Forward the creative spirit!

Houses of Parliament by Monet

On the tour itinerary of every visitor to London is the Westminster Debating Society, or as it also known, the Houses of Parliament, a gothic block on the banks of the Thames comprising two houses - the House of Commons (lower house) and the House of Lords (upper house). Each house refers to the other as ‘the other place’.


One or two historic and memorable speeches have doubtless been made within its chambers, but no more visionary and moralistic speech than that delivered to the Lords at 9 p.m. on the 18th day of the month of July in the year 1978 by John, Viscount Amberley, Earl Russell.


In parliamentary jargon, his speech is described as a ‘response to an unstarred question during a debate on Victims of Crime’. He began by addressing the question of what a modern society should be:


‘A modern nation looks after everybody and never punishes them. If it has a police force at all, the police force is the Salvation Army and gives hungry and thirsty people cups of tea. If a man takes diamonds from a shop in Hatton Garden you simply give him another bag of diamonds to take with him. I am not joking’.


     He turned to the question of work:


‘Trade Union thinking on this subject is wrong. Leisure is the point and working is wrong, being in any case the curse visited by God on Adam and not blessed. ……….. Automation in the factories and universal leisure for all and a standing wage sufficient to provide life without working ought to be supplied for all. So everyone becomes a leisured aristocrat. ……. Shops ought to supply goods without payment, the funds to pay for the goods being paid by the State, so that all motive for stealing vanishes.’


     It followed that there should be a redistribution of the nation’s wealth:


‘And in a completely reorganised Modern society Women’s Lib would be realised by girls being given a house of their own at the age of twelve, with three-quarters of the wealth of the State being given to the girls in houses of their own, to support them, so that marriage would be abolished and a girl could have as many husbands as she likes. ………. The men receive the remaining quarter of the national wealth to support them, and can, if they like, live in communal huts.


     He focused on a how a caring nation can modernise and how to end the Cold War:


‘….for instance, lunatics could be looked after individually, and it could be found out what world is missing from them and the world which is missing from them could be restored. The madness of the Cold War could also be removed by the whole human race, since it is quite evident that neither Communist nor American exists, only persons. What makes it abundantly clear is the saying of Little Audrey; who laughed and laughed because she knew that only God could make a tree. Mr Brezhnev and Mr Carter are really the same person: one lunatic certifiable, or in American terms one nation indivisible, with imprisonment and lunacy for all. In a word, the whole Human Race can banish the Cold War, with one word, by simply saying “You do not exist.” 


‘The total abolition of law and order is needed, and the Police turn into the Salvation Army as already observed and always help people. There are no prisons or punishments.’


     He went on to say that our societies are spiritually dead with a ‘craven fear of nature’. 


‘Forward the creative spirit! Leave people as nature made them, not indoor products of ersatz suffocation. …………….. Naked bathing on beaches or in rivers ought to be universal.’ 


Around this point his speech was interrupted by Lord Wells-Pestell, who, according to one observer at the time, only ever spoke on the privatisation of model railways. Lord Russell then left the chamber and was prevented from returning by the ushers. 


Had he been allowed to continue his speech (which was later published in full), the House would have heard his vision of a society in which the older generation hand over the reins of power to the new generation of young persons. But first he rebuked the older generation for its treatment of the young.


‘ ………do not cause the older person, or the police, in the name of the older person, to prostitute the younger person out of unforgiveness. The punishment for such conduct is the guillotine. Cause this murder of young people to cease: abolish all institutions or spirits which cause such things. What is not granted at present is the gift of life. The older person is not grafted the gift to be generous, kind, forgiving, or merciful to the younger person, and the younger person is forced in self-defence to defend himself against the older person. ……… A relationship of extreme cruelty results, delightful to all those who relish the experience of sadism. 


‘ ………. This spirit or happening is confined to England. It does not happen to Free Americans who are not subject to the powers of envy engrained in the British Class System, which gives such spirits power. Free Americans banish this spirit, and when Americans complain of the British Royal Family for being pampered, decadent and snobbish, are they not right? The Police Doll which prostitutes people is probably the responsible author of these evils: the Doll of Love which says to the person: You are exile from Love: you must prostitute yourself. …………. This unpleasant, cruel and disgusting machine ought to be stopped. Will you give the young people of England a better chance, please?


