Gelato

Most vacations I take usually include a food component, a quest to explore and consume as much as possible of some local specialty of wherever I happen to be in the short time I am away from home. Now you may ask, are you really going to "consume as much as possible"? The answer is yes, I really mean just that; I honestly want to eat meal after meal of local food, even if it means eating the same sorts of things every single meal of every single day. After all, I only have so much vacation time. Why waste it eating stuff I can get at home?

My recent trip to Italy was no exception to my food rule. I don't think this would come as a surprise to most people. Italian food is revered in the United States, perhaps too much sometimes in my opinion given the quality of Italian food we get here at home. There's a ton of good stuff in the Italian kitchen. Pasta, prosciutto, pizza, salami, olives, lardo, tomatoes, sopressata, squid, other cured pig products that I haven't already mentioned, basil, tiramisu. I wanted all of it in the nine days I was in country. As much as possible. Please.

If there is one food that kept coming up as a must have while I prepared for my time in Italy, it was gelato. Every guide book I read and every person I talked with that had spent time in Italy pretty much said the same thing: eat gelato because it's just amazing. Now I've never been much of an ice cream guy. Don't get me wrong, I love a scoop in some sort of dessert once every couple of months at a restaurant and I've been known to make a killer key lime pie, bourbon or rum raisin ice cream every now and then but if you open my freezer at any random time, chances are you will not find a tub of ice cream in there. But I was determined to find out what the fuss was about gelato just the same, so I made gelato my food quest for this vacation, vowing to my mom before I left that I intended to eat gelato at least once a day.

Before I get to what I found, maybe I should spend a few words on what gelato is. Plug the words "ice cream" into Google Translate and it will spit back the word "gelato." Indeed, gelato is actually the Italian word for ice cream. But there really is a difference between the two products that is worth understanding.

Start making some ice cream at home and you'll need some heavy cream, maybe some milk, some sugar and some egg yolks in addition to whatever flavoring you are shooting for. You'll need to make a custard and when the custard is cooled a bit, or if you have a better ice cream maker than I do, you'll need to churn the custard for a while at a fairly high speed to freeze it while breaking up the ice crystals that are forming as small as possible to literally intertwine the fat molecules from the cream with the ice. The result is a softish, smooth, creamy product that has grown a bit by adding air as the product has churned. For what it's worth, the USDA Standard for Ice Cream dated October 29, 1977 requires ice cream to have a minimum of 10 percent milkfat. That should start you thinking about working out right after you eat some.

The first step in making gelato also starts with making a custard, but instead of using a ton of heavy cream and egg yolks, you'll need a higher proportion of milk and maybe no yolks at all. Gelato is simply lower in fat than ice cream. While the USDA has no standard for gelato, most gelatos have between 4 and 8 percent fat content. If that seems not that much lower than the minimum 10 percent set by the USDA for ice cream, but remember the 10 percent is a minimum. Many ice creams have fat contents of 20 percent or higher. Now you are really thinking about working out after that scoop, right?

There's one more significant difference between ice cream and gelato. Gelato is generally churned at a lower speed than ice cream, which introduces less air into the product, meaning when you eat gelato, you get more flavor right away because you are tasting the product itself, not a bunch of air (or fat). Less air also means a higher freezing temperature. Ice cream is generally served at 10 degrees F. If gelato was served at that temperature it would be rock solid because of the lack of fat and air in the water heavy custard base. Gelato is therefore served at about 15 degrees warmer, yielding a smoother, softer sometimes gooier elastic treat with a much lower fat content.

So after all that science, let's get to the good stuff. Here's my blow by blow account of my Italian gelato experience from Rome to Venice.

White Chocolate Basil, Gelateria del Teatro, Rome

Go ahead and think it…what on Earth am I doing picking White Chocolate Basil gelato as my first foray into my Italian ice cream experience? Good question. I have no idea. It was not a good choice and if I had it to do all over again, I'd do it way differently.

I hit Gelateria del Teatro on my first day in Italy after seeing the Spanish Steps and on my way to stare at Castel Sant'Angelo from across the Tiber. It was, based on my research, the gelateria I was looking forward most to stopping by. It seemed to be rated very highly on every "best of" list from legitimate news and travel outlets to blog posts about gelato in Rome written by folks like me. I thought I couldn't go wrong with my flavor selection. I may have erred here. I can always blame it on the delirium of a few hours sleep in my coach seat on the way over to Europe from the United States  the night before.

