We landed at Leonardo Da Vinci Airport on a Wednesday morning, and on the bus to Rome, we had the opportunity to see the Italian countryside. Umbrella pines, lined up like centurions atop rugged - yet rolling - hills, gave shade to flocks of sheep peacefully grazing in the morning fog. Halfway up a hill, a man and his donkey sauntered. No one seemed to be in a hurry.

Our guide on the bus informed us that gas is around ten bucks a gallon in Italy, and many Romans have taken to using mass transit. Still, the traffic in Rome is a kind of free-for-all, with motor scooters battling it out for dominance in the car lanes with smart cars and other assorted compacts. "Be careful crossing the streets; Romans consider traffic lights to be merely suggestions," we were told.

The four-story, thirty-six room hotel we were booked into was the Hotel Dei Consoli, located on a side street – Via Varrone - off a main thoroughfare, Via Crescenzio. Two blocks east of the Vatican, “Dei Consoli” translates as “the comfort of God”; obviously not a good place to have an assignation.

The bus was unable to make the turn onto the Via Varrone, so we unboarded at the nearest corner, while two bellboys ran back and forth on the sidewalk, hauling everyone’s luggage from the bus to the hotel. Our room was small and cozy. While waiting for our luggage to arrive, I tuned on the television. There was Woody Woodpecker causing chaos. He sounds really evil, dubbed with a German voice.

Our luggage took its time, so we joined our friends – two other couples – on the via outside our hotel. Fred and Carrie, Jim and Belinda and my wife and I went for lunch at a nearby sidewalk pizzeria. No matter where we stopped for lunch or dinner in Rome, the food was always delicious. We quickly got used to having red wine with all our meals – except breakfast – and ending them with cappuccino.

Rome is full of sidewalk drinking fountains. Standing about three or four feet tall and one foot by one foot square, their side faucets eternally spout water into catch basins. The faucets are simple eight-inch long pipes, slightly bent downward, with a small hole drilled in the top. The trick is to place your finger over the mouth of the spout, in effect corking it and forcing the water to geyser out of the top hole and into your mouth.

After lunch, we decided to visit the Castel Sant’Angelo. We learned very quickly that myth and legend exist in Italy right alongside history and culture. It’s impossible to tell the difference, sometimes, because the boundaries between them are often blurred. It’s hard to find a city or town that doesn’t have its own patron saint or religious miracle.

For example, we have the Castel Sant’Angelo, perched on the banks of the Tiber. It was originally the mausoleum of the emperor Hadrian and his family. After absorbing the historic atmosphere of turrets, dungeons, and giant crossbows, one can then step out onto the top of the Castel to see a statue of St. Michael, the Archangel, who reportedly appeared there and unsheathed his word to herald the end of a Renaissance plague. In between, the Castel had also been a fortress for a pope, and is now a museum.

The top of the Castel is also famous for its spectacular views of Rome. Most buildings are not more than ten stories high there, and the sky is as much a part of the cityscapes as the architecture is. Fluffy white clouds are frescoed into the moist, blue Italian sky, and slowly change form, as if worked by an unseen brush. Beneath it, the rooftops of Rome sit placidly as they have for centuries, with the occasional basilica’s dome sticking halfway out, like a bud on a tree. Even the television antennas and satellite dishes blend in naturally, somehow.

That evening at sunset - tired from walking and jet lag, and overwhelmed with Rome herself - we retired to the terrace of our hotel for red wine and cheese before dinner, and to watch the lights wink on, as the city opened her arms to us.

Next morning, which was Thursday, we six gathered with thirty-five more of our traveling companions in front of the hotel for our tour of the Vatican. The bus was on the corner, we all climbed aboard, and we drove two blocks east, turned right and went one block north.

We then went four blocks west before turning right and going one block where we got off near the southeast corner of the Vatican wall. We were two blocks from our hotel. So we had driven eight blocks, to avoid walking two blocks. Even so, we still had to walk a block from the bus to the Vatican entrance. In Rome – and certain parts of New Jersey - this makes perfect sense.

“Quick!” said our guide when the bus stopped. “Everyone off before a policeman sees the bus! We’re not supposed to stop here!” She was a charming young lady who also warned us about Roman drivers. “Be careful in the morning traffic! To Romans, the lines on the road are merely decorations.”

That was true. Cars kept beeping and whizzing through the intersection like June bugs, amidst scads of motor scooters that swarmed like bumblebees. The stop-lights made very ineffective bug zappers; the traffic never seemed to stop. Finally, we were able to cross the street.

The Vatican is located in the northwest part of the city. It’s surrounded by a wall at least three stories high; during the Renaissance, it could have held off an army. The Pope, spiritual leader of the world’s Catholics lives here. It’s also the cradle for a large collection of art accumulated over the centuries. Going through the Vatican Museum, one can see paintings, statues, frescoes, and tapestries dating back centuries; it is literally like taking a walk through the past.

When we first entered Vatican City, we had to step through metal detectors. We were going into another country. We went though a few rooms with artwork, and quickly stepped outside, into a wide courtyard, surrounded on all sides by more buildings with columns. In the center was a large bronze sculpture of a ball, cracked with gears and wires breaking through. It was beautifully done. Our guides described it as representing the world being taken over and dehumanized by technology. As it looked like it had been put together in some sort of foundry, I was skeptical about its message.

The November Italian sunshine was cheerful and warm as our guide led us through a series of signs explaining how the Sistine Chapel had come to be built, and how Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni had come to paint the ceiling. This seemed to be Michelangelo’s own “stations of the cross” - considering his angry temperament, and his adversarial relationship with the Pope, and all the physical aggravation he had to endure to get the ceiling done.

(Continued next week.)

(Author's note: Cotillion Squared will go dark after installment 88.)