Bones Unknown, Bones Made Pretty, No Bones Broken

With temperatures continuing to hover near 100 degrees F, we determined to get an earlier start--if for no other reason than to try to see some of Rome in the cooler morning hours.  That sort of worked.  We managed to leave by 11, rather than our customary 12-12:30.  We immediately discovered that the tram still isn't working, for no known reason, so we took the bus to Piazza Venetzia to finish our tour of Italian history at the "Wedding Cake"--the giant white marble edifice in the center of Rome more properly known as the Vittorio or Altare della Patria, where we had left off yesterday, when it inexplicably closed one-half hour early the night before.  (When you live here for a while, you quickly find that opening and closing times are approximations, not hard and fast guides to be relied upon.) The most striking thing about the Vittorio, is the effect of fresh white marble on the eyes.  Its brilliance is simply indescribable, and when you wander around for a while, it literally hurts your eyes.  We wandered through the rather uninspiring military museum, which includes the altar to the unknown soldier, made our way to the top where we were astonished to come across a gorgeous basilica, Santa Maria in Aracoele, dating back around 1,000 years and built at the top of the Capitoline hill.  When the Vittorio was constructed, it was basically dug into what was the former hill and placed underneath the basilica.  It's a bit disconcerting to climb to the top of a 20th Century monument to discover 10th Century tombs!  We decided against the 4-euro elevator to the skybox with a view of Rome.  (You can see Rome from a number of other vantage points around the city, and we made our way to the Risorgimento museum, anticipating an educational opportunity for the girls about the creation of modern Italy.  Once there, however, in contrast to the free emigration museum in the same monument, we were confronted with an admission price--one that didn't quite seem worth the topic, so we turned away, a decision which parents only slightly regretted and one which met with whole-hearted approval from our girls!  After a quick stop at the tomb of the unknown soldier and the eternal flame which fronts the monument, where we paid respects, we went in search of a bus to take us to our next stop for us was the Capuchin Crypt.  Laura and I had been here before, and Laura wanted to see it again.  The best way to describe this particular tourist attraction is, "bizarre".   Legend has it that deep beneath a convent, monks were forced to hide out during the French Revolution.  Why monks being persecuted in France for loyalty to the church who had escaped to Rome would need to stay in hiding is never explained, but much Italian history overlooks the minor discrepancies. At any rate, they were supposedly hiding, and they were bored, so one of them began to rearrange the bones of the 3,600 people buried in the crypt below the church into a variety of art pieces.  When others saw this work, it was expanded with full approval of the convent, eventually allowing six rooms to be covered with scapulas, femurs, pelvic bones, vertebrae, skulls and all the other bones worked into flowers, chandeliers and other designs.  Installed between the art forms are the artfully hung, vertical bodies of decomposing monks wrapped in their habits, teaching, preaching and generally looking creepy.  Let's just say, the Crypt is Halloween on steroids.  Laura and Olivia loved it.  Cecily tolerated it.  Scott and Meredith would gladly skip it.  Our final stop of the day was the Villa Borghese--site of our previous zoo trip, where Cecily had identified a desire to ride one of the big bikes seating 5 people around the park.  We rented our bike and set off, with Laura screaming at us to slow down, avoid the hills and generally seeming to be in a constant state of terror as we mosied down the thoroughfares.  Too often, we ran into a dead end and laughed uproariously as we had to push the bicycle backwards in order to turn the clumsy thing around.  Cecily had a grand time, up to the moment when Laura got out to take a picture of her and inexplicably, she fell out of the back of the back of the bike, while not holding on.  Much screaming and weeping (on Cecily's and Mom's part) was done, but no permanent harm.  The whole thing was harrowing in its own special way, so imagine our surprise when Laura announced at the end of the day, "Except for Cecily getting hurt, I rather enjoyed that!"  Dinner at Ducati's--a restaurant themed around the Italian motorcycle.  It had an American theme to the menu, and we tried hamburgers, which were a far cry from American.  (Anybody ever have an egg on their hamburger?)  We actually would have preferred pizza and admired the breadth of choices--only to be informed that the pizza oven was closed for the day, just as the dinner hour started up.  Just another day in Italy, the land of "Il non fonctione."