Rome, Day 2

I left the hotel this morning feeling much more forgiving about Rome -- though I suppose my opinion was so low at that point it could only have gone up. The weather was clear and sunny, and I decided to walk to the Spanish Steps, taking in some of the churches along the way.

This madonna is on Santa Maria Maggiore, a church so huge it is actually marked on the map, like the Colosseum and the Forum and almost nothing else I actually wanted to see.




I'd noticed in Venice that almost all the beggars were women, as though the Italian men considered it beneath them. The same was true in Rome, where every church seemed to have a woman sitting at the door. This woman blew me a kiss when I gave her a euro.