Italy and England
italia
throw out your guidebooks
Throw your guidebooks to the side (after you’ve seen the major sights) and get a little lost for an afternoon in Rome.
Side step vespas and taxis and pilgrims and other tourists behind maps, and get lost for a while.
Do as the Romans do.
Bow in and out of the slants of sunlight and vespas, use sounds of water fountains and laughter as your navigation.
An off the beaten path is not merely a passage but a rite and a full circle.
When walking in Rome you are witness to the many passions of people in a cacophony of color and sound and motion.
Roma begins to makes sense to you as you feel follow its rhythm; it is foreign and antique and familiar all at once.
Rome is history in the bones of the city stirring the blood.
Roma changes you.
What could I suggest to you but to drink in the sublime here?
See the city for the thousands of layers rather than one wild jumble.
Beauty is on display, oh yes, —but so is reflection of the human and the divine in every corner.
The celebration of the individual is found even in the smallest of details in Rome.
Art is a living thing.
The story of mankind is in a treasured relic, and in a sip of espresso, and in a stolen kiss.
Life is found in another language where the words are less important than the feelings they conjur in us all in the moment.
Rome is the tug of a heartbeat in a pulse before the veil falls over you.
Rome is a reminder of death that is very much a reminder to live! To live now!!
eternal city
Spend some time in the eternal city and you will feel death like a whisper on the back of your neck.
Go there young, when you still feel invincible, and watch the tombs and monuments to a crumbled past deathmask-smile at you.
Return after you’ve loved and lost a little, when you’ve begun to collect possessions interchangeably with memories, hold hands past paupers and ruffians and the modern courtesan; the tourist liaisons hovering by menus, beckoning, offering, waving.
Return again after you’ve lost more than you’ve loved but you still have a bit of youth on your side, and you can take in the big picture.
Return next when you’ve hit your peak and now the edges are fraying a little. When fountains and paintings once trumpeting romance and pleasure are grimier and more worn than you remember. When the seducers and the money takers suggest more pallid languor than sex, where every turned corner is a missed opportunity or a new experience, depending on how beaten down or defiant you’ve become since that earlier youth on your first visit. You have a decision to make… Strength for strength or a quick decline.
Return a final time, as cherubs and seraphim throw off shrugs and hands in the air when the whisper of death becomes an aria crowding out the ears. Stare at the details or miss them, memorizing the picture of life doesn’t matter so much in the short term. The marks on your soul have already been decided for you. This is the golden amnesia hour, where every thing thought and felt is only for the rushing moment, water slipping through fingers, spilling out of the mouth, tasted, cooled but most of it landing on your face, your shirt, your shoes, the uneven cobblestones. Keep drinking it in.
musings on rome written to a new friend
I feel, in Rome, as if I am fully entered into the ancient-ness of the place.
I feel the history in my blood.
I feel almost Italian (with a mix of invading barbarian).
But I tread lightly in Italy.
I try to penetrate the history, the stories, but I tread lightly.
I don’t leave any trace.
I only steal moments.
I steal away people’s feelings in a one second snapshot.
I take more lingering pictures with my eyes.
I really don’t want to be the center of attention, I would rather fade into the background, and let people live around me.
I am greedy for their life spilling out.
Still as much a thief as I was as a child, after all.
This is why I love Naples.
I dread it a little, too.
I want to slap it around occasionally.
I want to remind it of its grit (as if it needs my reminder).
I want to shake it awake to its beauty and history and art.
I want it to not lose its charm, ever.
I don’t even care about the trash that much.
I love the darkest alleys.
I love that life is lived on the streets.
I love that the windows are always open.
I love listening to the strains of a language I cannot decipher because it always sounds like music to me that way.
That’s how I linger in churches so long…
I can’t understand the sermons so I can spend time looking at the art and thinking about pagans all day as if in a dream.
In Italy I am living in the dream and I don’t wake up again until I’m back home in the cold north.
I return to Italy like a lover who cannot stand the separation a moment longer. I want to feel the curves of familiar streets. I want to taste the crushed fruit of summer wine and feel that sun so different from mine. I want to see the stars again against the faint glow of the ruins.
A monastery in the clouds
One fall afternoon in Naples the clouds snuck out from behind the Pantheon-like San Francesco di Paola Church as I stood in the main square in the sunshine.
