Galleria Borghese

Young Woman with a Unicorn, Raphael

While planning our time in Rome, Jeannie said she mostly wanted time for random wandering.  So the only scheduled activity for Wednesday afternoon through Saturday morning was a visit to the Galleria Borghese.  Only 300 are allowed to enter every two hours.  It is typically "sold out" two or three days in advance.

Begun as a very personal collection of classical art by an early 17th Century member of the Borghese family, the Galleria became a fabulous set piece of artistic excellence. The collection can be "read" as a narrative with certain themes extending from the classical, to the renaissance and enlightenment eras.  There are some extraordinary individual pieces, such as the Raphael above and several Bernini sculptures.  But it is the wholeness of the collection situated in a jewel-box of a building that wows!

We were scheduled for the Borghese from 11:00-1:00.  Afterwards we strolled to the Piazza del Popolo and then down the Via Margutta, stopping for lunch about 2:00.  Mostly we have made lunch our main meal.  Here's Jeannie at lunch.  I think you can tell she was very satisfied with her spaghetti with mint and cheese.

After lunch we window-shopped and shopped for gifts to bring back and talked about how we need to plant some zinnias in the garden, get an orange tree for the deck, and otherwise bring a bit of Italy to the Blue Ridge mountains.

Instead of dinner we stopped in a grocery store for olives and cheese.  The hotel had given us a bottle of wine when we checked in and we had some bread left from lunch.  Our room is featured on the Boscolo website (look for pink and gray striped wall paper, white marble floors and white furniture). But the best feature is a wrap-around terrace with a table and two chairs, two chaise lounges and lots of room.  Sitting on the terrace on a warm May evening with the swallows flitting above us was a very nice way to end the day.