I Love a Parade!!!!

June has been (is being) a busy month for us. Summer has finally arrived in Rome and the skies are blue, the air humid and the Romans in their summer clothes.

Life was somewhat disturbed in Aventino during the first week of June. First, the Italian National Holiday saw the road past the Colosseum and Forum blocked with temporary stands to facilitate a major military parade. Then, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hosted a major conference – A High Level Conference on Climate Change and Soaring World Food Prices. This was frequented by lots of heads of State and big wigs, necessitating lots of security. So Viale Aventino was closed off for the week, the Metro Station (Circo Massimo) closed, buses redirected and the 3000 odd staff at FAO told to work from home.The “red zone” reached almost to our unit, so Cathy could come and go, albeit she could not sleep so well for the helicopters overhead. This didn’t affect Ian, who planned to be absent all week, so travelled to Washington DC with two colleagues. A week of storms, security checks, overly large portion sizes at restaurants and shopping. We three “did the malls” at night as well as any all-American teenager.

For souvenirs, Ian returned with a jacket, two pairs of Levis and a stinker of a cold.

But parades were the norm for the month. One Sunday afternoon, a somewhat spontaneous parade went past the bottom of our street – best we could make out, from the costumes and music/dancing – this was a Romany or Gypsy event. This group of people make Rome their home for the summer, so maybe that was just announcing their arrival.

We “holidayed” to Florence (Firenze) for one weekend – a town we had briefly visited in 1997. Spectacularly beautiful! Full of renaissance charm. And a town of parades also. Mostly led by tour guides with umbrellas stuck in the air. A very dangerous phenomenon – one needs to exercise extreme caution lest a gaggle of frantic tourists runs completely over the top of you.

But the weekend of our visit was the first weekend of the twice a year medieval football competition – games on Saturday and Sunday evenings in the arena (a sand-based stadium on Piazza Santa Croce). These games are living museums but involve considerable violence and more than once the tradition has been banned because of the blood and broken bones. Having seen the players parade, we can well understand this – built mostly like brick out-houses, these guys look “tough”.They formed the focus of an otherwise gentile and colourful parade through Florence en route to the arena. Perhaps best understood by a local, hundreds participated with very serious expressions, slow marching to slow-beat drums and with some variations, including a single but very nice cow, and four ancient cannons.

So, if you like a parade, Italy in summer is the place to come.

Next weekend, we join the parade to the north of England for a very special event – but more of that on the next blog no doubt.

Getting married in Roma & other “stuff”

We have come to a close of a delightful, somewhat “laid-back” weekend in Roma.  Tomorrow it is a national holiday in Italy – the rough equivalent of “Australia Day” with the main drag past the colosseum and forum now decked out in temporary stands, elaborate enough to house the top officials for a military march past.  Our own “main drag” Viale Aventino will also be closed off for the march.

Ian is off to Washington DC for the week so he will miss the parade and the continued closure of the area for the major conference to be held Tuesday through Thursday on Climate Change and Soaring World Food Prices – hosted by FAO, with some 3 000 delegates including at least 35 heads-of-state.

So we started the weekend in style on Friday night at the British Embassy which abuts Porta Pia to the north of the centre of the city.  A concert band from the Sussex area was on tour (read holidays) and gave its third and last performance in the embassy grounds.  They were great, although we arrived very late so had a brief concert.  Then we all went to drinks at the embassy’s social clubrooms – the second storey bar effectively sits atop the ancient Roman wall (for which Porta Pia forms a gateway).  A glorious venue, a delightful, warm evening and good company.  This followed by a simple “band 

dinner” at a local but friendly trattoria.

We spent much of the weekend utilizing our new found cyber capacity, now having a wireless internet facility and Skype – what a wonder is Skype – keeps us in touch with the world.  Our Skype name can be obtained on application – email us – and we can bother you on weekends also.

And today, we walked to places yet “unwalked to”.  Including the Victor Emmanuel II monument where, for a modest fee, you can get a lift to the roof for “the view of Roma”.  Within is the equivalent of the Canberra War Memorial and around it the forum and some delightful churches.  The most interesting of which is probably St Joseph's of the Carpenters (San Giuseppe dei Falegnami) where you walk down into the dungeon or cell where St Peter was supposedly incarcerated - the Mamertine Prison.  The story goes that a spring emerged in his cell with which he baptised people.  The spring and a post where prisoners would have been chained are still there.  Although Rome is reputed to contain enough pieces of the actual cross to build an ark,

 this story is actually quite credible because if St Peter was incarcerated in Rome as history dictates, then this cell would have been a likely place to do it.

So our travels take us into many churches – and believe us, Rome has no shortage of churches.  They vary from the delightfully simple (eh! a few of them) to delights of marble, mosaic and gold.  The smaller ones are very popular for weddings, and are set for bride and grooms’ seats and kneelers with mum and dad seats and kneelers at either side of the altar – much as we experienced last year in our introduction to church weddings in Mexico.

We also see the wedding parties in parks and monuments getting photographed and leaving the churches with all their guests.

So, some differences.  First, no attendants.  We are not sure who witnesses but clearly no bridesmaids or groomsmen.  The brides are all cloned into long off-white strapless dresses.  Convertible Volkswagons are a popular “ride”.  But almost all the guests attach white poesies and ribbons to their radio aerials for the trip – they then depart the church as a pack and noisily sound their horns.

Confetti is “in” at present – but very large paper hearts and coloured rice.  I can just imagine Father Giovanni advising that this should not be used in the church precincts – but hey, who follows instructions here.

An exhausting, hot but thrilling walk, punctuated by a beer/prosecco and ice cream at our local bar and a quiet night blogging.

There do seem to be a lot of weddings going on in Rome at present.  Is it the season?  Is it the age group?  Do they do it often?  Either way they look delightful and seem to have a ball.  Their weddings must be memorable, Roman style – here’s to the marriages.