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Greetings from Bella Napoli!
Apr. 2nd, 2009 07:15 pmI'm on the third leg of my journey and am now in Naples, staying with my brother and his family for 5 days. I arrived last night and had a lovely dinner with Stuart and Karine, although William and Annika (niece and nephew) were asleep so I didn't get to see them. Just chillaxin' con la gatta today until la famiglia get home--it's been a whirlwind past 5 days.
Rome was incredible. It is truly the Eternal City--sexy, beautiful, fashionable coffee-drinking people against the backdrop of old, old history. Oh, I gorged myself with history, I walked all over the city looking at old, old things. So wonderful, so many things to see. I've decided that Italy, like Japan, must rewrite their constitution so they can never again engage in war, because we can't risk these treasures again, we literally dodged a bullet during World War II. The Forum is--well, again, incredible. I was actually LOOKING at ground where Julius Caesar walked, and spoke. JULIUS CAESAR. He was there, he stood there. And Marc Anthony--they were there, they stood there. The Temple of Saturn, an old Roman apartment, the Teatro di Marcellus--people from long ago, millennia ago, lived in these spaces, they worked and argued and kissed their children there. They were just like us. Their voices can still be heard--they were just like us.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold...
I visited John Keats's grave again, in the Old Protestant Cemetery. (The last time I was in Rome, I also went there.) I discovered that there's a Keats-Shelley museum in Rome, right by the Spanish steps--it's the house where Keats died, so I squeezed in what I thought would be a quick visit before I caught the train to Venice. It's a 4-story building and the museum is on the third story--it consists of a main room with an overview of the younger British Romantic poets (Byron, Keats, Shelley and several others), another room that focuses on Keats's life, and the room where he lived, and died. This last room is an overwhelming experience--I walked in and looked around, and started crying. It's pretty powerful. I did my senior honors project in college on Keats--the very name of this journal is the last line of my favorite poem of his, "Ode to a Nightingale." Fled is that music--Do I wake or sleep? His poetry is just sublime, and I consider him a personal secular saint of mine. To stand where he stood, to see what he saw out of those windows, to breathe the air he breathed and to sense his presence in that little room...it's overwhelming.
His epitaph, which he wrote, is "Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ in Water." Both times I've been there, I thought "No. Never." His writings will last the ages. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird...
Rome was incredible. It is truly the Eternal City--sexy, beautiful, fashionable coffee-drinking people against the backdrop of old, old history. Oh, I gorged myself with history, I walked all over the city looking at old, old things. So wonderful, so many things to see. I've decided that Italy, like Japan, must rewrite their constitution so they can never again engage in war, because we can't risk these treasures again, we literally dodged a bullet during World War II. The Forum is--well, again, incredible. I was actually LOOKING at ground where Julius Caesar walked, and spoke. JULIUS CAESAR. He was there, he stood there. And Marc Anthony--they were there, they stood there. The Temple of Saturn, an old Roman apartment, the Teatro di Marcellus--people from long ago, millennia ago, lived in these spaces, they worked and argued and kissed their children there. They were just like us. Their voices can still be heard--they were just like us.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold...
I visited John Keats's grave again, in the Old Protestant Cemetery. (The last time I was in Rome, I also went there.) I discovered that there's a Keats-Shelley museum in Rome, right by the Spanish steps--it's the house where Keats died, so I squeezed in what I thought would be a quick visit before I caught the train to Venice. It's a 4-story building and the museum is on the third story--it consists of a main room with an overview of the younger British Romantic poets (Byron, Keats, Shelley and several others), another room that focuses on Keats's life, and the room where he lived, and died. This last room is an overwhelming experience--I walked in and looked around, and started crying. It's pretty powerful. I did my senior honors project in college on Keats--the very name of this journal is the last line of my favorite poem of his, "Ode to a Nightingale." Fled is that music--Do I wake or sleep? His poetry is just sublime, and I consider him a personal secular saint of mine. To stand where he stood, to see what he saw out of those windows, to breathe the air he breathed and to sense his presence in that little room...it's overwhelming.
His epitaph, which he wrote, is "Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ in Water." Both times I've been there, I thought "No. Never." His writings will last the ages. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird...
