The first half of my day off on Tuesday was decidedly English, and I'm not even mad! I woke up with a plan to trek over to the Piazza di Spagna to visit Babington's Tea Room and the Keats-Shelley House, a museum dedicated to English poets John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and Leigh Hunt.
Before heading across the Tiber, I enjoyed my usual cappuccino and croissant from Gourmet and browsed the shops on the nearby Via Cola di Rienzo. I left empty handed but excited for the rest of my day.
I crossed a bridge and made my way into familiar territory: the Piazza del Popolo. Unlike on Saturday, when we entered the Piazza from the Pincian Hill, I came to it from behind the brick walls that held smallish statues of Egyptian sphinxes. I walked through the Piazza and onto Via del Babuino, where I looked around in a lovely stationery store and passed the talking statue "Babuino" for the third time. His silly pose and smushed face never cease to make me smile. Finally at the seemingly always busy Piazza di Spagna, I walk up to the Keats-Shelley House. To my confusion, it was closed! For once in my life the Blue Guide: Rome failed me! The hours posted on the door differed only slightly from those reported in our hallowed class text. Alas, I decided to do Babington's until the museum opened.
I had taken a quick peek at Babington's once before also on Saturday, in between site reports at the Piazza del Popolo and the Ara Pacis. I found the establishment thanks to the book I've previously mentioned here, Rome's Cream of the Crop, but the Blue Guide even gives it a shout out! Due to our fond, fond love of tea, Ally and I made a point to check it out. I was glad to be sitting down for tea.
Just to the left of the Spanish Steps, directly opposite the Keats-Shelley House, the restaurant/tea room was elegantly decorated in a 19th century style, perhaps with some original elements from its 1893 opening. I not only appreciated the place's dedication to tea, but also its logo: an adorable black cat. I can't think of anything better than tea and cats together.
Since I wasn't hungry I ordered the "Special Blend" tea, which did not disappoint. Even though the prices were kind of steep, I didn't mind paying a bit more than was probably necessary. The building was beautiful and historic, I had never been to a 'fancy' tea place, and it's in a prime tourist location. It was an experience, especially considering the people to the right of me. An older Anglo man and a seemingly much younger Asian woman, huge designer shopping bags in tow, sat down next to me after another twosome had departed. I found the contrast between the woman's giant black flower-adorned Chanel shopping bag and her fake straw fedora hat, complete with an Italian flag ribbon wrapped tastelessly around it, clearly bought off of the street from a hawker or in a junky gift shop, to be quite funny. What's more, the two were engaged in the most daft of conversations. In a patronizing tone the man began detailing what the woman had bought on their trip. She just seemed sort of confused, and seemed unconcerned. She wasn't really flippant about it, but innocent and harmless, even letting out what sounded like a lighthearted giggle. She had a strange childishness to her, but at the same time she seemed to know how to enjoy herself. After revealing that her expenses were in the thousands, he calmly told her, "You're done." It's safe to say that I was ready to get out of that weird sugar daddy nightmare.
After leaving Babington's I crossed the front of the Spanish Steps, entered the Keats-Shelley House and walked up the stairs to the tiny museum. Having just reopened for the afternoon, it was empty except for me. After turning my ticket over to a girl reading a book nonchalantly on an old chair (with a British accent no less) in the main exhibit room, I quickly went into the room off to the right. It was appropriately covered in wall-to-wall bookshelves, and on the them hung placards of timelines and biographical information, and also various works of art, mostly illustrations and paintings of Keats and those related to him. In the center of the room was a case made of wood and glass that held a number of old books containing Keats' works, including Endymion.
I did not know much about Keats. I had only read his poem Ode to a Grecian Urn as a senior in high school and I knew that he was a British Romantic poet. I did not know that he had a tragically short life. Born in 1875, he died in Rome, in his bed, in the Keats-Shelley House that still stands today, at the age of 25. I learned that he moved to Rome in hopes of the warmer climate being better for his tuberculosis. Unfortunately, he died from the disease some months later.
No comments:
Post a Comment