular dose of abuse from nasty inebriates. One drunk turned out to be a very intoxicated Truman Capote (who managed to sideswipe a parked car on his way to my ticket booth). He may have been a literary genius, but when drunk, he was one vile POS. 

That job included routine threats and heaps of verbal abuse, even one driver that decided to deliver a full load of spit in my face before stiffing the Port to Oakland of his parking fee. 

 

Anyone who's ever been spat upon is forever changed.

 

I came away from Jack London Square with a lifelong admiration for service workers and the cash I needed for my trip to Europe.

 

Our chaperone was the gregarious high school journalism teacher. She always wore a huge red cloth coat and fire engine bright red lipstick. She possessed an enormous heart.

Our month long tour included stops in England, France, the Netherlands ("Holland" in those days), Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. The trip emphasized Italy with stops in Rome, Milan, Venice, Bologna, and Florence.

My tour companions were a chaotic assemblage of kids from across the economic universe. I was firmly part of a blue collar group coming from a public high school in Oakland. But, the rest of the kids came from (very) privileged families. One group came from a very elite private boys prep school in Orinda. They were all that.

Our clothes had labels from J.C. Penney. Their clothes had designer labels. Our wallets carried very carefully monitored cash and American Express travelers checks, their wallets contained credit cards from dad. Although they were all underage, they drank and smoked heavily. 

We ate the included meals and a little street food. They ate whatever they wanted and, upon arrival in Paris, announced they had dinner reservations at La Tour d'Argent (the most expensive restaurant in France.)

The trip began aboard an impossibly cramped World Airways charter flight from Oakland to London. It was the seventh pit of hell. Seat spacing was so awful I opted to go sit the toilet periodically just to enjoy some legroom. 

The initial part of the trip included London and Canterbury leading to a ferry from Dover to Calais.

Tour accommodations were (mostly) clean and basic. In London we were in a huge old hotel near Victoria station. It had wooden elevators that required an operator who pulled a rope to operate them. When he lifted his arms the smell from his old coat could kill. 

When we arose all jet lagged on day two we went downstairs, enjoyed our first wonderful English breakfast, and ogled where the IRA had sprayed bullets overnight in the lobby. We went on various tours including the Tower of London. 

Three days later the Elephant Armour Room in the Tower was bombed by the IRA. The Tower was closed for many months.

Arriving in Paris we checked into a throughly disgusting hotel. The Orinda boys amused themselves by holding cockroach races in the hall. 

By comparison in Florence we had a wonderful family run hotel with crisp white starched sheets. In Venice we were booked into a convent. None of the hotels had air conditioning. 

We toured everywhere on a bus driven by Gus. Gus heroically maneuvered his huge bus through seemingly impossibly tight streets in ancient cities. A few times he stopped the bus yelling for all the boys to get out and "move" some car that was blocking our way. 

Like so many discoveries I made on that trip, I came to realize that six high school boys could pretty easily pick up and carry a Fiat.

In 1974 Italy was still a nation recovering economically and physically from World War II. The tangible scars of war were plainly visible, the liré was weak, and infrastructure was fragile. In many places tap water still wasn't safe to drink. My colon can attest to that.

It was in Rome that I came face-to-face with Italy's incredible history and outsized impact on western civilization. Before arriving in Italy I had no idea what terms like Rococo or Baroque even meant. It was all just gee gaw. 

Happily, I've had a generous lifetime to sort all that out. 

On to the post....

Returning to Villa Borghese

In the years since that student tour I have returned to Italy many times. But it was a family visit to Rome over New Years in 2003 that I first visited the Villa Borghese and was immersed in its amazing Gallery. 

The Borghese gardens in winter were stark, "crispy" cold, and wonderful. And when I visited the Borghese Gallery its collection of Bernini, Caravaggio, Raphael, and Canova I was gobsmacked. I've wanted to return ever since.

So this trip to Rome I arrived with two essential goals: 

1. Return to the Vatican Museums, and the refreshed Sistine Chapel

2. Return to the Borghese Gallery.

Happily, I accomplished both. I think of the Borghese Gallery as the perfect antidote to the sensory overload that is the Vatican Museums. 

