Seven Bridges: Part One of a Two Part Tour

The only available outlet in the apartment that seemed to function was between the closet and the stove, loosely mounted to the wall above the counter. This is not a commentary on the accommodations, they were just as lovely as I had expected; the photos hadn’t lied. I’d left my laptop charging there in the kitchen overnight with the hope that I might get an hour or so of life out of it during the flight home. The new battery was only slightly more inclined to hold a charge than the original, which had become completely useless a couple of years ago. The computer was also my only link to the correct time; information that usually is of little concern to me but this morning would be somewhat critical.

Darkness still prevailed when I woke, although the glow of the city never really allowed it to take over completely. The orange of the streetlights reflecting off the dense cloud cover was no different than anything I’d experienced in any other major city. After my visit to the kitchen and a brief calculation, I decided that it was just after seven. The screen had read a little past one, the time difference being an even six hours. I thought I should really get moving. I lay back down on the fold out couch for a few minutes and thought about the irony of the sleeping arrangements as I stared out through the tall glass panes of the window that I had closed sometime during the night. I’d woken up briefly when a chilly wind had made its way into the room. A fold out couch that was very distant from here had been my bed for the past year since I’d left my family for the third and final time, although this one was decidedly more comfortable.

The screaming cats had woken me before dawn, the cats and what I imagine I perceived to be a hint of the sky changing from the grayish-yellow of the evening to the cool blue of a morning flirting with sunrise. I had hoped to be out on the street by dawn but I knew by the time I was ready that the moment had passed me by.

It wasn’t more than another five minutes or so before I was up and changed. I’d slept in my clothes as there were four of us sharing the flat and little privacy was to be had. Before making my way to the door I checked the map one last time. Rather than turn on a light that might disturb the others, I leaned out of the window and planned my route in the glow of anticipation; at least the first six or seven blocks that would take me to the rivers edge, the banks of the Fiume Tevere. After that I would let the city guide me.

I closed the door as quietly as I could until I heard the tongue snap into place and then descended the two flights of marble stairs that surrounded the tiny elevator, passed through the tall, yellow glass doors that led to the foyer, and made my way to the street.
I did a little stretching in the courtyard between the ivy covered, black iron gate and the massive exterior oak doors and then began my walk down the hill. Initially, it was the same route that the six of us had taken the night before in search of a recommended restaurant, but after a few blocks I took a right towards the river, rather than the left that would have taken me back into Trastevere.

Two blocks into my personal tour I broke into a jog and the spot just above my right knee began to burn, as it has been known to do from time to time. I ignored it. Nothing was going to interfere with this day. I would just have to work through the pain.
After crossing the main thoroughfare where the green, number eight trams seem to pass ceaselessly in both directions, I moved along a series of winding, cobblestone streets, settling in between the unused, partially paved over, tracks of former public transportation. The river was near, and as I approached it a flea market was in its inception in a small lot off to my right. Tiny cars were being unloaded onto tables that were sheltered by those all too familiar pop-up tents. It was a Sunday morning and most of the city still slept as the sun rose slowly and the rain slowed as the clouds began to thin. It hadn’t started until I’d reached the outer doors of the apartment building. I’d heard the leaves reacting to what I considered an obvious but unnecessarily violent assault by the tiny droplets that fell from the sky.

I took a left just beyond the market, crossed the foot of one of the many bridges and headed along the river. The sidewalk and the roadway were well above the water’s surface so I followed the fist ramp that would bring me closer to the lethargic, green soup, where black birds with gray wings circled and dove for prey.
After passing under the sculpted arches of the next bridge, I felt a little deprived as all of the antiquity lay out of sight beyond the tops of the ancient walls that corralled the current, although the colorful graffiti in another language did hold a modest amount of interest. A long flight of stairs just before the third would take me back to street level. A slight drizzle continued to fall but the sidewalk was dry, sheltered by the leaves of the sycamores that lined the avenue, similar in many ways to Riverside Park in Manhattan, although very different in feel. The foliage in general struck me as not being dramatically different from that of New York, with the exception of the thick, textured trunks and the feathery branches of the many palms that sprouted unexpectedly from Rome’s sidewalks and gardens.

I decided to continue along above the water until the fourth bridge, or Ponte, as they are known here, and then I would cross and find my way into the oldest part of the city. It wasn’t meant to be. The bridges were not all that far apart and from the foot of the fourth, the fifth was plainly visible. Until now they had been relatively unadorned outside of carved balustrades, mostly limestone, I think. This next one was obviously of great importance, decorated with elaborate sculptures of intertwined figures that had been eroded by the passing centuries, with the stone pitted and serrated.
From the fifth, the sixth caught my attention, not quite as elaborate but equally adorned. A row of stalls was set up along the wall between the next two crossings. Green, tambour topped display cases that supported shallow awnings above them lined the sidewalk. There were dozens, all identical, and all yet to be opened for business. A lone vendor swept the damp, fallen leaves from the path that remained. This had to be a major tourist destination, no different from Fifth Avenue south of the Metropolitan Museum where everything from watches to postcards can be had. I would not discover today what was peddled from these shallow trays.

A massive, obviously ancient, stone structure loomed to my left. Curved, marble stairs led to enormous statues on tall plinths. Carved relief was everywhere on the ornately rendered façade and a cornice protruded far enough from the roof to be considered cantilevered. I crossed the street to investigate further. In the center, letters were carved into the stone blocks above an arched doorway. The only ones that made any sense to me spelled out the word “Tribunali”. It was impossible for me to take in the whole of this building, the din of the sculpted mass being nearly deafening.

The seventh would be the bridge to cross. I thought Saint Peter’s was in sight but realized that the domes I was heading for were on the wrong side of the river, and there were two. I’d contemplated running through the Vatican’s plaza but decided that I would forgo the well-traveled landmarks in favor of the neighborhoods and the mundane which turned out to be anything but. We’d gotten a bit of a tour from the taxi driver who’d brought us from the train station, and anyway, I’d seen them once before. This run was not about those places; it was about the other Rome. I crossed that seventh bridge and lost myself in the maze of cobblestone streets and narrow alleys.