No rain at all for our last full day in Rome: 26C and sunny. We headed out and walked down the Via Nazionale to the beautiful Palazzo delle Esposizione where they were holding an exhibition of the world press photo of the year plus installations on many of the contenders and past winners. Sobering and disturbing to see and read about as so many of them showed the terrible violence that man inflicts on himself and his environment.
Afterwards, we walked to the Metro and took the subway to the end of the gardens of the Villa Borghese, a huge public park with towering trees and shady walks, right in central Rome. We found a café in the center of the park and had an open-air lunch, before heading on to the Galleria Borghese, which used to be the party villa for the Borghese family, but which has been a museum and housed their amazing art collections for many, many years.
Just like the Vatican, but on a slightly smaller, if no less impressive scale, the place was decorated top to toe, and simply crammed with art. Room after room of beautiful paintings, frescoes, sculptures, statues, urns, and busts, much of it from extremely expensive materials. Marble mosaic floors and every inch of every wall and ceiling was painted. The collection ncludes major works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, and others, as well as several spellbinding statues by Bernini. Beauty overload!
Head of a Woman by the Master of the Pala Sforzesca
Leda and the Swan by followers of daVinci
Leda by Ghirlandaio
The satyrs on the ceiling are laughing at you
Lady with a Unicorn by Raphael
I asked Karin to pose near the bust to get a feeling for the size difference but you still can’t tell how big it really was
After the museum, I was determined to find gelato for our last day, and succeeded with a little gelateria named Il Mio Gelato about 9 minutes from the Villa. I had dark chocolate and pistachio, but was wishing after just a couple of bites that I had gotten a double helping of the pistachio. It was SO GOOD. Then Karin realized that we were only about a 12 minute walk from our hotel. We stopped at a grocery store halfway back and I bought a jar of pistachio spread and some Lindor pistachio chocolates…are you sensing a theme? Back at the hotel, we napped (of course!).
Last night in Rome! We headed out again at 8 pm and took the Metro back downtown, where we met Karin’s friend Cathaysa and her Italian roommate Carlotta for dinner at PizzaRe. I am not a huge pizza fan normally, but they were delicious with chewy thicker crusts, Napoli style. I had a white pizza with sausage, mushrooms, and provolone: yum yum. Very fun evening! Then we returned to the hotel for some late-night packing.
Up the next day super early as our shuttle picked us up at 7:30 am and we arrived at the airport 2 hours early, facemasks at the ready, for our smooth flight home to Sweden, where the sun was hiding behind clouds, though it was still 18C…not so bad, and we were very happy to be home again after a lovely trip away. Borta bra men hemma bäst!