The Bruner Family Journey: "There was a dream that was Rome!"

Who recognizes that quote by Maximus in Gladiator, one of my favorite movies of all time? Our first morning in Rome, I did a dramatic reenactment for Jeremy and Talia in our apartment, with a white towel wrapped around my body like a toga: "There was a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile.... There was a dream that was Rome! It shall be realized. These are the wishes of Marcus Aurelius." The kids thought I was crazy. "What's so fragile Daddy?" "Why do we have to whisper?" "Who is Marcus whatsamus?"

Piazza Navona

Rome was founded in the 8th century BCE and the settlement developed into the Roman Kingdom (753-509 BCE), about which little is known. Then came the Roman Republic, which served as a model and inspiration for representative government centuries after its demise, but was certainly less democratic and more oligarchic than legend would have you believe. (Another great quote from Gladiator: "The Senate is the people, sire. Chosen from among the people, to speak for the people.") The precise point at which the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire is a matter of some interpretation, but it certainly culminated with the appointment of Octavian in the year 29 CE as Augustus ("the exalted one"). During the Pax Romana (the "Roman Peace"), an unprecedented era of stability and prosperity that lasted for two centuries until the late 2nd century CE, Rome ruled over one in four people on earth. At its apex, Rome's power extended from England to North Africa to the Middle East, from the Atlantic across the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Rome's meteoric success certainly depended on military conquest and domination. But it also relied on an unparalleled level of urban investment and infrastructure and a sophisticated system of market institutions. Historians posit that ancient Rome had a standard of living that was comparable to the early modern period in 17th and 18th century Europe - with better paved roads, sewage disposal, and water supply than most European capitals of that time. Rome also used the clever tactic of selectively assimilating neighboring civilizations such as the Etruscans and the Greeks. And maybe some perfectly cooked pasta helped persuade a few minds and stomachs as well.

Our crew at the Vatican

We came to Rome to see the sights and soak up the history, but we also came to meet up with my brother's family, who were visiting from New York City on their summer vacation. The kids loved spending time with their cousins and like our travels all together in Egypt in January 2011, it was definitely one of the highlights of the yearlong trip. But unlike our carefully orchestrated get-together on the Nile, this was an impromptu reunion, an unexpected coincidence. We had only figured out by email a few days earlier that we would be in Rome during the same time. It was a great experience to walk the streets of the Eternal City with my brother, who studied classical history in college - indeed, I vaguely remember sitting in on a two-hour seminar devoted to some epic Roman character on a sunny spring day at Brown University in 1982. In total - with two Italian friends from Milan in the mix - we were a rambunctious party of 11 (with six of us under the age of 10) cutting a wide swath through the narrow streets of Rome.

The quaint street where we stayed

Thanks to Eden's considerable skills in advance planning, we stayed in a wonderful apartment in a great neighborhood. In ancient times, the Monti area was poor and densely populated, filled with brothels, beggars and disreputable characters. In subsequent epochs, many people left, due in large part to a lack of a reliable water supply. But the inhabitants that did remain, called monticiani, maintained their strong local identity and distinctive dialect. Today, Monti is emerging as one of Rome's trendiest neighborhoods - a place to see and be seen, with its bohemian charm, well-kept cobblestone lanes, vintage clothing stores, organic markets and artsy cafes. It feels a little off the beaten tourist track, even though it's very close to the Colosseum and a number of other important historic and cultural sites. The New York Times calls it "a quiet treasure," a working class neighborhood in the heart of Rome's historic center that is "gentrifying around the edges." According to the Times, "to spend time here is make a tourist dream about chucking it all and moving to Rome." It's an especially awesome place when your apartment comes with free parking (!) and is located right next to the promotional office of the AS Roma soccer club.

Our apartment

Champions of Italy in 2001!

As for the sightseeing, we spent a day exploring the wonders of ancient Rome. We visited the Forum, which Wikipedia elegantly describes as follows: "It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials and gladiatorial marches, and nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history. ["Hey Maximus, let's meet under the arch after the gladiator fight and go grab some lasagna!"] Many of the city's oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located here or nearby. Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archeological excavations attracting sightseers from all over the world - including the Bruners, who made time to visit in between some pizza and gelato."

Photo by Jeremy

We also visited the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater the Romans ever built and one of the great monuments of the ancient world. Capable of seating more than 50,000 spectators, the Colosseum was used for gladiator fights and other public spectacles, such as mock sea battles, executions, classical dramas, animal hunts, the reenactment of famous military campaigns, and ancient college football games. Built between 72 and 80 CE, its construction reportedly was funded by booty seized from the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. The building's original name was the Amphitheatrum Flavium, after the Emperors of the Flavian Dynasty, the rulers at the time. Legend has it that the name "Colosseum" comes from the Latin word colosseus (meaning colossal), after the gigantic statute of Nero (over 100 feet high) that once stood next to it. The statute has long since disappeared but the name stuck.