If they had called this just Basil, I wouldn't have disagreed. I got a lot of herb on my palate throughout my quick experience at Gelateria del Teatro and almost no white chocolate. I was hoping for that almost cloyingly sweet cocoa butter taste to balance out the basil and it just wasn't there. Overall I found this gelato a little watery and lacking in richness. Not a good start.

Whiskey, Il Gelato di San Crispino, Rome

I know, I know. If I was disappointed in my first gelato selection as a non-traditional flavor, why would I do it again? Again, I'm not really sure. Although to be honest, I really wanted to compare this stuff to my own homemade bourbon ice cream, which is absolutely delicious.

Il Gelateria di San Crispino was the gelateria where Julia Roberts' character in Eat Pray Love found gelato nirvana. Or so I'm led to believe. I haven't actually seen the movie, mostly because I'm not really a Julia Roberts guy. I expected this place to be packed with wannabes trying to follow in her character's footsteps so I was grateful to find it almost completely empty after a day traipsing around town looking at 2,000 year old or so Roman ruins and my body in desperate need of a sweet treat.

This was a step up from Gelateria del Teatro, and not just because I picked a flavor closer to the mainstream than White Chocolate Basil. I found this scoop creamier and eggier than my first gelato experience, which was gratifying. I was getting a little nervous that the lack of fat would render most gelato thinner than I would have liked but my faith was restored a little here. I also got a nice hint of whiskey from the spoonfuls I shoved in my mouth. Not bad. My bourbon ice cream is better.

Dark Chocolate Grand Marnier, Gelateria dei Gracchi, Rome

What better way to follow a morning audience with the Pope and a trip to see early Christian catacombs than with a small tub of gelato? I couldn't think of one. So after running to catch the 660 bus at the south end of Via Appia Antica, I pulled out my Metro day pass (a bargain at seven Euros) and headed back towards St. Peter's Square and into Gelateria dei Gracchi.

Finally I think I'm on the right flavor track. This was the first chocolate gelato I tried and with one small exception, I never strayed much from that theme for the rest of my trip. This stuff was really good. The sinfulness and bitterness of the dark chocolate paired well with the orange flavor from the Grand Marnier and I got a delicious chunk of candied orange peel in one of my spoonfuls as a delicious bonus.

This was by far the best gelato I had in Rome. I appreciated the fact that the chocolate offset the thinness of the gelato mix but the fact that I still found this stuff a little watery concerned me. I left Rome with my confidence shaken but I was determined to persevere.

Chocolate Hazelnut, Vivoli, Florence

All the doubts I had about gelato from my experience in Rome were removed as soon as I shoved a spoonful of the only gelato I ate in Florence into my mouth. The gelato from Vivoli was without a doubt the best I had in Italy. I don't know if it was the right moment or I just chose the perfect flavor but this stuff was fantastic. It was noticeably runnier than all the other gelato we ate in Italy (just check the pictures). Maybe that had something to do with how good this was.

It was also far sweeter than all the gelato we ate in Rome which was an instant upgrade. The sugar took away any hint of wateriness that we found in Roman gelato and which had me worried until this point. The gelato was infused with small pieces of hazelnut which added some welcome texture and I even got a whole hazelnut in my small cup which was awesome. The chocolate was less aggressive than the dark chocolate gelato I got from Gelateria dei Gracchi which was not surprising and it was simply amazing paired with the hazelnut. Chocolate's definitely the way to go.

Caramel, La Bottega del Gelato, Pisa

Yes, I just wrote the words "chocolate's definitely the way to go" and then the very next day I get a non-chocolate gelato. I love caramel. I'd eat caramel in whatever form I could for dessert with every meal or just for snacks if I thought that was in any way healthy. So after climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa (an interesting experience walking alternately down backward leaning and forward leaning stairs) and finding caramel gelato at our selected gelateria, I couldn't pass it up.

Like the gelato I had at Vivoli, I found La Bottega's gelato pleasantly non-watery like the stuff we had in Rome. I thought the caramel flavor was a reasonable choice - it had a faint burnt flavor on the caramel which was not unwelcome - but chocolate would probably have been better. This stuff was sweet like the chocolate hazelnut I had in Florence, although not quite as sweet. Vivoli's was better in this regard.

