My taxi careened past the area where always before, a shepherd, his son and his shaggy dog had watched over a herd of plodding sheep and gamboling lambs. They were gone, replaced by a manufacturing plant, surrounded by the same emerald green field. Their absence created a twinge of apprehension. "You can't go home again," a phrase sadly whispered in my mind.

In the city, the centuries' old earth colors of Rome were brighter now. The Coloseum, the Forum Romanum, every monument, office-apartment building and wall had been cleansed of hundreds of years of dust. The ochre and fawn and yellows of the buildings gleamed brightly in the Roman sunlight.

To my relief, not much else seemed different.

Immediately after checking in to the hotel, I went to change travelers' checks to Euros. I stared at the little bronze plague on the front of the bank. "Founded in 1472," it said. Twenty years before old Christoforo discovered America, I thought. Makes Savannah's 18th and 19th Century buildings look like upstarts.

Armed with funds, I navigated the narrow streets surrounding the Termini (train station) near my hotel and pondered where to go, what to see, how much to cram in to my all too brief 8 days here. I stopped for a cafe latte and a cornetto (the Italian version of a croissant) at a local bar (the bars in Italy all serve coffee, light snacks and wine, beer and liquor. Then I wandered off to browse the streets and shops, to people watch, to immerse myself in the sights, the smells and sounds of Rome. All thoughts of American planning and scheduling and cramming-in simply vanished into the lambent light of late autumn sunshine.

At Santa Maria Maggiore I remembered an old tale about this imposing, mosaic-filled church. On a hot August day in the 4th Century, snow fell on the Esquiline Hill as a sign from the Virgin Mary to an old nobleman to build the largest church in Rome.

With the highest bell tower in all Rome, this church has been a work in progress nearly ever since, and houses a magnificent array of mosaics.

--- all following photos by J. Star

Entering the church, everyone is awed by the incredible coffered ceiling, gilded, it is believed, with the first gold sent from the New World. This breathtaking ceiling is bordered with 5th Century mosaics, which portray the lives of Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Everywhere in the church, there is intricate decoration, brilliant color, gold and stained glass and marble. At the rear, to the right of the high altar, is the tomb of Cardinal Consalvo Rodriguez, who died in 1299. The intricate inlaid marble is the work of Giovanni di Cosma.

Some scholars believe the church was probably built on the ruins of a building of the first century or earlier, a temple to Juno Lucina, a mother goddess much revered by Roman women.

When I was first in Rome, someone told me you could see the city in a day, if you tried, but if you stayed longer than a week, it would take you a lifetime to see it all. As it turned out, I hung around in Italy, in Rome and other places, for nearly 10 years and never did get to see it all. I don't believe I ever will, unless I get as many lifetimes as Rome has lived.

So replete with sensory treasures is this city of seven (now very small) hills, down every side street, in every nook and cranny and through every courtyard gate in Rome that you can easily spend a month or a year simply perusing one piazza and the spiking narrow streets that radiate from it.

Piazza da Spagna, dominated by the majestic double staircase that leads from the church of Trinita dei Monti at the top of the Pincio Hill, down to the piazza and the small but lovely, baroque Fontana della Barcaccia (fountain of the rotten boat), has been a magnet for foreigners since the stairs were built in the 1720's. Narrow, curving side streets jut out from the piazza, housing, in shop after magnificent shop, nearly every major name in high fashion -- Gucci, Valentino, Ferragamo.

Until about a decade ago, it was primarily the famous Via Condotti that hosted the world of haute couture. Most of the other narrow streets skittering off the piazza housed delightfully unique, inexpensive fashions, but they've been supplanted by the world of ultra. Cafes and wine bars, ristorante and gourmet food shops proliferate too. It is a wonderful place to people watch and window shop, but is not a spot for even the most minimally budget-minded to shop, eat or drink. I headed south.

