Playing to an Audience of One!

Playing to an Audience of One! Showing my age here, I think it was the title of a David Soul song (he of ancient Starsky and Hutch fame!) it could have been the title of my sketching at the Colosseum in September. Yes, having moaned on about not getting away this year, a window of opportunity opened for a couple of days in the Eternal city. Having been several times before, I like the leisurely feel of not having to zoom around trying to take in all the sights. On my first trip years ago I walked 11km on the first day and 10km on the second in a frenzy of ''must sees'', so the last couple of times have given me the time to sketch. 

Due to COVID-19 everything was pretty quiet, especially in the morning, and so I felt confident enough to tackle a sketch of the Colosseum, something I wouldn’t attempt if it had been teeming with tourists! Overnight we'd had a major storm and everything was slowly drying up, so I sat at the fence backing on to the Forum and got stuck in, providing a handy snack to a hoard of mosquitoes. 

When sketching I like to lean on a wall or fencing so my back is covered and no one can sneak up unawares,  this time there was however a team of archaeologists starting a new dig beyond the fence. I got my pencil lines quickly down and then it was time to deal with the detail, and that is truly tricky, a mind boggling collection of pillars, arches and holes. The holes are there for a variety of reasons, to support scaffolding during building, for metal hooks to support the marble used on the facade and because of course stone was later robbed for the many spectacular palazzi and churches in Rome (including St Peter’s and the Vatican). 

What has always impressed me while sketching in Rome is that nobody bothers you when you've a sketchbook in your hand which is a nice change to being constantly approached by street vendors and people touting tickets for tours. One of the things I learned this trip was that when in Rome, you don’t need to spend money on drinking water! There are about 2,800 so-called ''Nasoni'' (nasone means big nose and that’s what they look like) drinking fountains with still drinking water and Acea, the company responsible for drinking water in Rome, has set up 21 Case dell'Acqua, water houses where you can fill up your own water bottle with fresh sparkling or still water for free, in an attempt to reduce the amount of plastic produced in the city. I'll be honest I only found one just outside the metro station at the Colosseum, where I filled up my water bottle every day (you can even charge your phone for free too!). The water houses are like green huts and the water (tested regularly!) was very refreshing. While sketching a couple of German tourists passed, a couple, he looked at the group of archaeologists and said ''typical Italian building site, one with a shovel and ten watching!'' I had to laugh! His wife was mortified. 

Having finished sketching (about 2 hours), I headed off and accidentally came upon this .....! 

It’s the Bocca della Verita, ''the mouth of truth'', actually it’s behind bars (and closed) and was one tourist attraction that was for me a let down! Not large, not impressive but then of course I didn’t stick my hand in (legend says if you stick your hand in and tell a lie you’ll lose your hand!), too dodgy ....... you can’t hold a sketchbook and sketch with one hand!