Chocolate Hazelnut and Stracciatella, Gelateria Il Doge, Venice

In Rome, Florence and Pisa, I noticed people getting two different flavors of gelato in a single cup or cone but I resisted this temptation, preferring to sample a single flavor uncluttered by a rival. Something about purity was my reasoning I'm sure. That all changed in Venice, for no real reason other than I just felt like it. In Venice, I never ate a single flavor from any one gelateria.

My first taste of gelato in Venice came a couple of islands north of the Ponte Accademia on our first afternoon in town. Since chocolate hazelnut had worked so well for me in Florence, I decided to opt for that again and paired it with a stracciatella which is a white ice cream dotted with dark chocolate pieces.

This gelato was good. In fact, I'd say it was the second best I had in country, likely due to my growing preference (based on two tastings) for chocolate hazelnut. It was nowhere near as good as Vivoli; it was not as sweet and had no pieces of hazelnut in it. The stracciatella was a nice pairing. The gelato was clean, tasting pretty much like slightly sweetened milk and the chocolate chips provided a nice crunch. I'd go back for some more gelato here.

Chocolate and Peanut, Gelateria Alaska, Venice

Gelateria Alaska is located just a five minute or so walk from the Ponte degli Scalzi near the main rail station in Venice. The route to get there involves going over a couple of bridges (of course) then cutting down an alley under a building that is about five feet off the ground. Needless to say, ducking is required.

So the idea behind my choice of gelato flavors here was Reese's peanut butter cups in gelato form. Didn't work. Not even close. And I suppose that made my experience at Gelateria Alaska a poor one. Not connecting the reality with your expectations has a way of yielding that result.

The texture of the gelato here was good and the resulting flavor was not watery like we found at some other gelaterias. But the chocolate wasn't sweet enough and the peanut was neither sweet nor salty. I, of course, wanted a little bit of both. Overall, this experience was like eating slightly sweetened chocolate milk with an unsalted peanut in ice cream form to go along with it.

And just like that, my Italy trip was over. I know, there are only seven gelato reviews above when I told my mother I was going to eat gelato at least once a day for the nine days I was overseas. I couldn't make it. There were just two days where our schedule didn't allow even a small cup of gelato. Maybe it's just as well. Despite all that gelato eating, I managed to lose five pounds on my trip, although that had way more to do with the walking than the gelato. Maybe I'd be only down four if I'd had those extra couple that I missed.

As you can tell, my gelato experience varied in Italy. Some were fantastic, others I would never eat again. The above commentary is not intended to be a ranking of the best gelato in Italy or even the best top to bottom of where I ate gelato in Italy in April of 2015. It's just a narrative of what I ate. If I had picked a different flavor at Gelateria del Teatro or Vivoli, the lows and highs of my experience might be reversed. But I do know one thing: when in Italy, eat gelato. Some of this stuff was otherworldly good.

All Roads Lead To Rome

The civilization which would ultimately become Rome is generally acknowledged to have begun in the year 509 B.C., when a group of wealthy Romans led by Lucius Junius Brutus overthrew the last Roman king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (awesome name, by the way; if I ever become a king I'm adding Superbus to my name). That coup would establish the Roman Republic, a period of rule when Rome was generally governed by the Senate. The Republic would last until 27 B.C., when Gaius Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, consolidated power in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination some 17 years earlier and declared himself emperor, adopting the name Augustus Caesar in the process. Augustus' ascension marked the beginning of the Roman Empire, which would last until 476 A.D., when the Emperor Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate by the Germanic warlord Flavius Odoacer who then became the first King of Italy. Got that? Good.

Combine the Republic and the Empire and you end up with a civilization that lasted for almost 1,000 years and at its height extended over most of modern day western Europe, including into England; over to Turkey; into Syria and the middle east; and around the Mediterranean Sea to emcompass the shore of all of northern Africa. The great civilizations of Carthage, Greece and Egypt were all eventually integrated into Roman territory. It is estimated that at one time the number of people living under Roman rule represented between 15 and 25 percent of the total population of the planet. That's pretty impressive.