‘This machine has given a lot of trouble to a great many people in the last twenty five years, and the British people…….should invoke the spirit of Free America and banish the spirit in question. Get up British Lion: restore your free spirit……and the spirit which works damage and has power or control over the person, vanishes. ……….. Young people ought to be free to go on with their lives and pursue the gaining of their livelihoods free of such molestation. It is not safe for the human race to be thus menaced. 


‘ ………… Can we have some action please? Lend a hand, stop cursing and start blessing. Speak well of people and not with malevolence and leave this bosom of usury of yours. This British spirit is so contemptible that no one could ever attempt to stoop to hearing it. It is the heavenly virtues, faith, hope, charity, lovingkindness, compassion and mercy which people hear: they hear Joy and Happiness, they do not hear the HIDEOUS virtues. God has not been let into Britain because the only divine authority which Britain accepts is the Temporal Anglican Authority, which NEVER repents.


‘ …….. The official rating of the human race in the Northern Hemisphere is TOAD. Until you have prayed for some better grace and found and produced some better repentance by their deed, they will not deserve a better world. Turn from your old, cruel, usurious ways to defend the young man and his lady; choose their kindness, their happiness, their peace, their rejoicing, their mercy. There is no point to you at all unless you put merciful young persons under the age of thirty in charge of your affairs; you will not get anywhere until you do.


‘Go where mercy is, not where it is not; young and merciful people have a stake in the future, which is greater than yours; yield all authority to them and cause State Ministers to accede to their requests. ………… Consequently you will let the young people pass without let or hindrance to the fullest power of the State. Cabinet Ministers can just receive their advice, and agree to anything that they request. The wisdom and guidance of the old are there to assist the young: not to impede them. Guillotine on earth; thunderbolts in Heaven are the punishment for any attempt to impede young people.’ 


     The earl ended his speech with the following simple remark:


‘It may be expected that most people will support these proposals, because they are, after all, in everybody’s own interest.’

Eze and the Earth Goddesses

Earth Goddess Isis

In France they talk of the 'thousand peaceful cities', 'les mille villes tranquilles'. Not because there are a thousand peaceful cities, simply that 'mille', 'ville' and 'tranquille' are the only substantive nouns in the language ending in ille in which the L is pronounced.

However, if there are 1000 peaceful locations in France, the beautiful village of Eze will not be one of them, as it carries the distinction of being the highest perched village in Provence, and therefore a magnet for tourists, as I was to discover when I visited the village on a hot day in June 2008.

I took the short train ride from Nice to Eze-sur-Mer, from where there is a bus to Eze Village. I am not usually lucky with buses, in fact I have a recurring dream waiting for them, but on this occasion no sooner had I left the station that one arrived.

There were just four of us on the bus as it made its way up the mountain road and I had hopes that we would have the village all to ourselves. But no sooner had the bus rounded the last curve in the road than I saw the coaches disgorging their tourist cargoes from the four corners of the globe.

We all disembarked and the bus continued its journey. The village was perched above us, just as a perched village should be, and that was the direction in which I headed. 

I followed the Avenue du Jardin Exotique, until I reached the single road that winds its way up through the village, hardly more than a few yards wide, mercifully too narrow for motorised traffic. Beautiful stone buildings lined the alley, no longer residential but converted into souvenir shops and restaurants. 

I joined the patient game of waiting for a gap in the flow of tourists to take a snap with my camera. Tourism book photographers must do the same thing, whether in villages or on beaches, in order to give the illusion that you (the visitor) will have the whole place to yourself.

The splendour of Eze, the jewel in the crown if you like metaphors, is the botanical garden at the very top, le Jardin exotique. The garden was opened in 1949 and is home to over 400 exotic plants from Africa and the Americas. It is protected by several Earth Goddesses, whose statues are scattered around the garden. Among them is Justin or Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility. Each statue is accompanied by a poem, that to Isis as follows:

You have recognized me…

I am the same

And yet different.

