[A] My time in Rome

By far the most excellent way to get to know Rome is to have a beautiful girlfriend there to visit each time you go. So excellent, in fact, that by the time I leave Italy, I will have been in Rome on 9 separate occasions. With Pomai I have seen a great deal of the city's art, history, and culture, and have had a few unique experiences that for me have come to define the city.
One of my favorite areas, not surprising because of my acute city-induced anxiety, is Villa Borghese, by most reckonings Rome's most beautiful municipal park. On our anniversary Pomai and I rented a rickshaw and pedaled around briefly, which is one of my fonder memories of Rome (and in general). The park overlooks much of the city, including a view of Piazza del Popolo that extends to St. Peter's on the horizon.

Another favorite spot was Palazzo Barberini, which I went to with Pomai and my dad when he visited. It is a small collection of important art from the high middles ages to baroque, with notable pieces from Caravaggio and Rafael, and two staircases designed respectively by the rivals Bernini and Borromini. The best part to me was the palace itself- former home to a pope's nephew, and later to a number of cardinals and popes. Just on the edge of the old city center, it is tucked away into a peaceful world of its own.

On a class trip, outside San Giovanni

A good piazza can really make a difference in the dynamics of city life, and I feel like Piazza Navona is in rare company in terms of atmosphere. It is the site of another Bernini/Borromini duel, with Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers erupting directly in front of a church designed by the other. It is relatively small, with a prime location just minutes from the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, and Piazza di Spagna, not of course to say that this is what it was designed for. The resulting sentiment, however, is that of being enveloped in history and in life. Here is Pomai all bundled up after a dinner in the area:

The depth of history in the Roman Forum and its Capitoline vicinity, including the Colosseum and Trajan's column, was to me astonishing. I had always conceived of Rome as ancient, but did not ever fully comprehend the extent to which the history was integrated into modern city life, or in plain sight piled on top of itself. The forum is the embodiment of this idea- ruins of 1500 years of history have melted into an area of no more than a football field, in it is there by the original hill of Rome that most of the political and cultural development of the Western world took place. A stroll through can take as little as 10 minutes, but there are things to study for days.

I had two chances to stroll through the Vatican museum collections, and both were rewarding as artistic experiences. My favorites were Laocoon and Rafael's School of Athens, notwithstanding Michaelangelo's masterpieces because nothing could be fairly compared to them.

Pomai's neighborhood is also really cool. Trastevere has an atmosphere to itself- smaller streets are preserved where in the center they were fascidestroyed, and the hang-your-laundry-out-the-window spirit lives on in the old little fiats, stubbornly low-priced coffee bars, and terribly uneven cobblestone.

Rome has become a second home in Italy, and I am grateful to have enjoyed it with such a wonderful host.