 

The Borghese's

The genesis of the Villa Borghese began with Scipione Borghese in 1613. Scipione was the favorite nephew of Camillo Borghese (Pope Paul V). Under Pope Paul V Scipione became a Cardinal and directed the operations of the Vatican. 

Just two years after assuming his papacy, Pope Paul V sowed the seeds for Cardinal Borghese's future gallery by presenting him with 107 paintings he confiscated from the studio of the painter Cavalier D'Arpino. He followed that up with Raphael's "Deposition" which he had removed (by force) from the Baglioni Chapel in the church of San Francesco Perugia. It was also presented to Cardinal Borghese through a papal motu proprio. 

By 1613 the immense power and money that came with Scipione's position enabled him to plan and construct a magnificent villa just outside the boundary of Rome. The immense villa include extensive gardens, a summer home, zoo, and his magnificent gallery specifically designed to house his growing art collection. 

Cardinal Borghese's sumptuous personal Villa was his personal kingdom and his family continued to use it as a private a refuge for 300 years.

In addition to art looted for his new gallery, Scipione commissioned works by Bernini, Raphael, and Caravaggio. Many of the masterpieces possess themes consistent with the Cardinal's suspected homosexuality.

Statuary in the Borghese Consistently Celebrates the Male Body

In contrast to the beauty found in the works in the Gallery, the works of Caravaggio are profoundly unsettling. His paintings all demonstrate his command over light in painting while carefully composed to shock viewers.  Perhaps moist unsettling is his painting of St. Jerome spending the final hours of his life transcribing the Bible with a skull as a bookmark.

St. Jerome

Caravaggio

Although mostly intact, the Borghese Gallery we see today is not quite whole. In 1808, almost 200 years after Scipione began the gallery, another "Camillo Borghese" (this time a prince) was "encouraged" by his brother-in-law Napolean Bonaparte to sell two of the galleries finest masterpieces (the Gladiator and the Hermaphroditus). 

They now constitute the Borghese Collection in The Louvre. Parhaps as a consolation prize Canova's sculpture of Paolina Bonaparte was added to the gallery.

Paolina Bonaparte (Venus Victrix)

 Canova 1808

Canova portrayed Paolina as a bare breasted Venus reclining on a couch just gazing at viewers. Canova's sculpture looks like it could come to life at any time.

 

For the People

In 1903, the Italian government acquired the villa and gallery and opened it to the public. The villa has become Rome's Central Park.

And its Gallery remains is a jewel box designed to showcase Scipione's meticulously curated art collection.

Baroque

To understand "Baroque" we have to understand the external forces that forged it.

Definition "Baroque": 

"The Baroque or Baroquism is a Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo and Neoclassical styles.  

The Baroque was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity espoused by the Protestant Reformation".
 

When Martin Luther challenged the corruption of the Catholic church, he triggered the reformation. The impacts of his demands were seismic and the resulting conflict ultimately resulted in the death of one third of the population of Germany. Yet, while protestants now sought simplicity in design and art, the European Monarchy's and the Catholic Church instead doubled down in their creation of "in your face" physical reminders of their immense power. Hence, the lavish Baroque style was born. 

The magnificence of the Baroque was intentional. It was meant to be a thumb in the eye of the austerity espoused by the Protestant Reformation.

Bernini: Poster Boy of Roman Baroque

Prodigy / Sculptor / Master Architect / Adulterer / Zealot / Slasher

During this visit I was overwhelmed by the sculptures of Bernini.  They made me realize how little I really knew about this icon of Baroque. And, in the history of Rome, few artists / architects (such as Michelangelo) match Bernini's rockstar notoriety.

While it is tempting to want to go on a deep dive into the complex lives of all of the Borghese's masters, for me this trip provoked my curiosity about Bernini. 

Realistically listing his lifetime accomplishments throughout Rome and in St. Peters (his design for its piazza and collonade) would fill volumes, so I have focused on his works of the Borghese.