Is that a paradox? Or an oxymoron? 

The garden also affords magnificent and panoramic views of the Mediterranean 1400 ft below, as well as air which is almost fit to breath. At the summit there is a ruin which is apparently haunted by living bats.

I stayed about half an hour and then decided to leave the garden and the village to the tourists and the bats. I caught another empty bus to Eze-sur-Mer, where the driver wished me 'Good morning' as I got off. I took the first train back to Nice after one of the best excursions I'd had in Provence. 

Las Ramblas, Barcelona (& the rest)

A couple of years ago I tried to learn Spanish but quickly gave it up. It wasn’t that the language was difficult, just impossible to pronounce. But I wanted to learn as I was planning to make my first ever visit to Spain. Then I thought what the hell. After all, doesn’t everyone speak English? And if they don’t understand what I’m saying I’ll do what all people throughout the English-speaking world do in such circumstances: I’ll talk louder. 


I don’t know why it had taken me so long to visit Spain. In fact, the country had always had a kind of fascination for me, partly because of its recent history, its civil war, but also its topography, the plains, the mountains, and the intense summer heat. Its cities, too, particularly Madrid, but as the budget airlines from my town only went to Barcelona, this is where it would have to be. Besides, everyone told me that it was a wonderful city, so I was almost excited about going, and almost excited is about as excited as I ever get.


I flew out on 17th March 2008 to the unfortunately named El Prat Airport. (‘Prat’ is English slang for ‘idiot’). I’d checked the airport website for transport into Barcelona. By taxi, the website informed us, ‘the taxi station central is in the exit of the terminals’. Clearly it hadn't been one of the translator’s better days. There was also a train service, which I decided to use, assuming, of course, that the trains weren’t on strike or the line wasn’t closed for ‘essential engineering works’. Well, the trains weren’t on strike, and the line was fully operational. However, in order to get to the train station you had to cross a busy dual-carriageway, which you do through a tunnel over the road, and this tunnel was closed for ‘essential renovation work’. So the bus it would have to be.


I joined the queue at the unique bus ticket machine and got as far as two people from the front when we discovered that the machine had ran out of change. I dug out my Visa card, and when my turn came I bought my ticket. I then discovered as I boarded the bus that you could buy your ticket from the driver.


The journey into Barcelona was not the most memorable. The landscape was brown and dusty and everywhere there were building works going on. Maybe this all spoke of prosperity, though, as we now know, the economic bubble was about to burst, big time.


We arrived at Plaça de Catalunya in the centre of the city, where my hotel was located. I’d seen the square in a tourist guide and it was quite impressive. Need I say that half the square was closed off for maintenance work?

Cable car to Montjuic

I checked into my hotel, deposited my bag in my room, and went down to the reception. I asked the receptionist, a young woman of about twenty, who mispronounced her English in a sweet and charming manner, which was the best way to get to Montjuic, ‘the Hill of the Jews‘, which overlooks the city. She told me that I should take the metro to Parellel station, and then the funicular to the cable car station. And she warned me, in a grave and caring tone, to watch out for pickpockets. I gave her my word that I would do. She gave me a booklet with some tokens in it, and I thanked her for her assistance and turned to go.
“You will remember to watch for the pickpockets?” she called out after me.
“Yes, I will do”, I said meekly.


I got to Parallel and took the funicular to the telefèric station. Already we were quite high up with fine views of the city. I saw Gaudi’s masterpiece La Sagrada Familia for the first time. Also prominent was a modern building which resembled the London ‘gherkin’ building. Then I went to the cable car station where cabs were leaving production-line fashion.


I have never liked heights and was glad when we made firm ground at Montjuic. I walked up to the castle and then looked out across Barcelona. The sunshine was hazy, which restricted visibility, but the commercial port could clearly be seen, also the monument of Christopher Columbus, the last man to discover America.


I pottered around for a while, checked out some huge canons, then hopped on a cable car, then into the funicular, and was soon back at Parellel and heading for Plaça de Catalunya.

