Little Easter

Pasquetta (literally little Easter) or Easter Monday is a day to be spent in company and traditionally outdoors with a picnic lunch. This, in a nation who in the summer will send their offspring to the beach with pasta for lunch, is no small under-taking.

It also involves no small amount of rubbish which the day after Pasquetta the gulls, crows and pigeons take great delight in strewing even further afield than the humans have left them. 

A walk in the park when I lived in Monteverde, in Villa Pamphili, the day after Pasquetta, was an olfactory and gustatory delight for my dog but a nightmare of flying food wrappers and pizza crusts left in situ.The very large bin containers that had been dragged into the park on city council orders to accomodate the extra rubbish, had been ignored. 

Last year was a DVDs only type of Easter Monday, relentless rain and people commenting: "just like where you're from." But this year it's bright and sunny which means getting out soon to avoid the crowds.

I head to the Caffarella, a large park off the Appia Antica. We pass the church of Quo Vadis (not named after the film!) but so-called because this is where Saint Peter met Jesus while Peter was fleeing persecution in Rome. According to legend, Peter asked Jesus: Lord, where are you going? (Domine quo vadis?) And Jesus replied, "I'm going to Rome to be crucified again." Ella decides this is as good a place as any other to have a dump. She would. She's a dog. 

I pick up after her and realise there isn't anywhere to dispose of the offending parcel. None of the unattractive bruised dumpsters that adorn the roads of Rome are visible.I walk down Via della Caffarella and notice that I am not the first person to have faced the problem. Bright pink, red or orange plastic poo bags have been abandoned on walls, at the foot of trees, in gutters. I sigh. I place the bag in my pocket and hope to come across a bin. In the meantime I shall have to brave on with the whiff of 'Ella number 2' about my person.

I enter the park and get over taken by joggers and cyclists. Romans ride their bikes as they drive their cars so as a pedestrian one needs extra ears and quick reflexes as they will weave semi-expertly in and out and round about. 

I pass an animal farm solely set up for the purpose of letting city kids see farm animals behind the safety of a high fence. Next to me a mother is pointing out a pig to her daughter: "Look, there's Papa Pig, like in the cartoon." And what works for city kids, works for city dogs. Ella is glued to the fence. She gets to see her first chicken, duck, goose and pig. She can't get enough of it. I have to drag her away.


I pass the entrance to the cenotaph of Annia Regilla, a noble Roman woman who was murdered in Greece  in 160AD. The archaeological site is open so I go in.

Two elderly women are seated at one of the picnic trees beneath a pollen shedding tree. I overhear one on the phone: "Yes. I've brought some salami and some cheese. What are you bringing?" I can only imagine that they are waiting for family to start the Pasquetta picnic. I divest myself of 'Ella number 2.'

 There are many streams in the park. And many notices warning people not to bathe in or drink the water.

 

However some dogs are having a merry romp. I arrive at the Ninfeo Egeria - all mossy waters and a suggestive alcove with the remains of a statue. But it is the flock of sheep in the neighbouring field that catch my attention. 

We climb up the hill, past the sacred wood and look down onto the Colombarium of Constantine, not a dovecot but a building which had once been used to keep the ahes of the deceased. 

Further up the hill I pass an ancient Roman cistern amid a field of small yellow flowers. More people are arriving, table cloths are being laid down, large hampers and baskets opened. It's getting hot and Ella is tired.