Picnicker's guide to Rome.

Yeah. Don't picnic in Rome. There's nowhere to sit. I walked for six hours straight, not from curiosity, but from lack of oases. (Gonna have to kill these shoes when I get back to the states.) But then the good thing about Rome is, you turn any corner, there's another extraordinary face in the stone. Extraordinary or terrible or sorrowful. It's a city of adjectives embodied in concrete. My best wandering took me up Aventine Hill, on a windy road through mansions. Look through the odd keyhole at the gates of the Knights of Malta. It's hokey, but you gotta do it, if only to eavesdrop on the other Americans in the queue. The view through the keyhole is adorable. The conversation enchanting. Then, to deschmaltz, go visit Saint Anselmo church, and if you can, peek through the door to the right of the altar, for a real backdoor look at Rome, because there's the church garden (which I think was private) that looks out directly to the Vatican, and there might be a cleric pruning an orange tree. Next door to Saint Anselmo is a narrow park with an unexplained rock formation fountain that I think must have been something ancient and important, because it was just a heap of stone that looked more geological than architectural. Before the heap, see the heartbreaking sculpture of Joan of Arc, who sleeps upright with her sword for a pillow. But my favorite church in all of Rome (though I only saw 20 out of the thousands) is Santa Sabina, which has nearly nothing in it, except a perfect floor, a perfect ceiling, and a very tall candle. It's a church made in the tradition of the Roman forums that preceded all that decorated stuff in the Baroque Quarter. It is tall and solemn and makes you understand the word ancient. There's a crazy bearded pagan face as big as an umbrella doing a waterspout outside Santa Sabina on a wall that borders a public orange grove that looks on all the other hills and the Vatican from a little terrace anybody can bring their picnic to, and so I did, but the oranges were terrible, don't steal them - not worth it - but I found my picnic there after visiting Shelley's grave, which I am going to write about but have to work my way up to it. So tomorrow.