La Rambla

Leading from the square to the Columbus monument is a wonderful thoroughfare called La Rambla. It was far and away the highlight of my visit. It is, in fact, a number of ‘ramblas’, called collectively Las Ramblas. It runs from Plaça de Catalunya at the north end to the Columbus monument at the south end, a distance of just over 1 kilometre. Running down the centre is the Rambla Boulevard, a tree-lined, pedestrian zone, dotted with newsstands and café tables where you can stop for a drink or a meal. The atmosphere is lively and at the same time relaxing. There were buskers to serenade you, and, while I was there, human waxworks. If I lived in Barcelona I’d walk up and down it all day long.    


As it was St. Paddy’s Day I hunted out an Irish pub and had a plate of Irish stew with the specific gravity of soup, but it filled a gap. I went down as far as the statue of Columbus atop his high column. A friend of mine once told that he is pointing the wrong way, east instead of west. I pottered around some more (I‘m a good potter-arounder), then went back up the boulevard and found an indoor market selling fruit and vegetables, what they used to call costermongers, about 200 years ago. I took a photograph of one of the stalls, and here it is….

Barcelona costermonger

Back up the square the sun was beginning to set with the light suspended between day and night. It is the nicest time of the day. I took my camera out to try and capture the moment for posterity. As I was standing there a small, seedy looking man with a face like a wizened beetroot sidled up alongside me and began at once talking to me in English. He told me he was a student from Tunisia and that he also spoke Spanish, French and Italian. “I speak very good English, yes?” he said. It wasn’t bad, but neither was it fantastic, but unfortunately (for him) he irritated me from the word go, so I said I hoped that his affirmation of his polyglot excellence wasn’t a case of rhetorical hyperbole, if he would forgive the tautology as all hyperbole is, of course, rhetorical.
It had the desired effect as he obviously didn’t understand a word I said.
“What?” he said.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“Say?” I said.
“What?” he said.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“What did you say?” he repeated.
“Say?” I said.
“What?” he said.
“What?” I said.
“What?” he said.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
I would have preferred, of course, to have knocked him to the ground and got the boot in a couple of times, but as I didn't want to spend my first night in Spain in a Spain police cell, I contented myself with this infantile gibberish and then wandered off. 


I spent a sleepless night in my not-too-comfortable hotel, and the next morning went down to the reception where my new receptionist friend was on duty once more. I asked her the best way to get to the Sagrada Familia. She told me which metro to take, and again cautioned me about those nasty pickpockets.
“Are they still out there?” I wanted to ask her, but that would have been too cynical, and it wasn’t the place for that.


La Sagrada Familia is probably the longest running ecclesiastical work-in-progress in the world today. Construction began in 1882 and was only one quarter complete at the time of Gaudi’s death in 1926. By 2010 about half the work was completed, when the cathedral was also sanctified during a visit by the Pope. But it remains highly controversial, with claims that the work is not respecting Gaudi’s intentions, and that the stone is being machine-shaped and not carved by hand by artisans. 

Sagrada Familia

Funding for the cathedral is mainly from Japan, which may (or may not) have accounted for the large numbers of Japanese tourists when I was there. I took the regulation photos, did a bit more pottering around, then headed off back to La Rambla.


I went to the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, but they were closed for the day. The approach to the museum had a sloping ramp which was very good for wheelchairs and fantastic for skate-boarders. There were considerably more of the latter. Unable to see any modern paintings, I decided to go to one of Gaudi’s houses, just off La Rambla. I’d read somewhere that there were some magnificent sculptures on the roof. Is it necessary for me to say that the roof was closed for renovation? But they did let us have a look at the empty basement, and didn’t charge either. So that was a bit of good luck.


Among the tokens that my receptionist friend at the hotel had given me was one for a self-service restaurant where you could eat as much as you like for about 8 euros. I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, but the food was excellent, both hot and cold, and literally all you stuff inside you. And you don’t have to leave a tip, either!