The Romans gained control over much of their territory quickly. Once the Republic was established, they wasted little time expanding their borders. A couple of hundred years into the Republic, Rome had all of present day Italy under control. Conflicts about 100 years after that over the governance of Sicily led the Romans into their two and a half wars with northern African power Carthage. When they were done defeating the Carthaginians, the Romans found themselves with a territory which stretched into Spain and across much of the Mediterranean Sea. The Republic, and later the Empire, would continue to grow until the middle of the second century A.D., after which time things began to get a little beyond their control.

The Romans were able to expand and control their territory for a pretty simple reason: they built really really good roads which allowed them to move their superior military hardware everywhere they wanted to either maintain control of what they owned or conquer the next city or tribe. At the peak of the Roman Empire, there were hundreds of roads and highways connecting all the various important parts of their territories. And they were built to last. Roman roads were not just a series of stones laid on top of the surface of the ground; they were engineered marvels, excavated first and backfilled with gravel (which could be compacted and stabilized) before the final top layer of flat paving stones. Their roads were built with camber which allowed rain water to drain into gutters and were typically laid out completely straight, connecting one spot to another in the most direct and simplest fashion possible. Very Roman!

One of the earliest major roads built by the Romans was the Appian Way, which connected Rome across the Italian peninsula to Brindisi in the southeast corner of the boot. Brindisi's location on the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Adriatic Sea was important for both trade and warfare and a direct route over land from Brindisi to Rome was extremely valuable. The initial construction of the road as a paved route for trade and troops was completed just before the turn of the third century B.C. Part of the same road is in place today within the modern city of Rome. This seemed like a can't miss opportunity to understand more about Rome's history.

There are a few ways to get to the Appian Way, or Via Appia Antica, which has now been converted to a sort of park with historical attractions on either side of the road. The most obvious is by car, but since I didn't have or want a car in Rome and didn't feel like paying for a cab, that option was out. Walking is always an option and God knows, I did plenty of that in Rome. But the sidewalks are so narrow along the Via Appia Antica that they actually turned the bus stop signs parallel (rather than perpendicular) to the direction of traffic (yes, the extra four inches or so makes a difference) so that didn't seem like a good idea either. So that left the bus.

I love taking the bus in Europe. They generally run on schedule; the scenery is typically gorgeous and there are lots of windows; it's a really cheap way to get around; and maps of the routes are usually available on line so you can plan how to get where before you arrive on the ground in your vacation destination. Plus there's something about taking the biggest form of motorized transportation possible to get around streets which rarely seem big enough to accommodate anything larger than the smallest Fiat without risking some sort of vehicular or bodily harm that is somehow thrilling. Thrilling that is unless there is actual vehicular or bodily harm, which (spoiler alert) there was thankfully none of on this trip.

My bus experience in Italy was typically European with a sort of Italian flair. There's no doubt they were cheap; the six Euro all day Metro pass is an incredible tourist value and it includes bus rides. There's also no doubt the place was gorgeous; ancient houses, Roman ruins and major tourist attractions are all visible from the buses that trail around the city. Things running on schedule, though, is a bit of a flexible concept in Italy; we generally found there was little sense of urgency to get to anything. Maybe that's a good thing sometimes but it took a bit of getting used to, especially when we had no idea what time the bus would really come.

My trip to the Via Appia Antica had two objectives: (1) to say I've stood on the same road that the Romans used about 2,300 years ago and (2) to learn more about Roman history by visiting some of the sights along the side of the road. I mean aren't vacations all about learning? I was especially excited to check out the Catacombs of San Sebastiano and the remains of the Villa of emperor Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius Augustus (also know simply as Maxentius) who ruled the Roman Empire from 306 to 312 A.D. It seemed like these two stops would provide a window into two uniquely Roman stories.

My journey that day started at the Piramide metro stop, where I planned to catch the 118 bus down the cobblestone road to the Via Appia Antica. Unfortunately, the Roman transit authority, ATAC, had changed the route just one day before we landed in Rome, forcing me to re-adjust and catch the bus on its new route from the east end of the Circus Maximus. The bus, which seemed to arrive unannounced on no schedule that made sense, didn't take long to show up and we happily were on our way.

I don't really know how to adequately describe the bus ride down the extremely tight Appian Way. This is quite possibly the tightest vehicle on a road experience I've ever had. There's no wonder the bus stop signs are turned parallel to the direction of traffic. There is so little space between the outside of the bus and the stone walls on which the signs are mounted onto or in front of. We wanted that extra four inches; we needed that extra four inches. The cobblestones, which I deduced toward the end of the day were not the original paving material, also made the ride unforgettable. They shook the bus in a way that is almost indescribable and without doubt extremely noisy. When I disembarked from the bus, I wasn't sure if the vibrations had given me a really good full body massage or had knocked a few teeth loose. Nonetheless, the ride was effective: it got us where we wanted to go quickly and cheaply. First stop: the Catacombs of San Sebastiano.