In 1606 Gian Lorenzo's sculptor father Pietro received a papal commission and moved his family from Naples to Rome. Once in Rome Pope Paul V came in contact with young Gian Lorenzo's emerging talent predicting he would become "the Michelangelo of his age". 

When Gian Lorenzo was in his 20's, Scipione commissioned Bernini to create increasingly important sculptural masterworks for gallery spaces he was creating specifically for them. And, almost miraculously, 400 years later it is where they still exist today. Bernini's Borghese sculptures helped establish and define Baroque Sculpture. They were remarkable in thier depiction of texture and motion.

The first sculpture commissioned by Scipione was Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius. In this sculpture, completed in 1619, when Bernini was 21, Aeneas (the son of Aphrodite) carrys his father Anchises away from burning Troy. They are followed by his young son Ascanius. The power of the sculpture is in its detail. The determination on the face of Aeneas. The difference in the texture of the skin of the younger and older men is fully evident. The gallery this sculpture is now located in originally showcased the Gladiator.

Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius

Bernini's second major sculpture for the Borghese was the Rape of Proserpina. It was created in 1621-22 by Bernini who was now 23. This sculpture portrays the abduction of the daughter of Jupitor and Ceres by the god Pluto. The terror of Proserpina is visceral. We can even see Pluto's fingers pressing deeply into her thigh. At its base Pluto's terrifying three-headed dog Cerberus howls and guards the underworld.

Unlike earlier Italian sculptures, meant to be viewed from just one side, Bernini's sculptures were created to be viewed from all sides and Gallery spaces needed to be designed to enable viewing from all sides.

 Rape of Proserpina

The Gates to Hell Guarded by Cerberus

Bernini's Superb Use of Texture

The Rape of Proserpina was completed and delivered, just after the death of Scipione's benefactor Pope Paul V in 1621, which prompted Scipione to make it a gift to Ludovico Ludovisi to ingratiate himself to the favored nephew of the new pope Pope Gregory XV. 

Meanwhile, Bernini found great favor from Pope Gregory XV who commissioned numerous projects from him. In 1921 the sculpture was purchased by the Italian government and reinstalled in the Borghese Gallery.

The third Bernini Sculpture was to be Apollo and Daphne, but Bernini paused his work on it and created his David first. After that he returned to complete the Apollo and Daphne.

 

 Apollo and Daphne

  

Daphne Transitioning to a Laurel Tree

Nearly every major artist for nearly three hundred years used the story of David and Goliath as inspiration for their art. Bernini's David, completed in 1624, is a complete departure from the way David had been portrayed by earlier sculptors. 

The most famous David is Michelangelo's sculpture created about 120 years earlier. Michelangelo's colossal David stands tall in a static pose looking to his side. His sling is casually draped over his left shoulder. Michelangelo's David was intended to grace the roof of the Florence Cathedral where it would have been viewed from a great distance below. This explains why it has seemingly odd proportions with its large head and hands. Michelangelo's David was created prior to the reformation when nakedness was acceptable. Later copies of Michelangelo's David were frequently covered in fig leaves. The copy presented to Queen Victoria came with a removable fig leaf to be attached whenever the queen would view the sculpture.

Bernini's David is life size and is sculpted with David in full motion preparing for battle. He is carefully draped, leaning back, muscles taut and ready to launch his stone. Bernini's David is intended to be viewed from all sides and conveys David's explosive energy. David bites his lip in deep concentration. The face of David is actually a self portrait of young Bernini.

David

'

Biting His Lip in Concentration

Bernini's work throughout Rome proliferated wildly under the patronage of a series of popes until the death of Pope Urban in 1644. Under the new pope (Innocent X), Bernini fell out of favor. His descent was swift and devastating. For a period a of roughly 10 years, in the late 1630's, his personal and professional life became a soap opera.

Professionally this period was defined by his failed commission to design massive bell towers for St. Peters. The failure was actually due to the poor foundation Bernini was given to build on and later decisions by Pope Urban to build them grander than Berini's design called for. The extra weight on a weak foundation resulted in cracks that Urban on Bernini. Bernini was required to pay for their demolition. Investigations later cleared Bernini for the failure and he went on to design St. Peters piazza and its massive flanking colonnades (built from 1656 to 1667).