Approaching the large, Bourbon Piazza del Plebiscito from the Santa Lucia waterfront district is one of the most dramatic views I’ve ever seen in a city. There is an old monastery on an ancient hill and from this vantage point it looks like the Certosa di San Martino is floating on clouds.
A closer look as you come upon the piazza.
Caffe Gambrinus (Oscar Wilde’s old haunt and one of my favorite cafe-bar-tearooms) and the gleaming dome of the Galleria Umberto I, a strikingly beautiful marble-covered shopping atrium.
All photographs shot in Naples, Italy October 2013 and were shot on velvia 35mm film slides by Rebecca Price Butler alovelettertorome.com retrofocus@mac.com
Dante, Virgil and Augustus and the clouds of Naples
Augustus, in Naples, looks out at Vesuvius, the volcano that covered Pompeii and Herculaneum in lava and ash thousands of years ago. Clouds puff out around Vesuvio like plumes of smoke. Virgil, a great Roman poet of the Augustan era, is entombed not far away. His Aeneid, inspired by Homer‘s Odyssey and Iliad. Tuscan poet Dante Alighieri, in 14th century Italy, wrote Virgil into his Divine Comedy as a sage pagan guide through hell and purgatory.
Dante Alighieri commands the clouds, overlooking the passersby in the Piazza Dante off Via Toledo. The day before it had stormed on nearby Capri and the clouds were thick and dramatic against the bright blue sky of central Napoli.
I wept not, so to stone within I grew. – Dante
Dante is host to one of Naple’s most popular “outdoor living rooms” where Neapolitans meet in the evenings for conversation, snacks, flirting and delicious coffee.
“With the color that paints the morning and evening clouds that face the sun I saw then the whole heaven suffused.” – Dante
All photographs shot on velvia film slides by Rebecca Price Butler, alovelettertorome.com
How to have a beautiful time {in off the beaten path} Rome; the short list.
Swing by the Villa Sciarra park in the residential Monteverde neighborhood. If you are going to visit the very off the beaten path Monteverde area, you may as well start at the Giancolo (Janiculum Hill) for the panorama view, which is nice, and the interesting area around it.
Then walk down the hill to the Monteverde neighborhood. It’s a long walk. Via Dandolo area.
You can hit Trastevere after the Villa Sciarra park.
{It’s an even longer walk.
Buses run all over too. And taxis.}
Trastevere is a Rome experience no-one should miss, even on a day trip to the eternal city.
Trastevere is a historical, rustic neighborhood with cafés, great restaurants, beautiful churches church, la Renelle bakery, hand made chocolate and soap shops, the Almost Corner Bookshop with English books, graffiti, hanging ivy and wisteria and lots of great people watching.
The Aventine. (See the Knights of Malta keyhole for the worlds, most unique view of the Vatican through a lemon grove)!
Testaccio (the Protestant Cemetery!!)
Why a cemetery? It’s peaceful, away from it all, gorgeous, John Keats is buried there, Shelley has ashes interned under stone, all the greats have visited, and I am utterly in love with this spot. There’s also the draw of “Mount Testaccio” and the ancient Egyptian pyramid of Cestius.
Villa Aldobrandini (I have managed to miss this every time but the book Quiet Corners of Rome has breathtaking shots of it and it’s been recommended to me by travelers online so I am going to visit it next visit! It’s in the great Monti area (quiet, off the busy coliseum section of the city, at Via Mazzarino 11.
Take a romantic renaissance walk on Via Giulia in the heart of Rome.
Visit the boutique villa art museums; Spada, Doria Pamphlij, Galleria Borghese, Villa Farnesina, etc!
Have lunch and shop at outdoor market shopping at Campo dei Fiori!
See the Roman Forum, the Coliseum and the ruins in the daytime AND by moonlight when the world looks ancient and is silent.
Picnic on Palatine Hill.
Climb the steps to Capitoline Hill, designed by Michaelangelo!!!
Walk on Sunday on the Appian Way and pass through the ancient portico by the Aurelian Wall!!!
Have a coffee by the Pantheon at night.
Stroll through the Piazza Navona.
Fountain hop several piazzas every night!!!
Have a drink at five different cafe bars on the same evening.
Try something local, in season and daring!
Get a little lost.
Cross the bridge of angels at sunset or even better, sunrise to get to the Vatican along side the Tiber.
