{"id":921,"date":"2008-12-02T20:30:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T20:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/city-from-a-hill.html"},"modified":"2008-12-02T20:30:28","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T20:30:28","slug":"city-from-a-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/12\/city-from-a-hill.html","title":{"rendered":"City From a Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two hilltop shots.
\nThis is not the greatest, but my camera battery was flashing red, so I was at the point at which I could only turn it on for about 1.7 seconds.\u00a0 Therefore it was basically all about flicking on, pointing and shooting. At whatever was there.
\nSo this shot from the Janiculum Hill (or Gianicolo) could be much better, but there it is:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

There was some British chick on a motorcycle filming a closer for a travel show while I was up there. Judy? Julie? With an odd last name. Like “Cheeky” or something like that. And the show involved either 40 or 48 hours in Rome.<\/p>\n

I think the camera’s battery was not the only thing needing recharging at that point. Do you agree?<\/p>\n

What you may be able to grasp from this picture, if you’ve never been to Rome before, is the scale of the city, which is very manageable. There are plenty of suburbs with high-rises and such, as well as more evident poverty and crowding and less of that “charm” which the tourists seek. But the vast majority of travelers are interested in what is in the Center, as well as in the Vatican area.\u00a0 Someone out there probably has the figures, but it is all extremely walkable, and is not daunting at all from the perspective of scale. It’s a much different experience than, say, Chicago or New York (I can’t compare it to other European cities since, well, I haven’t been in any) – which was quite surprising to me. Yes, the roads can be confusing and there is an alley feel to much of the place, and the traffic can be crazy, but if you’ve got your health and your legs about you, you can see alot without feeling overwhelmed (except by history) or overshadowed by things like skyscrapers or massive development.<\/p>\n

This was about a five minute’s walk from my apartment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

This is on my way down from the apartment, at the top of some steps which make the final leg of the journey. The street is Viale Dondolo (which turns into Viale Gloriosa about halfway through. David’s is one of the apartment buildings on the left. Behind us is Monteverde, ahead is Trastevere.<\/p>\n

The way down was a lot easier than the way up. Especially on Day 4. When you’re 48, even if you’re in decent shape. Which is why the day I figured out the 44 picked up a street over from this, then made its way up to my apartment was a very, very good day.<\/p>\n

\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two hilltop shots. This is not the greatest, but my camera battery was flashing red, so I was at the point at which I could only turn it on for about 1.7 seconds.\u00a0 Therefore it was basically all about flicking on, pointing and shooting. At whatever was there. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}