 

About the same time Bernini was having an affair with a married woman. He eventually came to realize his brother Luigi was also having an affair with her at the same time. In a fit of rage he chased his brother through the streets of Rome into a church where he nearly killed him. He then sent his servant to slash the face of his mistress with a razor. While the servant and mistress were eventually jailed, Bernini was exonerated by the Pope. The pope quickly arranged a marriage for Bernini to a Roman woman named Caterina Tezio. They went on to have eleven children. Luigi later went on to rape a worker on one of Bernini's construction sites.

He regained his stature with the successful commission to design the magnificent Four Rivers fountain in Piazza Navona.

 

 

 

The Four Rivers

 

From his start executing sculptures for Scipione Borghese to his magnificent works at St. Peters, Bernini went on to become Rome's most celebrated artist and architect of his era. 

 

Most of the biographical records about Bernini describe him as becoming extremely religious in his later years. He died in November of 1680 at the age of 81.

My next post will be on the Vatican Museum's and the Sistine Chapel.

 

Roadboy's Travels © 2024

200,000!

WOW 200,000!

In reviewing my visitor stats today I realized I'd passed the milestone of 200,000 visitors to my site. Of course nowadays I'm not sure how many visits are made by human vs. AI bots just siphoning data to create credible sounding but essentially meaningless drivel.

So to those of you that were born with human hearts and brains firing real synapses vs. microchips, please accept a hearty welcome to this architect's view of the world through travel. 

Next up (in about 4 weeks) I will return to Rome and Florence. In Rome I look forward to time strolling in the Borghese Gardens and a return to the Sistine Chapel to admire its refreshed fresco's. 

50 years ago I visited the Sistine Chapel as a teenager. I'll return a bit wiser, but with the same enthusiasm, plus a little arthritis 😉!

Wintertime, The Borghese Gardens, Roma

 

Roadboy's Travels © 2024

Flying from Phoenix / Strange Happenings in AA Points Redemptions

 

An American Airlines Plane Departs in the Shadow of Camelback Mountain

 

Fluid Points and Wildly Differing Fees

I am planning two international bicycling trips in 2024.

Trip One: Cycling Tuscany (April /May)

For this trip I'll make a brief pre-trip to Rome. Then I'll take the train to Florence to meet up with friends in Florence to cycle for six days through the Chianti region. We will finish up in Lucca (near Pisa). 

Trip Two: Cycling Sparta, Monemvasia, & the Peloponnesian Peninsula (October/November)

To avoid crowds I'm traveling well out of the normal tourist season. There will be a brief pre-trip in Athens and then on to another week of sunshine, good cycling, and great food.

Expect lots more on those trips later.

However, while planning those trips I encountered lots of interesting oddities in the current frequent flier redemption marketplace. It is frankly a bit wild out there.

 

Collecting Points and Earning Elite Status

First off, many airlines are offering very generous point incentives if you open branded credit cards and make a minimum spend. Yet experience shows they then take steps to make it increasingly difficult achieve elite status. Today, elite status is all about how much you spend, not how often (or how far) you fly. 

And once your frequent flier points begin to pile up you may notice that airlines raise the redemption levels needed to use them. Similarly, when you reach a top elite status level, the airlines simply add new, even higher, status plateaus. 

Remember how Lucy always moved the football?

Thankfully, I have lifetime elite status with multiple hotels and airlines. However, I secured my lifetime status under the old points systems. Road warriors of today don't have it so easy. 

 

Spending Your Points.....

First, if you are like me and use your frequent flier points to offset the cost of annual personal travel, I strongly advise you to plan ahead and then remain flexible. 

The days when redemption values were fixed have long since disappeared. Now the airlines post ever changing daily redemption rates; mostly up, sometimes down.

