Villa Borghese

Today we headed north to the Villa Borghese, once the summer playground of the Boghese family, but now a large tree-filled public park and home to several museums. The Casino Borghese houses the art collection amassed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese when his uncle was Pope Paul V in the C17. The villa is sumptuous, with marble clad walls, gilding, frescoed ceilings, putti, columns, statues and paintings. The ground floor has one iconic sculpture in the centre of each of the first few rooms, beautifully lit and all so lifelike while the painting gallery upstairs was like a who’s who of Italian art.

Since I’m on a quest to try to appreciate Caravaggio better, here are two of his self portraits, one at each end of his life.

We wandered through the park, ate lunch and continued past the boating lake to the Pincio gardens, where a band played Dire Straits on the belvedere overlooking Piazza Di Popolo.

Santa Maria del Popolo is full of art and sculpture, but we came for the Cerasi Chapel where we continued my Caravaggio quest to see The Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter, both showing unusual compositions and a dramatic realism which was considered risque when they were made … but do we like them?

We left the piazza and walked down one of the smartest shopping streets in the city till we reached the Piazza Spagna which was a little busy on a Saturday afternoon, home to the Spanish Steps, built with three flights and three landings for the holy Trinity and the view of the Trinita dei Monti church at the top.

We then wound our way down mainly pedestrianised streets to the Trevi Fountain, a very Baroque gush of water over statues and rocks on the back of a Renaissance Palace. It was designed by Bernini and they say if you toss in a coin you will return to Rome but you’d be lucky to get close enough.

Piacere Molise was our choice for dinner, a pretty family-run restaurant over the road from the hotel where we both enjoyed our food, but we were sat in a draught from the door and we felt a bit rushed so won’t be returning here … can’t win them all!