Rome via Brooklyn

384 words, 2 minutes read time.

Today of all days I especially felt the collision of old and modern in the city. Ruins of an ancient city lying next to a busy street and modern restaurants and business, or ads on the Piazza Navona creates such an interesting experience as I walked a lot through the city today (19,686 steps 🤩).

The Temple of Portunus and the Round Temple were other examples of the ways the physical space represented the antiquated mixing with the modern. Standing by the Temple of Portunus and being at the original level where the street used to lie, while looking up at the other buildings, cars, and the people around me was so cool, especially when getting to see how well preserved it was up close (as close as we could get). The building “last[ing] two millenia almost intact” shows the dedication many groups of people had to its preservation, and for it to continue standing as the modern city is built up and around it is amazing (Claridge, 285). Seeing the Round Temple and its sturdy Corinthian columns still holding the weight of the roof as coach buses of students park just down the road was a fun and cool juxtaposition.

I also got to see the Largo di Torre Argentina ruins, and right next to them was a small cat sanctuary, which was committed to sterilizing stray cats and providing better quality of life for them. Being able to go down a staircase literally right next to these gorgeous ruins to pet cute cats was a really fun experience, and I really hope to go back (no pics were allowed :/).

Some things that repeated for me, which we mentioned earlier in one of our classes, were the shrines to different holy figures all around. On buildings and in walls were depictions of Madonna and Child or Rione XI Sant’Angelo, also clashing with the modern. Seeing these all the time makes a lot of sense considering the presence of the Church in Rome.

It was really cool seeing the ways the past and present come together to create such a unique experience in Rome.

Khadija Fall ❤