And the airline you choose makes a big difference too. Although Delta is a wonderful airline, it has redemption rates that are typically much higher than rates on the other legacy carriers. And all of the major airlines have priced redemption levels for Premium Economy and Business Class cabins well out of reach for most of us. I used to routinely fly my family of four to Europe and Asia in business class for about 53K per person each way. Now business class can run 400K per person each way. 

But, with a little shopping, you can still do very well flying coach (particularly on American where a flight to Europe can frequently be redeemed for 30K each way).  Update September 2024: Over the summer American has blown away its consistent 30K International rewards. Now you can almost never redeem any AA 30K's. Instead now for low priced redemption flights they push you to codeshares like Finnair,  Iberia or British. And the British Air redemptions come with stiff fees. AA FF deals do exist. But you are going to have to search a lot harder to find them these days. 

Also don't get fixated on flying to a specific destination. So what if you are going to Italy? It may well be more advantageous to first fly to a city like Madrid as your gateway. Shop around and once you get to Europe, buying a connecting toyour final destination by train or on regional air carrier may be pretty inexpensive. 

For my Greek trip I found AA service from Athens to be spotty. So I priced other gateways for my return home. My favorite European gateways are typically London and Madrid (I love Madrid's Barajas Airport). Amsterdam is also a good choice. In a pinch I'll shop Paris, Frankfurt and Barcelona too.

We began our trip to Vietnam last fall by flying to Thailand. After a few days in Bangkok we connected to Hanoi on a very inexpensive commuter flight.

Once you've booked a flight on points check back now and then. If redemption rates drop, consider canceling your booking and getting your points reinstated. Then re-book at the lower rate. I recently did this on a flight from Boston to London next October. The original booking was 30K. The new booking was 19K for the same flight. And since I cancelled the old one first, I still got my favorite bulkhead seat.

Searching for my return flight from Athens I'd initially hoped to return via London (on my favorite AA flight 195), but I forgot how ridiculous the fees are on flights originating at Heathrow. The fees going to London are cheap. The fees coming home suck.

And when I went to check AA initially posted high redemption points too. This led me to switch to a flight returning home from Amsterdam. That routing saved me 21,000 points and $150 in fees. And the redemption rate for my Amsterdam flight has since dropped three times. First it was 30K, then it was 27K, now it is 19K. 

So I'll take an extra day and fly Aegean to Schipol, check into the airport Hilton or Sheraton (you can walk to the gates from these hotels), then spend a day exploring the Rijksmuseum. 

The next morning I'll walk to my gate and fly home to Phoenix a lot more rested. 

Phoenix / Airline Desert

I love living in Phoenix, with our warm, sunny climate and amazing Sky Harbor Airport. Yet, we suffer from crappy international air service. Despite being the fifth largest metro area in the US we only have two, count 'em two, daily flights to Europe and both of them go to the same place. We have no international flights to Asia at all. strip away our Canada and Mexico flights and Phoenix is an international airline desert. 

Just before covid hit American added a daily non-stop flight from Sky Harbor to London (joining British Air whose daily flight to London had been our only direct flight to Europe for decades). Now, perhaps due to the pressure of the new-ish AA flight, British Air has downsized the aircraft they operate for their PHX flight.

Seasonally, Condor flies a few days a week from Phoenix to Germany and Air France recently announced they will soon offer seasonal service from Phoenix to Paris.

I find it bizarre how grossly underserved Phoenix is especially when I compare offerings from highly weather impacted hubs like Denver, Dallas, and Salt Lake City.

IMHO the situation has steadily gotten worse after American's consolidation. Once the merger moratorium on abandoning hubs dropped off AA started reducing non-stop services to/from Phoenix. Aa and Delta have poured (literally) billions of dollars into LAX and DFW, while methodically redeploying Phoenix based flight crews.

When we fly globally anywhere (except London) Phoenicians have to fly through ATL, DFW, JFK, ORD, or LAX. Now, if I were to ask you to name the most universally despised airports in North America, wouldn't all of those airports make your list?

to me they are all poorly designed aviation relics continuously undergoing expensive and superficial upgrading.