In the Church of San Sebastiano, with the arrow riddled statue of the saint's body in the background.

It is difficult to conceive of Christians in the western world as being victims of persecution, especially considering the history of the United States and western Europe over the last century or so where if there was any one religious group doing some persecuting, it was the Christians. But the early Christians, trying to practice their faith either openly or more usually in secret, indeed did have it rough in ancient Rome. Religious practices for Romans involved worship of and sacrifice to their own pantheon of gods during the Republic and that same pantheon of gods plus the emperor, who was granted semi-divine status, during the Empire. Anyone who didn't step in line with these practices was generally a target for some sort of punishment.

The Roman state's attitude towards Christians (and indeed other religious minorities such as Jews) varied over the approximately 500 years after the birth of Christ until the fall of the Empire. In stressful or difficult times, Christians were persecuted more than in peaceful or prosperous times. Similarly, some emperors were much more enthusiastic about the oppression of Christians than others.

Technically, practicing Christianity was a crime, and refusal to participate in the Roman religion was an act of treason punishable by death. More frequently, it was a specific event, like the fire of Rome, or person, like Nero who blamed the fire on the Christians and ordered them rounded up and killed, that drove persecution. The worst acts of anti-Christian violence seem to have occurred during the reign of Diocletian from 284 to 305 A.D. During this almost 20 long year period, Christians were targeted by the state in an institutionalized way. Homes were torn down, religious books burned and the people sometimes found themselves forced into gladiatorial combat, meaning pretty much just death by combat.

Most of the Christian persecution ended in the year 313 when the emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan decriminalizing Christian worship. As if to prove that he was really serious, Constantine punctuated that Edict by himself converting to Christianity. That's not to say that the mistreatment of Christians stopped entirely immediately, but the end was in sight. Given all that history, it's easy to understand why some Christian practices needed to happen in secret. Which brings us back to the Catacombs of San Sebastian.

Burial within the city limits of Rome was forbidden in the Roman Empire. Normally for Roman god or emperor worshippers, this wasn't a problem, as the Romans cremated their deceased. But Christians bury their dead so that they can arise after death and have everlasting life conferred upon them. Combine the prohibition on burials with the general illegality of their religious practices and you get what you can find halfway down the Via Appia Antica: underground secret Christian burial chambers.

A tour down into the Catacombs of San Sebastiano is sort of creepy. I mean, it's an underground cemetery where the bodies are entombed in graves that are about the thickness of a stone plaque away from being visible. It's also very impressive. There are a total of 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) of tunnels dug out of the tufa rock on three levels. Say what you want about the value of Christian beliefs, but if nothing else you have to admire the perseverance and persistence of the early Christians. What they accomplished despite risking harm to themselves up to an including death to preserve their burial beliefs is extremely impressive.

The half hour to 45 minute tour takes you through a fraction of the tunnels and gets you a glimpse of everything from the early Christian secret symbology (including the origin of the famous Jesus fish you can see on cars in abundance in certain communities south of the Mason-Dixon line and elsewhere) to underground mausoleums of wealthy Christian families erected within the underground passageways. I can't imagine what it must have been like to sneak inside this place and have it mean something so deep and personal like it did to the people who dug the tunnels by hand almost 2,000 years ago.

And apparently San Sebastiano was kind of a big deal. Our guide advertised him as the third most important Christian saint (after Paul and Peter) but he may have also been a little biased. Sebastiano was apparently martyred twice during the rule of Diocletian both for refusing to renounce Christianity. The first time he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows but miraculously survived; a few years later, he was clubbed to death and this time he didn't survive. I think the big deal part might be right. In the days following our visit to the Catacombs, we saw depictions of San Sebastiano a number of times, including at Florence's famous Ufizzi Gallery.

