Pilgrimage

Forthcoming Trip

Galleria di sculture, Musei Capitolini, Roma, 2009
©EOP

6 January 2019

I have to admit ignorance of the names or the sculptors of most of these pieces, but the gallery illustrates some of the incomparable richness of Rome. The Capitoline Museums, atop what may be the most historically important piece of real estate in the Eternal City, are an incredible collection of works from pre-historic times onward. I am looking forward to a visit, maybe more than one, when I am in Rome beginning a few days from now.

2018 was not a good year. While I remain free from major diseases and medical problems, not so my wife who spent 6 weeks out of the first 6 months in hospital. She has recovered somewhat, enough to take a cruise from Bali to Sydney with her sister at the end of the year. For me, 2018 was a year totally without travel. I spent every night from early November 2017 up to last night in the same bed, and our car has put on less than 10,000 km, almost entirely accumulated by travel to the hospital and medical facilities, to visit nearby relatives and friends, and for necessary errands. That makes my forthcoming trip to Rome especially exciting.

I have rented an apartment for almost a month and will have the leisure to see all kinds of things either missed or hurriedly visited on past trips. I plan a couple of overnight excursions, one to south of Naples to see the Greek-era ruins at Paestum and perhaps to visit Pompeii again. The second excursion is yet to be determined, but the city of Ravenna seems to be calling loudest. As with Rome itself, Italy, the large country in Western Europe I know least well, has a very long list of places worth seeing, and except for the headlines (Milan, Venice, Florence) I have not seen them. I plan also to go to Tivoli, to Ostia, and to one or another of the Etruscan sites a day trip out of the Italian Capital. 

Stay tuned for future posts on the great pilgrimage center of Rome.