I spent the rest of the day wandering up and down La Rambla, looking at the human waxworks, taking some snaps, and was pretty worn out when I got back to the hotel.


Another awful night, but the next morning I was leaving. My receptionist friend was still on duty and wished me a safe journey. I walked over to Plaça de Catalunya, half of which was still closed off, though the workmen had yet to make an appearance. A few dossers were still sleeping on the benches as I walked towards the bus stop. They probably had a better night than I did.


As I was boarding the bus I gave a beggar lady 5 euros and she said something to me in Spanish which I didn’t understand but seemed to catch the word Dios (God). The bus pulled out and as we rounded the square I saw a municipal worker emptying a litter bin. It was the last thing I remember of Barcelona.

Graham Greene lived here - OK?

Graham Greene (1904-1991) was one of the most celebrated and successful writers of the twentieth century. He began his long career as a novelist in 1929, his many books including Brighton Rock (1938), The Third Man (1949), The Honorary Consul (1973). In the 1960s he was so famous that a man was going around Europe pretending to be him. To his many admirers he inhabited a world known simply as Greene-land.

So anyway, in June 2008 I was in Antibes in the south of France, where Graham Greene lived for many years from 1966, and decided I would like to see the apartment block where he lived, and what better place to enquire its whereabouts that the main tourist office.

One of the assistants was wearing a Union Jack lapel badge, so I went over and asked her if she could tell me the location of Graham Greene’s residence in Antibes.

“Who?” she asked me with a puzzled voice.

“Graham Greene”, I said.

She asked me to repeat it.

“Graham Greene”, I repeated.

She asked me to write it down.

I wrote it down.

She read the name aloud, couldn’t pronounce Graham. “Graa-ham”, she said. She asked me who he was.

“An English novelist who lived in Antibes”, I told her.

She was still puzzled. She asked a colleague. He thought that he’d heard the name but couldn’t be sure. She telephoned someone, again couldn’t pronounce Graham. She waited. I waited. Then she wrote something down and hung up the phone.

She copied her notes onto a piece of paper and gave it to me. It was the address of Graham Greene’s house. She’d written his surname without the ‘e’ - Green. She told me there was a plaque on the wall with Graa-ham Green’s name on it.

I found the address that she’d given me and saw the plaque. I wanted to scrawl on the wall in 10 feet high graffiti: GRAHAM GREENE LIVED HERE - OK? But instead I just took a photo and then went to look at Antibes. 

Apartment block in which Graham Greene lived

On my way I came across a street with a large banner stretched across it. On the banner was a quote from - guess who? - Graham Greene. It said that Antibes was the only place on the Côte which had retained its spirit and the only one in which he felt at home.

Peaceful people-watching site in Antibes

I agreed. It had a kind of understated charm, in contrast to its flashy neighbour Cannes. There was nothing outstanding to look at, its attraction more its entirety than the parts that made it up. It was a place to just go and hang out. Nice cafés in quiet spots to sit with your café crème or glass of beer and watch the people go past. And who knows, maybe or two of them may even have heard of Graa-ham Green. But it’s not certain.

Rome, AD 2006

Ponte Vittorio Emanuelle II with Castel Sant'Angelo in background

To travel through time is a wonderful dream and an impossible reality.  For if it were possible to travel through time then a man could travel back and kill his father while he was still a boy, and then the man would never be born and so could never travel back to….. you get the picture.  

But imagining for one silly SciFi moment that time travel were a possibility, where I wonder should I go ?  Perhaps to London around 1602 and to the newly-constructed Globe theatre for the first ever performance of Hamlet, with Dick Burbage as the eponymous hero and the lad himself as the Ghost (allegedly).  

Or maybe to Kansas City circa 1940 when a young alto saxophonist by the name of Charles Parker, Jr. got up for a jam session blow already playing what would be the new bebop and was hooted and jeered off the stage (once more allegedly).  