Just a little further down the road is the remains of the Villa of Maxentius. Maxentius ruled the Roman Empire right after Diocletian and ascended to the post in a sort of last man standing fashion. He was son of an emperor but was initially passed over for lack of any sort of military or governmental pedigree in favor of Diocletian. But when Diocletian abdicated, Maxentius was able to grab at least a share of the Empire for himself (apparently the northern part of Italy was ruled by another during Maxentius' few years as emperor). He was forced out after not doing a very good job.

While he may not have been the poster child for Roman emperors, Maxentius did manage to have a spectacular villa built for himself while he was head of the Roman Empire just a little ways down the road where Christians were defying official policies by practicing their religion. The Villa of Maxentius today looks not so much different than the many many ruins around the center of Rome: pretty well built walls of brick standing impressively in place after 1,800 years. The size of the place seems big today; it must have seemed enormous in his time.

But the real attraction for me was the remains of the circus he had built for himself next to his house. Apparently the Circus Maximus near the Palatine Hill wasn't enough for Maxentius. He definitely wanted his own private chariot racing track. So, being emperor, he got one. Despite its mostly ruined or almost gone appearance, I found a visit to the Circus of Maxentius extremely valuable, especially after walking through the Circus Maximus the day before, which is difficult to recognize as any sort of ancient speedway especially with the last of the stands concealed behind graffiti covered plywood barriers. Today, the Circus of Maxentius is the best preserved Roman circus in existence.

The circus is aligned along an east-west axis with what appears to be the ruins of two towers at the west end (photo above). A little further to the east is the track itself, today covered in overgrown grass, daisies and buttercups but worth a stroll out to the point where the chariots turned around on their laps around the circuit. It's amazing that the thing has survived to this date but being on the track, I could just imagine the power and excitement of chariots racing each other around this thing, being pulled by horses driven to their limit to pull their loads around the track. While it was nowhere near as impressive as the Colosseum we visited the day before, being on the playing surface itself was actually more thrilling. Combine that with the fact that there were about four other people there with us as opposed to hundreds in the Colosseum and I'm counting the Circus of Maxentius as one of my favorite Roman memories.

The remains of the Circus of Maxentius.

Despite having been underground to see the remains of the dead (or at least their tombs) and walked around the Circus of Maxentius, I still hadn't seen the road I'd hoped to have seen on the Via Appia Antica. The cobblestones our bus barreled down the narrow alley that got us to the Catacombs of San Sebastiano can't possibly be the original surfacing material for the original Roman road. They were uncomfortable riding over them on a bus. They also caused my feet some pain having walked the better part of 48 miles (not a typo) in my four days in Rome. No way were these things the surface that vehicles moved over before Christ was born.

Turns out, I don't think they were. Towards the southwest end of the road, it finally turned to a surface of larger flatter stones which were far more pleasant to walk over and which we also found in our time walking around the Roman Forum the day before. I'm convinced this end of the road represented the original paving surface of the Via Appia Antica and can imagine Julius Caesar himself riding down this road chasing his rival Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus from the capital after naming himself emperor. I can finally say I stood where Caesar rode and that makes me happy.

If you know differently, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I came. I saw. I ran for the 660 bus at the end of the Via Appia Antica with a hankering for some gelato and I knew the bus would get me closer to what I wanted. I feel this was important for me to do and I'm glad I did it.

What I believe is a portion of the original Appian Way. Don't tell me if I'm wrong.

The Pantheon

Easter Sunday 2015. Rome. Day one of my Italian vacation. Or perhaps more accurately day half, since we arrived at Rome's airport just before 2:30 p.m. From there our day really became a half day as it took another couple of hours before we made it downtown via the awesomely named Leonardo Express train to our monastery hotel where the dude at the reception desk kept calling me "lord." Made me feel like I was on Game of Thrones for a while there without the risk of dying which comes with being a character on the show.

My expectations for the first (partial) day of any European vacation are pretty low. Think about it. The day before, I've dragged my stuff out about 20 miles to Dulles Airport; sat around for a couple of hours at the gate or (if I'm lucky) in the United lounge drinking Coors Light (unlucky but the only free beer); boarded a plane anywhere between about 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.; ate whatever the airline is serving for dinner; and then spent the rest of the flight sitting mostly upright in coach while trying to get anywhere between three and five hours of not good sleep. The result when I land is a struggle to stay awake until 9 p.m. or so before crashing hard and waking up at a reasonable time the next morning mostly non-jet lagged.

