Churches We Need to Visit

Martyrdom of St. Matthew

Churches We Needed to Visit

Calling of Matthew

Our American friend at the Borghese told us of another Bernini in a church in Trastevere (where our apartment is located) and one of the waiting-for-the-church-to-open people at Santa Maria del Popolo told us of some Caravaggio's in a church near Piazza Navona so that was our Sat. quest. The early AM started out with a tremendous thunder and lightening storm that abated by the time we were ready to leave but the sky was still threatening. We wound our way to Piazza Navona with only a couple wrong turns, enjoyed the fountains and made our way to San Luigi dei Francesi where there are 3 Caravaggio's of the life of St.Matthew.

Inspiration of St. Matthew

The Caravaggio's were amazing and definitely worth visiting. We were congratulating ourselves on our fine navigation in finding the church and decided to take a different route home during which we would find a terrific restaurant for lunch and then have a little nap before our next church search. Wrong on oh so many counts! We could see the river (good) so walked towards it but found that we were a significant distance north of our desired location and, in addition, had not at that point seen any restaurants. We admired the Castel Sant' Angelo...too north, the Vatican, too north, and continued trudging towards our apartment. Any eateries we saw were not appealing and as we approached our street, we saw a tiny restaurant that we had walked by many times without noticing. It was just what we needed. A 9 table local spot with good food and wine and good prices! A good lunch followed by a well deserved nap after our approximately 2 hour walk!

Recovered from the trauma of the morning, we set out late afternoon  to visit the church of San Francesco a Ripa to see the Bernini. We walked through the main part of Trastevere, a maze of small streets and alleys, without incident and were able to find the church (in the same neighborhood where I stayed last summer.) The sculpture is of the ecstasy of St. Ludovica and is very reminiscent of the ecstasy of St. Teresa we saw last summer in another church. The guy has apparently seen women in ecstasy. 

St. Teresa

St. Ludovica

The plan had been to go for pizza at a well known pizza place near the church but it didn't open until 7 and we weren't up for waiting the 30-40 min so we ATTEMPTED to walk home the same way we went....through the main square of Trastevere, with a stop to look at the beautiful mosaics in Santa Maria di Trastevere, and then.....we were lost in the maze and the walk home was FOREVER. And, of course, much foot complaining later we were home for a home cooked pasta meal.....not bad but not the plan.