My favorite, the Piazza Navonna, flanked by outdoor cafes and a 17th Century church, is as it has been for centuries; meeting place of intellectuals and avant garde, movie stars and moguls, tourists, students, locals, girls and the guys who pursue them.

Legend bathes this piazza where the gladiators once fought. In the center sits Bernini's exquisite sculpture, the Fountain of the Rivers, with the huge allegorical figures of the Nile, the Ganges, the Danube and the Rio de la Plata. The figure of the Nile covers his face, it is said, shielding himself from the horrors of the facade of the church he faces, which was built by Bernini's rival, Boromini. The Rio de la Plata holds up his hand as if to prevent the church from falling upon him.

From the piazza jut streets built not even for horse-drawn carriages, but mostly for the width of a single horse or mule and cart. The streets are lined with tiny shops carrying every imaginable kind of ware, and dotted with small trattories serving mouth-watering feasts at half the price of the piazza's glamorized cafes.

Dining is a Roman passion and, as has always been the case, it is difficult to find a bad bite of food. However, though the quality has not waned, prices have skyrocketed. Time was, it was cheaper to eat out than in. No more. If you eat like the Romans eat (and who wouldn't want to?), you'll start with an antipasto (appetizer), then a primo (first course, usually pasta), then a secondo, or main course, of meat or fish or poultry, followed by a salad, then a bit of cheese, an espresso and perhaps a dolce (dessert), always accompanied by at least a litre of wine for two people. A bit less, but not much, than you would spend in Savannah.

Unless you are a true and passionate connoisseur, there is little reason to order anything but the house wines, which are universally lovely, especially the local, white Frascati, a great wine which simply does not travel, not even to neighboring Northern Italian cities, much less the United States.

Wherever you wander, there are piazzas, overflowing with people, and alive with the symphony of voices and cars and scooters, of buses and singers, and children.

Having lived in the tranquility and quiet of Savannah for eight years, I marveled at the orchestral sounds of traffic here, and at the speed with which vehicles flash and whiz and careen through the tiny streets and piazzas. Amazingly, I never saw so much as a fender bender, and looking at the sleek well cared for autos, I never saw evidence of one. I can only conclude that Romans are among the world's most skillful drivers.

That sound blares loudest, I think, at the Piazza del Popolo, named for the people of the city who drove the evil spirits away from where Nero fiddled. On one side is the hillside fountain of the Pincio; on the other, cafe tables and chairs tilt like corks on a sea of cobblestones. Waiters race back and forth across this sea, while Maseratis and Ferraris, Fiats and Mercedes and scooters, swoop and dart around the cacophony of shrieks and greetings and bodies try to squeeze into ridiculously small tables for two.

The most voluptuous piazza in Rome is Santa Maria in Trastevere , especially at night, when the moon shines on the first church consecrated in Rome, built in the 4th Century, soon after Constantine accepted Christianity. The people of Trastevere, which literally means "across the Tiber", traditionally claim to be direct descendents of the heroes who defended the city from the Etruscans in pre-Christian times.

The Piazza di Trevi is home, of course, to the Fontana di Trevi: The fountain, (named for the three streets, tre vie, that lead into it) built in 1732, is centered by a figure of Neptune or Oceanus. In front, are two tritons by Pietro Bracci, created a bit later.

Some say the custom of tossing in coins to insure a return began with a Pope who wanted to pass on his papacy to a nephew. The rest of the order wanted the papacy to go to another, more deserving, young man. The Pope had the rival thrown into a dungeon to die.

The young man's mother begged the Pope to spare her son. He agreed, on one condition: that she fill the fountain with gold coins and dedicate it to him. She did, and her son, who presumably had died in the dungeon during the years it took her to fill the fountain, miraculously came back to life.

To the Roman away from home, or to those of us to whom Rome is the home in our hearts, returning to the Eternal City can be like returning from the grave, and it is this return that is insured by throwing that coin into the Trevi fountain. Needless to say, my own coin joined the hundreds of others that boistrous November afternoon. --- CS

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