Understandably then, the first day in any city on the other side of the Atlantic is spent getting the general lay of the land, seeing a few minor sights, grabbing a bit to eat and then getting to sleep. Nothing overly complicated that requires a lot of figuring out. The plan for Rome was no exception. I mapped out a route that would get me a general view of the city and a few somewhat important sites (with a stop for some gelato) before making our way back to Piazza Barberini and our hotel.

But something unexpected happened on my first day in Italy. On our way from Piazza Navona to Trajan's Column, we wandered through Piazza della Rotonda and saw the Pantheon for the first time. Now I've seen a lot of great architecture in my time which has brought out emotional responses anywhere from giddiness (Glasgow School of Art, 1997) to reverence (Auguste Perret's Apartments on the Rue Franklin, 1994) but it's been a while since I just stopped in my tracks and stared at a building and had the view just fill me with awe. I got it last month in Rome when I entered Piazza della Rotonda and looked south.

One of the reasons I was most excited to get to Rome was to see the ancient Roman buildings and ruins. I should mention that the Romans were not particularly sensitive architects but that wasn't the point for me. They took a kit of parts perfected by the Greeks, adopted it wholesale without fully understanding it and started using it with a sort of reckless abandon, taking a refined sophisticated vocabulary and making it accessible to everyone, even if the results were not quite as elegant as the original versions. I guess you could say they were their generation's Samsung to the Greeks' Apple. It's not an iPhone, but the screen is way bigger; who cares if it doesn't fit in your pocket?

But their influence on the history of architecture, and the Renaissance in particular, is undeniable. It's easy to not understand just how important the Renaissance was without having ever visited Italy. It was a time when for hundreds of years the whole continent of Europe decided to just abandon learning, science and progress and just wing it. And then all of a sudden in modern day Italy people decided that they needed more than they'd been putting up with for the last few centuries and decided to make a conscious effort to change. I'm sure it wasn't that simple but honestly that's about the substance of it. And visiting Italy really drives the point home.

For most folks in Europe in the years preceding the middle of the fifteenth century, there was little to turn to for inspiration or to teach them how to be better than the middle ages. But in Italy, at least in the field of architecture, there were the Romans. Sure Rome had been mostly destroyed about a millennium beforehand by invading hordes of people anxious to obliterate all memory of the entire civilization but if the Romans got one thing right about architecture it's that they built well. These things have lasted so well that proportion and use of language can be gleaned from what's left. And they built a ton. The remains of Rome are everywhere.

And maybe that's the problem for the 21st century tourist. Or maybe just me. There was so much to see that I was not generally awed by what I found in Rome. The Baths of Caracalla are impressive in their size and what's still standing and you can get a good idea of how impressive they were in their day but ultimately, you end up looking at unfaced brick walls. The Forum is huge and difficult to really understand in a quick visit because the remains of some buildings are so fractional and what's there, even for a single building, seems to represent what was over several different eras. Other sites, like Trajan's Market and the Circus Maximus, almost made we wonder if everything really was worth saving. Maybe the archaeological value outweighs the architectural value.

Even the Colosseum, which is largely intact and occupied a hugely important role in the history of sport in urban settings, was underwhelming. While the north façade is just amazing and it clearly must have been a sight to behold on event day (the events we are talking about here are generally people killing each other or animals or vice versa), the ruins of the place only took a little while to explore and I didn't get a really good impression of how spectacular it must have been. Maybe I'm jaded by spending too much time in modern stadiums. While I was more impressed with the Colosseum than some of the other sites in Rome, I left feeling a little let down.

The Pantheon was different. And by different, I mean better. When I first walked into the Piazza della Rotonda on Easter Sunday, the building wasn't open. There's not a whole lot that is open on Easter Sunday in Rome. So I knew I'd have to go back to explore it later in the week.

The Pantheon dates from the second century A.D. and the time of the emperor Hadrian, who ruled Rome between the years of 117 to 138. Today, there's some debate about the building's architect and purpose. For a while, the building was thought to have been commissioned and erected by Marcus Agrippa, a friend and advisor to the emperor Augustus; the pediment of the building does, after all, bear his name. But it is now thought that Agrippa's name is on the front of the current Pantheon because parts of the building were salvaged from another older building and the Romans just couldn't care less about that part. Remember what I wrote about them being not so sensitive builders earlier in this post.