In medieval times, the Colosseum was used for a variety of purposes, such as housing, workshops, a cemetery and even a castle. In 1349, it was damaged in an earthquake, then fell into disuse and was raided for its limestone, marble and bronze. There were various schemes to revive and restore it over the years, some of which - like using it as a wool factory to employ the city's prostitutes - never got off the ground. Other less ambitious plans that did bear fruit included using it as a dumping ground for manure. Nice. By the 18th century, the place had become so overgrown that botanists came from all over Europe to do research. Various excavations took place in the 19th century, and Mussolini had the place cleaned up so he could give rallies inside. Major restoration work was carried out in the 1990s at a cost of 40 billion Italian lira (which equals about one dollar and 86 cents).

"I'd like to order some live lions for tonight"

Notice the pockmarks from the looting of metal fixtures

Inside of the Pantheon

We visited the Pantheon, one of the best preserved Roman buildings in existence. Remarkably, it's been in near continuous use throughout its 1,900-year old history. The original Pantheon was built in 27-25 BCE, but was destroyed by a huge fire some 50 years later. It was rebuilt in the early 2nd century CE to serve as a kind of all purpose place of worship, not just for praying to the gods of Rome. After the fall of the Roman Empire, in the year 609, Pope Boniface IV consecrated it as a church, which saved it from being abandoned or destroyed. Since the Renaissance, it's been used as a tomb for famous Italians such as King Vittorio Emanuele II, Queen Margherita, and some very notable painters that I studied in college (Raphael and Annibale Carracci). In the 17th century, Pope Urban VIII added two bell towers (see below), but they were removed in 1883 after Romans disparaged them as "asses' ears."

Today, the Pantheon is the largest surviving dome from antiquity. It was the largest dome period until the great Brunelleschi - who used the Pantheon as his inspiration - built the Florence Cathedral in 1436. The Pantheon has also influenced countless other venerable landmarks of Western civilization, such as the Panthéon in Paris, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, the Jefferson Memorial, the U.S. Capitol, and parts of my kitchen. It's said to be the perfect classical building, with a diameter equal to its height (142 ft). It's still an active church.

View of the Pantheon in 1835 before the bell towers were removed (reproduction taken from the internet)

Old photo of the Pantheon (taken from the internet)

The Pantheon of today (photo taken from the internet)

Large ancient head at the Capitoline Museum

We visited the Capitoline Museum, the oldest public collection of art in the world. Pope Sixtus IV started things off by donating a group of important ancient bronzes to the city in 1471. The collection was augmented by gifts from later popes and opened to the public in 1734 on a beautiful square designed by Michelangelo on Capitoline Hill, one of Rome's seven hills and the site of the citadel of the earliest Romans.

This excellent and varied museum - with significant collections from both the ancient world and the Renaissance - has long been overshadowed by its younger cousin, the Vatican, which houses the world's second oldest public art collection. The Vatican (which is actually a series of different museums) is vast and crowded and - as Lonely Planet rightly notes - requires strength, stamina and patience. The obvious highlights include the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms, and the ridiculously ornate Gallery of Maps. And, of course, you can't miss Bernini's 95-foot high baldacchino, a sculpted Baroque bronze canopy with dark spiral fluted columns that marks the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica. For better or worse, it's one of the most lavishly decorated places on earth, with a larger-than-life scale that utterly dwarves the millions of visitors it gets every year.

Inside St. Peter's

Vatican guards

Gallery of Maps

Sistine Chapel (this is from the internet, as photos were strictly forbidden)

Raphael Rooms (also from the internet)

Back to the Capitoline Museum

View from balcony of the Capitoline Museum

But it wasn't all about Rome's ancient and Renaissance splendor, its famous monuments, its 900 historic churches, its fountains, piazze and palazzi (hey, how about that mastery of the Italian plural?). We made sure to take some time to wander through the quiet back streets, away from the clicking cameras and tourist crowds. We consumed record-breaking amounts of gelato and sampled delicious Roman culinary specialties like fiori di zucca (fried stuffed zucchini blossoms), spaghetti cacio e pepi (in a creamy olive oil, pecorino cheese and black pepper sauce), bucatini alla amatriciana (long pasta tubes similar to spaghetti in a spicy, smoky tomato sauce), and plenty of sparkling fresh frutti di mare. And we even hosted a small wine and cheese party - with takeout sushi for the kids - in our modest apartment.

Our expectations for Rome were high but the city easily met - and exceeded - them. Epic grandeur mixes seamlessly with everyday life, chaos with grace, constant, rapid movement with an unhurried air. It's no longer the capital of human civilization, but it's truly one of the great cities of the world, and was undoubtedly one of our favorite destinations of the year.