But no, it would be neither of these, but to Rome in 51 BC that I would set my time-travel digit, the year the mighty Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in defiance of Roman law, and marched on Rome to confront his conniving triumvirate allies Pompey the Great and the pathetic Crassus.  The wily and skilful Pompey, realising that he lacked the forces to defeat Caesar, made a tactical withdrawal, and Julius entered Rome in triumph, and in a bold gesture typical of the man, abolished the Republic and declared himself Emperor. Traitors were summarily executed, thrown from the Tarpeian Rock or strangled, each death confirmed with the words: ‘He has lived’, perhaps spoken by Cicero himself, the greatest orator of his time, and maybe of all time.   

Oh yes, no doubt about it, Rome is definitely where I would go if time travel were possible.  And I did finally make it Rome, albeit with a lapse of 2,057 years, on 6th November 2006 to be precise, arriving at Campino Airport around 8:30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time plus 1.

Campino is Rome’s second airport and it looks it too!  It is a tiny airport which closes overnight, and on stepping out from the terminal building I was confronted with the inevitable construction works.  I quickly navigated the obstacles (for some reason I’m always in a hurry) and looked for a bus to the city.  I found one just about to leave and hopped on.

The bus was spacious and comfortable with only half a dozen of us travellers onboard and we were quickly on our way.  The driver was evidently in training for Monza as we sped along through the suburban Roman night, passing everything on our way.  But I love driving into new places at night, watching the suburbs slip past, more alert than I normally am, which probably isn’t saying very much.

We made the normally 40 minute journey in 30 minutes, and arrived at Termini, the main rail terminal in the centre of Rome. There is a large open space in front of the terminal, which looked deserted.  I quickly spotted a Metro sign and a narrow, dimly-lit flight of stairs leading downwards for about 10 or 15 yards, then apparently turning to the left.  I went down the stairway with some trepidation, not knowing what was around the turning, and found myself at the barrier to the escalators down to the platform. There was not a soul around.  I bought a ticket from a machine and went through the barrier and down to the platform……to find it heaving with people!  Then when the train arrived it too was packed.  I squashed myself on board and held on to what I could.

A beautiful Rome street.  My hotel was up there somewhere.

The Rome Metropolitana is not as extensive as the London underground or the Paris metro, and has very few stations in the city centre.  Its purpose is to ferry commuters from the suburbs into the city, so it did not take long to get the station of Circo Massimo, where I got off. 

Circo Massimo, or, to give it its Latin name, Circus Maximus, is where ancient Romans would go for a relaxing afternoon of chariot racing.  Nothing remains of the original stadium, which is now a public park, but with a little imagination you can still see the chariots with their white stallions charging around the circuit to the roar of the spectators and the occasional screams of a slave being whipped for some minor misdemeanour.  

I got to my hotel next to the temple of the god Mithras, above the house of Aquila and Priscilla where St. Peter lived, and up to my room with a balcony overlooking a paved garden with palm and fruit trees - and how cool is that? The next morning I was up with the larks (though it was November so that was pretty late) and off for my first jaunt around the Eternal City.

I have never liked superlatives since nothing is ever that simple.  But if I did like superlatives I would say that the Beatles were the greatest pop artists of all time, Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale the greatest poem ever written, and Rome the most beautiful city in Christendom.  So, after dodging a hustler trying to sell me dodgy raffle tickets for a phoney charity (I know a dodgy charity raffle ticket hustler when I see one, that nun’s habit didn’t fool me), I set off in the direction of….the Pyramid.

Yes indeed there is a pyramid, but this isn’t what I was after, but the cemetery nearby which all English travel books call the Protestant Cemetery, but which is, in fact, the Non-Catholic Cemetery.  So my demands at passers-by for il cemitero protestante produced blank looks and “Non lo so”‘s.  Eventually a young woman helped me out, and after a bit more searching, I finally found it.  Right behind the pyramid, in fact!

The Pyramid from the Protestant Cemetery

The cemetery is where the tombs of two of England’s greatest poets are located - Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.  And it took no effort at all to find them as they were certainly the most visited graves in the cemetery, with very clear and prominent signs directing the visitor.  Shelley’s tomb is at the highest point in the main part of the cemetery, and Keats’ in what looked like an extension.  Also, confusingly, Keats’ grave does not bear his name, though the one next to it does.  I lingered awhile, then set off to find the river and a nonchalant stroll into the centre.

