My iPhone doesn’t record my walks in the absence of my Apple Watch so I’m using Map My Walk. It’s like Map My Run but doesn’t tell you you’re going too slow.

On my way, I saw the Wedding Cake:

It usually has the city’s Christmas tree in front but instead it has subway construction.

Also:

Church 1: The app tells me I walked 1 hour and 3 minutes to go 2.46 miles or almost 4 kilometres to go to San Giovanni in Laterano

The church is the Pope’s church in Rome since technically StPeter’s is in another country i.e. the Vatican. I visited the church with Allie in 2010 as part of our effort to see all the obelisks in Rome. This time I went to look at Borromini’s renovation to the interior.

Borromini was constrained by instructions not to change the floor, ceiling or apse. His radical design was not given full reign. His pillars, arches and niches contrast with the medieval mosaics in the apse.

The church is full of the coat of arms of different popes.

My feet needed to rest so I sat and sketched a bit.

Church 2: a short 12 minute walk away is San Clemente. To see the excavated levels, you need a reservation and ticket. The ground level current Basilica is free. But for the levels below, you enter according to the time of your reservation. No photos allowed in the subterranean levels.

The church has three levels. The lowest was the site of a pagan temple to Mithras and a small river continues to run down there. It’s believed this was the river Nero used to flood an artificial lake for games in the Colosseum. It damp and rather eerie at that level where you can hear and at points see the running water.

The second level has remains of a 4th century church. The structure of a nave and side aisles of a medieval church can be seen and there are fragments of frescoes including one that has one of the first works with written Italian, not Latin, inscribed.

The next church Allie and I tried to see in 2010. It has limited open hours.

Everyone was expelled from San Clemente at 12:30 so to occupy a couple of hours I went for lunch at La Taverna Fori Imperiali.

We ate here with Robin in 2007, Allie in 2010, Sidney in 2014.

Puntarelle is a winter vegetable always served torn into strips It’s a bit like celery so the anchovy dressing gives it flavour.

Puttanesca with homemade spaghetti

San Pietro in Vincoli refers to the chains that shackled Peter when he was imprisoned in Rome before he was crucified supposedly on the site of St. Peter’s Basilica. The chains look pretty good for something around 2000 years old.

The real reason to go is Michelangelo’s tomb for Pope Julius II. The tomb is far smaller than the original plan which was to have been in St Peter’s and the work as a whole doesn’t look unified but the star is clearly the Moses statue, which owes a lot to Donatello—not that Big Mike would ever say so.

Top left is a much earlier Donatello. What do you think?