Taste of Italy

C H A P T E R s e v e n t e e n

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   For the next few days, Iris's phone went silent. Neither contacted each other. It was time to give him space. Iris thought it could help clear the air, allow things to fall back into place. But unlike most women who probably would feel the weight of the world on their shoulders and think it was okay to mope around, Iris thought it might be best to do the opposite.

She didn't think about Dante whatsoever. For three days, the memories that she had of him were repressed to the back of her mind. Whatever happened throughout that period, happened between her and her sisters.

Because they had no distractions with romance, the three girls could see the Pantheon and Sistine Chapel together.

The Pantheon was more beautiful than what Iris could think of. The dome-like ceiling, the columns, the statues inside, everything about the architecture made it seem like she was held inside a stone bubble. But never wanting to leave. The exterior of the building, you could tell, had withered away. Although anyone could see the age of the stone, many still loved it. Specifically, the interior.

The Sistine Chapel was a little different as memories of Dante came back. The girls walked their way across the same bridge that Iris went on with Dante, and took the same route to St. Peter's Square. The reminiscence of his presence stayed within the streets; Iris thought she could never get over him. But she had to.

The paintings were stunning, of course. It would've surprised her if there one person on the planet that hated the paintings and statues for not being enough to them. All were breathtaking. How could someone hate such beauty? Iris concluded that those that hated it truly had no taste in art. Especially as these were classic pieces and weren't abstract, where, to her, felt like nothing. Had no precision and beauty added to it, no emotion. Was as if someone just scribbled some paint onto a blank canvas, like they had "painter's block" and called splatters of dye a million-dollar seller.

That disappointed her.

But as the girls only had a few days left, they decided to take a thirty-minute trip up to Tivoli, a nearby town. They were sold on the idea of being able to walk through a garden that was shown in the Lizzie McGuire movie.

At the Villa d'Este, the girls made their way up a sidewalk with long, rectangular bushes and a building to their left. Up ahead, some stairs headed into a darkened area; to the left, a few stairs went up into a widened, empty courtyard with a large fountain.

But to their right, below a couple potted plants and down a few steps, laid a sidewalk in front of them, and a long row of fountains shot out water. Vines, moss, and leaves taking over the stone walls, and every so often as they went down the section, a few, small statues of birds were carved on top of the walls. Iris thought that they looked more like Eagles.

"We're finally here!" squealed Kelly, putting her hands on her cheeks. Iris understood her excitement as it was a mutual feeling for all three of them. In 2003, they saw a favorite television show get onto the big screen.

Iris was only ten when she saw it and at such a young age, watching a movie based in Rome only made her want to visit it more. And now, fourteen years later, it was a dream come true.

The girls mainly took most of their time in that section of the place. Video after video, picture after picture like they couldn't get enough of it.

A few minutes passed by when they finally got tired and sat on the wall, looking out at the tall trees in front of them, and the bushes nearby. Iris stared at the sidewalk, which didn't look like any normal slab of concrete. Instead, there was a mix of lines and circles. Two lines on each side went down the sidewalk. Every few feet, they curved to make a large, half circle, and a smaller half circle (which looked like a "D"). They connected through the lines that went across the concrete as if it were a bridge. Two circles (one fitting inside the other; small and large) were in the middle, fitting between the spaces that separated the lines and circles.