There is always something inevitable about taking a wrong turning, but I took one and found myself on a long road with row upon row of shops selling nothing but motor cycles.  But eventually, after asking an elderly Roman: “Dove si trova il fiume, per l’amor di Dio?”, I found what I was looking for.

I love cities with rivers and Rome with its Tiber is one of the best.  It was peaceful too, just the occasional jogger or Roman walking his/her dog.  A couple of youths yelled across at me if it was permitted to fish and I shouted back “Non lo so”.  

All along the embankment there were wonderful stone bridges: Ponte Sisto, built by Sixtus IV in 1474 in the ruins of the Pons Jani-culensis; Ponte Mazzini and Ponte Principe Amedeo; and Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, the bridge which connects the historic centre of Rome with the Vatican City.  It was here that I left the embankment to join the tourist hoard.

Il Ponte Sisto

From the bridge I followed the via della Concialiazione which leads St. Peter’s Square.  The avenue was created in 1936 following the reconciliation of the Italian State and the Holy See.  It has been described as ‘the most disliked avenue in Rome’.  [Teresa Cutler - Life In Italy dot com]


St. Peter’s Square was full of people in the warm November sun, mostly tourists, a few nuns, who knows, maybe even the occasional pilgrim. Together we will have outnumbered the total Vatican City State population of 800 persons.  There was no sign of the Swiss Guard, nor of the Bishop of Rome, aka the Pope.  I had no wish to join the ten hour queue for the Sistene Chapel or the Raphael frescos, as much as I would obviously have liked to have seen these glories of il Rinascimento.  I used to be a big fan of Raphael until I wearied of the endless Madonnas that he churned out for his ecclesiastical clients.  Maybe he grew weary of them, too, but kept going as they were good for business.  So I had a wander around the square, took a few predictable snaps, and headed off back to the river.

I crossed Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, hung a left, and toddled down to the next bridge in the sequence, the famous, the incredibly famous, the fabulously famous….what‘s it called again?….ah yes, the magnificently famous Ponte San Angelo, previously called Pons Aelius, built by Emperor Hadrian and completed in AD 134.  It leads directly to the Castel Sant’Angelo, the cylinder-shaped mausoleum of the aforesaid emperor.  

Ponte San Angelo leading to Castel Sant'Angelo

I didn’t go to the top of the mausoleum to enjoy the unforgettable views of the most beautiful city in Christendom, but instead wended my weary way in the direction of the Spanish Steps.  It was here that Keats lived when he and his companion Joseph Severn arrived in Rome.  He’d been told by his physician in 1820 that a winter in England would kill him.  So he journeyed to Rome where a winter in Italy killed him.  He died on 23 February 1821 in the house overlooking the Spanish Steps.  He was 25 years old.

The house is now the Keats-Shelley Museum, and next door is a shop appropriately named Byron, though I suspect that this was more contrived than accidental.  The museum was just closing when I got there, but I managed a quick shufty before being ushered out.

The square outside, la piazza di Spagna, was calm and pleasant, despite the many tourists, but I headed off to find the Trevi Fountain.  It was smaller than I imagined, and completely hidden behind a wall of tourists and souvenir vendors.  Also the sun was setting casting long shadows over Neptune and his friends.  It is said that if you cast a coin into the fountain and make a wish then your wish you will come true and you will return to Rome.  I didn’t, so it hasn’t and I haven’t.  

Keats-Shelley Museum at the Piazza di Spagna

That night in the hotel I watched part of a football match on TV between two Italian teams.  The usual pundits were in the studio, surrounded by a collection of medieval suits of armour and busty young women with low cleavages who leaned forward and pouted each time the camera was on them.  

The next morning I was out bright and early to get to the Colloseum before the crowds.  It was a good strategy, and would have worked, too, if others hadn’t had the same idea.  But it was another glorious day as I wandered slowly down the long via de S. Gregorio, past the famous Palatine Hill, arriving at Constantine’s Arch, built in AD 315 in celebration of the emperor’s victory on Massenzio, three years earlier.  It is remarkably well preserved. Beyond it is the biggest amphitheatre of antiquity.