Another oddity I've noticed is how AA sometimes leverages it's FF redemption strategy to nudge fliers into cashing in AA points on competitor's flights. For example when I checked into using AA points to fly non-stop from LHR to PHX on one day / one-way rate was:

AA: 59.5K points + $190 taxes / fees 

However, using the same AA points on the BA flight was only 22.5K points + $384 taxes / fees one way

Low points / high fees. The AA flight that day required 2-1/2 times the points of the BA flight (but came with those crazy high LHR fees). Fees are reasonable flying to LHR, but dreadfully high flying from LHR. 

Initially I speculated the point discrepancy might be AA's way of driving non-rev passengers to code share partners in order to keep their own seats open and available for more profitable fare paying passengers.

But a few weeks later the discrepancy vanished and, in fact, it reversed. 

LHR to PHX a few weeks back = 59K

The same LHR to PHX flight a few weeks later and AA's same flight cost = 19K

The moral of the story; be flexible, book your flights then check back now and then. 

So to recap, find a good rate and book it. Don't procrastinate. If rates goes up, no worries, you are protected. If rates goes down, you can cancel and re-book. 

You just might save enough miles for another trip.

Roadboy's Travels © 2024

Traveling in the "Off" Season

The Upside Down Travel View of Phoenicians

I know I've written this before, but with record crowds now traveling again it feels like a good time to repeat it.

Much of my travel and recreation activities include riding a bike. And in Arizona, with our upside down seasons, we cycle as much as possible in late fall, all winter, and during spring. We ride like crazy while the rest of America hibernates. 

So when winter begins to melt into spring and the rest of America starts tuning up their bikes for summer, we feel the dread of putting our bikes away as we prepare to endure another nuclear summer. 

For us, summer is a good time to go somewhere else. But summer is precisely when many of the world's most scenic places become overpriced, hot, and obscenely overcrowded. 

So I grudgingly trade some of my own ideal winter cycling season for some off-season travel to the places I'd prefer to experience without the company of a zillion other hot tourists. 

For example, this year, in my quest to avoid excessive crowds, I'll be biking in Tuscany in late April and on Greece's Pelopponnesian Penninsula in late October.

And, I admit it, even when not riding a bike, I've come to seek out some cold places for mid-winter travel. 

Paris and Rome are especially beautiful in winter. 

 

One fond wintertime Parisian memory was the Sunday afternoon my daughter and I spent just hanging out among Parisian families in the Luxembourg Gardens. They were all wrapped up in their stylish puffy coats pushing baby strollers, chatting and playing cards around its glaciated fountains. 

 

To me that Sunday defined the true spirit of the City of Light.

 

And, spending a frosty foggy winter day strolling among the rows of severely pruned trees in Versailles was equally ethereal. There was something just magical seeing the morning steam rising from the Palace's fountains and waterways as some heroic white and black swans slowly paddled by.

 

A February Day in Versailles

On bitterly cold winter days in Brugge cafes put out big blazing fire pots. The pots flank their front doors to tempt you in for Moules et Frittes (steaming bowls of mussels accompanied by a pile of crisp french fries). There is something kind of perfect about that.

On a winter trip to New York City the sight of the snowy Bethesda (Angel's in America) Fountain in Central Park patiently awaiting new life to begin in spring felt uplifting.

Although winter visits deprive us warn days and blooming flowers, I'll happily wear a hat, scarf and ear muffs to join rosy cheeked Londoners as they cheer for jugglers and street performers in Covent Garden.

And on one bright and crisp December morning I sat all bundled up on a bench in Rome's Borghese Gardens and watched the passing walkers and cyclists. The imagery was pure Edward Hopper.

A December Morning in the Borghese Gardens

So travel in the off season. Whether you visit Prague, Madrid, Rome, Athens or Berlin, you will have a much better chance of rubbing shoulders with locals on a cold winter day than any day in summer.

And, those are the days that will help you to truly discover the soul of a place. 

Once my kids hit the age when travel was no longer confined by the tyranny of school calendars, I discovered crowd-free off-season travel.

And you should too!

 

Roadboy's Travels © 2024