Watch the sun set on the Pincio, overlooking the piazza del popolo!
Rome in the morning, Rome in the afternoon, Rome at sunset, Rome in the evening – are almost like different cities.
Have dinner one place, a spumante somewhere else, an espresso some where else, a gelato somewhere else.
Enjoy the stroll, see the Caravaggios, embrace the green parks, look for the views, get lost and go for a ramble.
beautiful photos of an old capri cemetery
Capri is a world famous resort, the playground for jet setters. It’s an ancient Roman island in Southern Italy still peppered with the villas of Emperors. I’ve heard it called the Beverly Hills of Italy because of its luxury boutiques and grand dame hotels.
To me, Capri is about the quiet moments, the local back streets, the flora and fauna and places like the beautiful, very off the beaten path 19th century non-catholic cemetery. The cemetery is in a residential, slightly run down section between Capri town and the Marina Grande but it overlooks the sea and is incredibly charming. Artists, writers, Anglo Saxons, Nordics and French in love with Capri are all buried here. There are Jewish graves and non-religious tombs and plenty of Madonna statues. And in modern Capri, plenty of Catholic Italians choose this idyllic spot with a sweeping view of the Tyrrhenian Sea for their final resting places.
I walked to the cemetery on the rather harrowing, not very pedestrian “old road down to Marina Grande” and found the graveyard after a ten minute “stroll” sidestepping uncomfortably close vespas, cars and buses like a veteran Italian. When in Rome, eh? You may want to take a taxi from the bus station in Capri Town.
Ask for the Cimitero acattolico di Capri. On Capri – not the pretty, much smaller catholic cemetery on Ana Capri – though that is also lovely. This is the spot with character and history and angels.
all photographs were shot on portra 400 and 800 – 35mm film and are copyright rebecca price butler – alovelettertorome.com – retrofocus@mac.com
I took a lot of shots in this magical spot and will be posting more soon!
I’ve returned back to the United States from Italy
Notes on a little about my photographic process. I’ve been asked about this and it’s mostly the use of fine art films and my analog camera, but it’s also my digital camera and my iPhone too, that I shoot images with.
vintage sky blue vespa in napoli, italy, portra 800, october 2013
Yesterday I picked up my 35mm film photographs of Capri, Ana Capri, Sorrento and Napoli – shot in portra 160, 400 and 800, kodak pro h, and a few spare vintage-style rolls of color film, the names of which escape me at the moment. I shot some velvia slide film, which was developed into individual slides and I poured through each slide on a light table with a magnifying glass and chose the best ones (and the lab will scan them onto cd so I can post them here and in some articles and guides on Italy for other publications – AND which cost me $5 per slide)!!!
A roll of art film can be $15-$75 just for 35 mm film… 120 film (medium format/ large format) can be even more. Some times one can luck out with a five pack for $55, depending on the film. The film slide film is usally $25+ per roll and there is some incredibly beautiful discontinued slide film is now $75-$125 per roll with an expiration date! My fridge doors are not packed with cheese or juice or butter but with endless rolls of film, the cheap stuff, the mid range and the criminally expensive. It’s vitally important to buy your film from credible sources. That’s why I tend to buy the film in person, from a few credible photography shops in the Boston area, who properly store their unexpired film in a film fridge.
So for this trip, the 11th to Italy (ahh, makes me think of Doctor Who!) – I spent a couple hundred dollars on the film, a couple hundred to develop the rolls and a few hundred more once they scan the velvia film slides onto CD.
I shot about a hundred pictures on digital but focused mainly on analog because I prefer the dreamlike, tonal quality and the color and beauty of these special films. It’s sad how incredibly costly it is to shoot with fine art film; it’s truly a dying art form. But there is still the drugstore deals on fujifilm and kodak (buy one 5 pack, get one free, etc) I collect in bulk because that film is great for every day shots and practice. But for Italy and for shoots where I’m looking to tell a story, I still rely on those rare gems: portra, velvia, etc.
neapolitans in spaccanapoli, portra 800, october 2013
As I return to writing and shooting and editing I’m thinking of arranging this into a book or extended project of my version of Off The Beaten Path Italy so I’m thinking of the tremendous cost as an investment. We’ll see.
I have a busy weekend but I’m going to get some pieces together soon and post some of the photographs here. I do post some of the stand alone shots on tumblr here.
a love letter to rome 