Construction of the Colloseum got under way in AD 72 when Vespasian was emperor.  He was of the Flavia family, which is why the Colloseum is also known as the Amphiteatrum Flavium.  It had a capacity of 55,000 spectators for its gladiator and wild animal tournaments, and for its fantastic naval battles, known as naumachie.  It is also the site at which many of the early Christians were martyred, before Rome, realising it was losing the battle, decided to adopt Christianity as the official religion of the Empire, and to mould it to their own ends. I went inside and stood in line just a few short minutes at the ticket office, then through the turnstile and we’re in!

Colleseum

I’d been in Roman amphitheatres before, in Arles and Nimes, as well as the magnificent Antique Theatre in Orange, but none compared with this giant edifice at the very heart of the Roman Empire in which so many emperors had walked. I tried to imagine the spectacles that would have presented themselves to the audience almost 2,000 years earlier, but my feeble imagination let me down yet again, just when I needed it.   Or perhaps it wasn’t one of my better days.  So I just stood there, looking and feeling very much the tourist, and gazed down into the hypogeum, the warren of underground tunnels where the animal and human performers were herded for their grand entrances, and which now takes the place of the wooden arena floor which was destroyed by fire.

I came across a small exhibition of vases and other artefacts from the even earlier Greek civilization depicting images of Achilles and the siege of Troy. And I admired and photographed the magnificent views over what remains of the Forums of Caesar, Augustus and others, and the ruined temples and arches.  How grand it all must have been in its time!  Then, after about an hour, perhaps more, I left the building and walked up the via dei Fori Imperiali, and spent some time wandering around the ruins. I felt a sense of epic history all around me.  I also felt an overwhelming desire for a pizza.  So I made my way to the Colloseo metro station, past a loud demonstration which was unfolding, and took the first train to Termini, where I knew there was a reasonable restaurant.  

Constantine's Arch from the Colloseum

After dining and checking out i romanzi gialli, the ‘yellow novels’, which is what Italian publishers call their crime novels, and of which there was a large selection in the Termini book shop, I set about the ever time-consuming quest of finding somewhere I could buy postage stamps for my postcards.  I tried a succession of tobacconists (the usual outlet) where I received the constant reply: “Finito”.  I went to the station post office but they were queuing out of the door.  Eventually I tracked some down and then set about the next task of finding a post box.  The trouble was that I didn’t even know what colour they were.  Red?  Yellow?  Pink?  Finally, I asked an attractive young woman in the Tourist office, and she offered to put them with her mail for me.

Finally I made my way back to the airport.  My brief visit was over.  In the daylight I discovered that the airport was also a military one with many signs warning you not to take photographs.  I checked in, bought a cheese and ham sandwich and waited for my flight to be called.

Once onboard the plane the captain told us how long our flight would take. About three hours.  Then I suddenly realised that we measure our plane journeys not by the distance that we travel but by the time the journey takes.  So I was wrong all along.  Time travel is possible.  I take it all back.  

Raoul Dufy

Intéreiur à la fenêtre ouverte

Le Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nice has a fine collection of colourful paintings by the French artist Raoul Dufy.

Dufy was born in Le Havre in 1877, and in 1900, after a period of military service, won a scholarship to the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  He was initially influenced by the impressionists, and then by the Fauves, or wild beasts, with their bright colours and bold contours.

After a brief flirtation with cubism, Dufy finally created his own distinctive style, working in both oils and watercolours, with many of his works depicting bright and colourful scenes of the French Riviera, including many in its capital, Nice.  Below is a painting of the majestic sweep of the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels) in Nice.

At the top of the post is another view of the Bay through an opened window, this one painted in 1928 and entitled Intérieur à la fenêtre ouverte, and below is his painting of Nice Casino (no longer there) which the artist painted in situ on the Promenade des Anglais.

Raoul Dufy died in Nice in 1953 and is buried in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery in the north of the city.