A good friend and I were traveling through Rome; and as always, our navigational skills are finely tuned, so that we never get where we want to go in a timely manner, but often we arrive where we need to be.
We were making our circuitous way towards the Vatican, attempting to decipher the ancient, indecipherable script of the Roman Bus Plans, I think, in our over-eagerness, we perhaps stepped of our bus one, or perhaps seven stops too early. I'm not entirely sure how wrong we were, but I am sure that we were wrong, because the place wen ended up was certainly not the Vatican but rather a small side street to the South of the Ponte Sant'Angelo.
The Ponte Sant'Angelo is a beautiful piece of architecture, where the medieval Romans held their executions, and a lovingly cared-for mixture of Roman engineering and Renaissance elegance. We two marveled at it's subtly wonder, but also at our own stupidity, because as beautiful as former Aelian Bridge is, it is certainly not the Vatican. So we had a bit of a walk ahead of us.
As we made our way across the bridge, I noticed the Romans on the bridge were especially well-dressed. The men sported vintage coats and hats that you would see in 1920's gangster movie. The women's dresses were conservative, with a hidden refinement, matching the 1920's ambiance of the men they were with. Even the cars parked on the side of the streets displayed this mastery of style. Old BMWs and vintage Mercedes. All of it lent itself to the feeling of having stepped into the roaring twenties, age of vice and gambling and jazz.
And then as we continued walking we passed a young man in jeans and t-shirt, holding aloft a boom microphone, as if he was filing the 1920's movie we had just stepped into. It occurred to me that the ambiance we felt was very deliberate., almost a goal. Looking around, I noticed the other tell-tale signs of movie production: a woman with a portable make-up kit, several men in folding chairs with scripts, a man with a megaphone, and the collected exasperated expression of the Italian crew at having a pair of tourists walk into the middle of their shot.
Having already committed to being anachronistic movie-extras, there wasn't much else to do but go along with it.
So the next time you take your boyfriend or girlfriend to the next hit, Italian period drama, look closely in the background of the Ponte Sant'Angelo for two Americans, in bluejeans and baseball caps.
We were making our circuitous way towards the Vatican, attempting to decipher the ancient, indecipherable script of the Roman Bus Plans, I think, in our over-eagerness, we perhaps stepped of our bus one, or perhaps seven stops too early. I'm not entirely sure how wrong we were, but I am sure that we were wrong, because the place wen ended up was certainly not the Vatican but rather a small side street to the South of the Ponte Sant'Angelo.
The Ponte Sant'Angelo is a beautiful piece of architecture, where the medieval Romans held their executions, and a lovingly cared-for mixture of Roman engineering and Renaissance elegance. We two marveled at it's subtly wonder, but also at our own stupidity, because as beautiful as former Aelian Bridge is, it is certainly not the Vatican. So we had a bit of a walk ahead of us.
As we made our way across the bridge, I noticed the Romans on the bridge were especially well-dressed. The men sported vintage coats and hats that you would see in 1920's gangster movie. The women's dresses were conservative, with a hidden refinement, matching the 1920's ambiance of the men they were with. Even the cars parked on the side of the streets displayed this mastery of style. Old BMWs and vintage Mercedes. All of it lent itself to the feeling of having stepped into the roaring twenties, age of vice and gambling and jazz.
And then as we continued walking we passed a young man in jeans and t-shirt, holding aloft a boom microphone, as if he was filing the 1920's movie we had just stepped into. It occurred to me that the ambiance we felt was very deliberate., almost a goal. Looking around, I noticed the other tell-tale signs of movie production: a woman with a portable make-up kit, several men in folding chairs with scripts, a man with a megaphone, and the collected exasperated expression of the Italian crew at having a pair of tourists walk into the middle of their shot.
Having already committed to being anachronistic movie-extras, there wasn't much else to do but go along with it.
So the next time you take your boyfriend or girlfriend to the next hit, Italian period drama, look closely in the background of the Ponte Sant'Angelo for two Americans, in bluejeans and baseball caps.
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