She Wolves in the City of the Dead

The inexorable link between the Etruscans and the Romans is seen in the Statue of the She Wolf who took in the founding brother of Rome, Romulus and Remus and as we wound up winding hill side roads we met her. Her teets hanging down as she led us to the Necropolis. Not the original but close enough, it was a yellow lab, that had just had a litter. Down the cypress lined road she ran, craning her neck back periodically to see if we were still following intently to the city of the dead.

Here, we walked down streets past homes that housed the dead, through a town carved out of Tufa rock sitting in the between the hills of Lazio and Tuscany. This Necropolis is where the Etruscans buried their dead. Large circular mounds, called Tumuli, dot the landscape rising from volcanic rock monolithically. Dating back to the sixth century, these are the remnants of the original Italians.

Though it was not the tombs, but the Bitch that reminded of the beginnings of Rome. As always, is it not what you go to see, but what caught your eye along the way.

Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.

Behind the Piramide are bodies, lying in plots of Il Cimitero Accatolico Di Roma. Here there is a population of cats that move silently among the stones. These tailed wraiths keep watch over the remains while Cypress trees rise conically above the surrounding Roman walls. Since 1730, this cemetery has been in use as the burial ground for non-catholics living in Papal Rome. Here lies John Keats and Percy Shelley. They rest under headstones, modest in comparison to their neighbors. Their epitaphs, the epitaphs of Romantics.

Shelley:

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Cor Cor Dium

Natus IV Aug MDCCXCII

OBIT VIII Jul MDCCCXXII

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea=change

Into something rich and strange

Keats:

This Grave

contains all that was Mortal,

of a

YOUNG ENGLISH POET

Who

on his death bed

in the bitterness of his heart

at the malicious power of his enemies

desired

these words to be engraven on his tomb stone

"Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water"

Feb 23rd 1821

Io sono senza parole come loro sono.

North of Prati is a long way from home.

Always remember the Tiber flows south, the Vatican is on the west bank, and the Colosseum is to the east. These cardinal directions will help you avoid traveling the opposite way of home. When forgotten or neglected, you may end up an hour and a half walk from your desired destination. At this point when you ask for directions in your broken Italian, the hotel manager, the garbage man, the diner cashier, and the policeman, will point the opposite direction you have been traveling and say 'Get a taxi, you are a long way from there.' Seeing as you have oriented yourself wisely to this point, it would only make sense that you have money for a taxi. Unbelievably, you do not. Here you begin to power-walk. Here your quads, hamstrings, calves, and other muscles located in the lower extremities begin to ache. Here you know it will be a rough morning. You drank, you got lost, you fell asleep on the living room floor, and that Italian girl gave you her number somewhere along the way.

In the morning, you'll make an egg over easy, and have a slice of toast. You'll feel better, but then again when did you ever stop feeling good. La dolce vita.

A White Puegot

I landed. Spent a tired day, and then left.

Off to Orvieto in a white Puegot. Frank, Andy, and I switching off at the wheel. One out of three of us knowing how to drive stick.

In Sacrofano, a town with winding cobblestone roads and stray dogs, I was taught. First, driving foward shifting into first and then reversing. The gravel driveway of a truck owning Italian being too small to completely turn the car around. We spent an hour at it, burning pock marks in the gravel. After this short hour, Frank deemed it only appropriate that we move out onto the hillside roads of rural Italy. No better time to learn than the present, no better time to anger Italian women with stalling the car in front of them. Fortunately, I can't understand quite yet what they are calling me, or to how many Saints they are cursing my name. The Autostrada was smoother. No starting or stopping, except at the tollbooths. Oh the tollbooths. We decided they didn't count in our daily stall count. They would have caused too much inflation of the number.

We made it to Orvieto, the car in one piece, our hands shaking. Mine and Andy's from white-knuckled driving. Frank's probably a factor or his age.

The drive back was smoother. I guess we improved. Oh and Orvieto, the medieval town high on a hill, glowing in the night was gorgeous. But, I think I'll remember the drive.