Continuing the walk to Jonathan's Apartment
November 18, 2007
There they are! They are steep
leading down to Via di Porta San Pancrazio. There are a good 60 steps to walk
down to the steep hill that you see. There is a school blocked from view by those trees. Although, it does look like any other building
in Rome. You can't tell just by looking at it that it is a school. The only indication to visitors are when the children
are outside. During gym and lunch time, they will play soccer on the steep hill. Normally, there are
cars lining the wall to the left during the day.
Half way down, do we really want to turn around and look up the hill?
Where the top most car is in the top picture, there is another set of steps (15 or so) to descend for yet another hill
to continue on Via Garibaldi (see below). Via Garibaldi, does, literally, wind up the hill to reach Acqua
Paolo. That is good for driving. When walking, as we did, the steps are faster even though you may have to stop and
take a breather when climbing them.
When we reach the bottom of the hill, turn left and walk down a narrow set of steps, this is on the left.
We turn right and start walking down even more hill.
See the white building on the left in the above picture? After we pass it and look back, this is what we see.
Now this becomes interesting. Staying on the sidewalk along that white building,
it becomes a raised sidewalk. We always walked down on the raised sidewalk on the left side of Via Garibaldi.
Looking backwards up the hill. Do we really have to walk back up this hill tonight? <gulp>
We're almost there. We take another look back. Did you notice we had a habit of doing that? We have walked down a long hill. That big white building we passed earlier is now far back on the right side.
Looking back up the hill again, we see a row of dumpsters and some parked motobikes.
Historical Note: Via Garibaldi is named after Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). He is deemed one of the makers of modern Italy. For much of his life, he was in the military and served many battles. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln offered Garibaldi the position of US Union Army General. Garibaldi turned it down claiming Lincoln was not true to his principles.
During the Second Italian War of Independence, in 1859, Garibaldi was appointed as a major general. He formed a volunteer unit and won many victories. In 1860, after many more battles, he declared himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II (whose monument is found on many of these Rome pages).
By the time Garibaldi reached Naples, he had a volunteer army of 24,000. Throughout most of the rest of his life, he led the army, eventually the size of 40,000, for Italy, winning many battles, and losing some too.
Go to page 4 - The Walking To The Apartment Continues.
Go to page 6 - At Jonathan's Apartment in Trastevere.
Jump ahead 10 pages to Page 15 - The Long Walk from the Roman Forum.