The hotel foyer was simple yet elegant with a large mural overlooking a table. A simple counter stood across from the door, and a man serious in nature greeted us as we entered. After checking in and paying cash for the city tax, two young men dressed in shorts and t-shirts carried our luggage to our room.
They walked quickly, and it was difficult keeping up with them. The building was vast. We walked up three steps, through a glass doorway, down a hall that housed a large staircase to our right that was roped off. I gazed up the steps that went up many flights.
At the end of the hall, an electric glass door activated by our room key card opened when one of the young men swiped my card in front of the key pad. The door slowly opened to a small outdoor courtyard with a patch of grass and a large urn. We walked down a few steps, around the small courtyard to steps leading down to another glass door.
The door led us to a long dimly lit hall with metal furniture with cushions covered in green. As we walked down the long hallway, one of the young men mentioned that is where we could pick up a Wi-Fi signal. The hall also had a small wine bar, and a TV. The kitchen and dining room were also off this hall.
At the end of the hall, a left turn took us to a drink machine and a glass elevator. Transparency must be important here. The elevator brought us to the second floor.
Around the corner, we walked and faced a fantastically long hall. The arched ceiling was incredibly tall, making the hall look even longer than it was. The tile floor had a shine to it. I smiled as our shoes echoed through the large hall.
CHA-cha-cha-chink, CHA-cha-cha-chink.
Not just one echo of sound, but a dispersion echo.
It was lovely.
I felt like I was walking down a palace hall.
I felt regal.
Mom didn’t feel so regal. She saw the walk as a burden on her tired legs. When I am 75, I may think the same way.
Bronwyn was in awe, though.
It was like no other place we had ever seen before, and we felt it was ours for four nights.
There was a deck off the hall on the right with large beautiful stained glass windows. Later, I saw some of the hotel guests standing on that deck smoking. I am certain that was not its original purpose.
At the end of the hall was a metal love seat and chairs. We turned right and walked down three stairs. Our room was on the left at the end of a small hallway. Double doors cut off the hall after our room.
I really wanted to open them and peek down that hall to see what was down there. I tried to open the doors one night, but they were locked.
The room was big and airy, with four twin-sized beds with red blankets. There was a TV, and a fridge that didn’t work. The bathroom was spacious.
We had double windows, which faced the street. From the window, we looked out and saw a wedding party throwing confetti at a bride and groom.
We could see a fountain, and other streets that merged into Piazza Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. There was graffiti everywhere on the buildings. Thankfully, there was no graffiti in the entire piazza where our hotel was located.
Whereas the Florence graffiti had a sense of art to it, the graffiti in Rome just seemed hateful, at least the graffiti in our section of Rome. Maybe it was more artful in other sections? Maybe not?
We unpacked, and then walked the long hallway back to the elevator; then, we took the elevator down to the lower hall that had Wi-Fi, a TV, a wine bar, and our dinner.
I ordered a glass of Chianti, and we sat and watched part of the World Cup. A family of four sat next to us watching the game. They didn’t speak English, and we didn’t speak Portuguese, so we exchanged smiles and nods. The father’s exuberance diminished after Portugal lost.
Dinner in the restaurant was perfect. They served two courses, dessert, wine, and coffee all for $16E. Several families came in to eat sitting at tables next to ours. A few older couples sat down. Everyone seemed weary. I thought, maybe it was the amped up pace of Rome that was fatiguing everyone.
My Mom brought her iPad with her, and while she was in the bathroom, I looked up some information on the church and monastery. Knowledge is power, I believe, and a little research can make a trip anywhere much more interesting. I was surprised at what I discovered.
Mom rejoined us, and we walked back to the elevator and went up to the roof. There were tables and chairs on the roof, and the view of the city was lovely. We could see San Giovanni in Laterano very clearly from the roof. Emperor Constantine dedicated the basilica to St. John in 318 AD.
The Popes used the basilica and the palace on the grounds until the 1300’s when they moved to the Vatican after returning from Avignon, France. There are tremendous amounts of relics in the church, including the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the cedar table that Christ used for the last super.
San Giovanni in Laterano looked beautiful at night. We could hear a concert from the church grounds. There was a soft breeze blowing. We found that there was always a soft breeze blowing through Rome. I leaned against the rooftop rail and breathed in the night air.
It was not even our first full day in Rome, and I could sense that the large city was intensely complex. I was perplexed by the information I had found out on my Mom’s iPad.
From what I learned, the Pope was not very happy about the monks opening a hotel on the premise of one of the holiest and oldest churches in the city. Santa Croce in Gerusalemme dates back to 325 AD. The monks reasoned that they needed to make money to support the monastery and help fund the basilica.
That made sense to me. The monastery attached to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem) was massive. The foundation of the monastery was built in approximately 975 AD, and the building finished around 1003 AD. It was a significant historic building.
Here is where it gets a little confusing.
It seems there was an ex-stripper disco dancer turned nun living in the convent. Sister Nobili, along with other nuns, used modern dance to perform around a crucifix during religious ceremonies. That doesn’t make sense to me, and Pope Benedict was not happy about what was going on at the monastery.
The Pope was also displeased with the behavior of the flamboyant abbot of the basilica, who brought celebrities to the monastery. Their finances were a mess, and there were reports of “inappropriate behavior” by some of the Cistercian monks. I am not sure what the “inappropriate behavior” of the monks was.
I could find information about Sister Nobili’s “holy” dance, but the monks’ naughty behavior was kept away from the press.
No wonder a monk didn’t take our luggage to our room. Not that I wanted a monk to carry my luggage. OK, I really did think that would be cool.
An experience.
Something that wouldn’t happen every day.
Hanging out with monks, having a glass of wine, and watching the World Cup would have been really different for us. But, the monks wanted experiences that were supposed to off limits for them, and in March of 2011, the Pope came in and shut them down.
That was over three years ago, and I wondered what they were doing with the giant building. The hotel only took up a tiny portion of the building. Were the other floors of this vast beautiful building left empty?
Moreover, how was the church, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, coping without the monks?
The next day was Sunday. We could have chosen to go to the Vatican, along with the other 80,000 people, and stand in the square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica listening to the Pope give mass over a loud speaker because we weren’t able to be the first 15,000 to enter the basilica for mass.
However, we didn’t.
Instead, we planned on going to mass at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. I couldn’t wait to see what it was like to visit the relics.
I couldn’t wait to see what it was like to sit in the church that St. Helena, mother of Constantine, took great care in creating.
The foundation of the church was built on soil from Jerusalem that St. Helena brought back, so the relics she “discovered” could remain on Jerusalem soil.
I wasn’t sure how difficult it was going to be to view the relics, but I was going to try my best to see them.
The long walk down the hall to our hotel room didn’t spook me at all. It was just the three of us, and the echoes of our steps in the hall kept us company.
I felt a great sense of privilege to be walking down that hall to our room.
We fell asleep to the sounds of the busy street and world of Rome below our window. We would explore part of that world in the morning where we would find surprise after surprise.
Ciao!