The building was erected as a temple to all gods, meaning all Roman gods, not the outlawed God that Christians started worshipping around the B.C./A.D. transition. Because of its function as a house of worship, first for the Romans but later when it was converted to a Christian church, the Pantheon is remarkably well preserved. The difference in the condition of the Pantheon vs. all other Roman buildings we saw in Rome was astonishing and that's probably part of the reason why it, and not any other building in Rome, is the subject of this post.

Viewed from the north edge of the Piazza della Rotonda, the Pantheon is striking. It's presence dominates the Piazza even though the square slopes from north to south and the building sits at the low end. The Pantheon appears at first sight as a large brick cylinder with a domed roof fronted by a pediment supported by eight Corinthian columns tacked onto the front of the drum. It's well proportioned and it fills the south end of the plaza well.

But as impressive as the building is from the outside, that's not what stopped me in my tracks on Easter Sunday the first day I was in Rome. This place is a spatial and engineering marvel. Cut a section through the building and draw a circle over that section with the top of the circle fitting into the arc of the dome and you'll find the Pantheon is designed to exactly fit a circle 43.3 meters in diameter. Cut a section the other way and you'll find the same thing, meaning the building is designed to hold an imaginary sphere. There aren't too many other buildings out there that can do this and the effect is pretty stunning.

43.3 meters is equivalent to about 142 feet. That's a big span for a building today but in the second century A.D. that was enormous considering the material typically used to frame roofs and floors in buildings was wood. No way are you going to get wood to span 142 feet unsupported without a composite, really really deep member. To build the roof of the Pantheon, the architect or architects or whoever the decision maker was turned to concrete, a technology invented by the Romans and only really resurrected by man a couple of hundred years ago, which gives you an indication of how sophisticated the Romans were.

The resultant dome is a coffered concrete span ranging in depth from 21 feet to 4 feet. When it was built it was the largest dome in the world. 1,300 years later, it was still the largest dome in the world. Only when the dome of Santa Maria della Fiore was completed in 1436 in Florence did the Pantheon cede the largest dome in the world title. That's pretty impressive. It is still today the sixth largest dome in Europe and the largest ever erected using unreinforced concrete, a record not likely to ever be broken since nobody builds with unreinforced concrete any more.

How many people can fit into the Pantheon?

So after gazing in awe at the building the first day I was in town and doing the same thing a couple of days later when the place was open, it was time to go inside. The building today is still a Christian church but honestly that's not why I visited or why most people stream into the place daily. It's difficult even to remember that it's a church, although the entire throng of people were shushed officially the day we were there for making too much noise.

A lot is the answer.

The reason most people visit this place is because of the Romans. Even if you don't care about the engineering feat that this building represents, you should go anyway. It is the best preserved Roman building in the city. Visiting the ruins of Rome it is easy to envision the whole place as a monochrome city, letting the natural materials used to construct the buildings speak for themselves. The Pantheon presents things as they truly were, from the painted walls to the spectacular multicolored marble floors. You don't get the true picture of how colorful the building is from the outside because it's definitely been pillaged over the centuries. The interior is different. Just ignore the Christian stuff in there and you'll be back in ancient Rome.

I'd love to be in the Pantheon when it was empty or close to empty. Rome is packed with tourists and the Pantheon was no exception. I'd love to be able to take it all in unencumbered by people taking selfies of themselves and their friends. But wait long enough and you'll get glimpses of what you want to see and the coffered dome with the oculus at its peak open to the heavens is as awesome as I imagined it. There's a little artificial light in the place but most of the illumination comes from what looks like the tiny opening at the top of the dome (it's actually about 30 feet in diameter). And it's quite bright, or at least it was on the sunny day we were there. This fact only added to the brilliance of the place.

I knew I admired the Pantheon before I visited Rome. I never really cared for Greek or Roman architecture or what the Italian Renaissance architects made out of the language they borrowed from those two civilizations. To me, the Pantheon always stood out as a building with more meaning than just a brick and stone place with a columniated front which was what most Greek, Roman and Renaissance buildings represented to me. The Pantheon was man's attempt to get the most of the available building materials using engineering to push the envelope and build ever greater. It did not disappoint in person. In fact, it was better than I imagined. As disappointed as I was in all the other Roman buildings and ruins we saw in Italy, the Pantheon made up for them all.

The fantastic multicolored marble floor of the Pantheon; the holes are to drain the water that gets into the place when it rains.