Day Ten

I got some great sleep last night and am feeling well refreshed. I think it was all the gnocchi that really did me in, total food coma. We kicked off the day with a quick jaunt through the Jewish ghettos. It is an area where one of the popes ordered all Jews to move to and the site of a rather large processing area for Jewish people during WWII, there is a small marble slab on one of the buildings in memory of the over 1,000 Roman Jews who never returned after the war was over. Many Jews still live here and I saw today what I think may be a first for me....Kosher fast food! We then ventured into a Roman neighborhood called Trastevere which is on the other side of the Tiber from where I am (Trastavere literally means "beyond the Tiber") This neighborhood has one of the highest hills in Rome on top of which a famous battle between Giuseppe Garibaldi's Romans and the French took place. Every day at noon they fire a cannon here to honor the brave men who died and it can be heard pretty much anywhere in the whole city. The hike to the top of the hill is short but very steep and I was very hot by the time we reached the top. There is a large crystal clear fountain full of cold water about halfway up the hill and once again I found myself seriously fighting the urge to leap into the fountain.

A final note, this city is absolutely COVERED with graffiti. Mel Curtis, the photographer traveling with us, actually found out that it is illegal to remove the graffiti without the proper licenses as many of it is actually of  historic nature. Supposedly there is even a spot where Napoleon carved his name into a building! Regardless of how you feel about graffiti, you have to admit that these are some very expressive, and in my opinion, beautiful examples of a long practiced hobby(profession?) These photos are only from my walk today, there are literally millions of examples of graffiti throughout the city, but I felt that the graffiti in Trastavere was exceptional in execution and creative expression, check it out: