As we descended into Leonardo Di Vinci Airport, seeing the Tiber River and ruins of the Colosseum framed by snow capped mountains in the distance on one side of the plane and the glistening Mediterranean with its broad sandy beaches on the other, we knew this would be a trip of a lifetime. I am still dumbfounded as I sit and try to capture our visit to Rome in writing. The city, its history, and culture are simply gargantuan.
I won’t try to explain all of the fantastic things that we saw or regurgitate the specifics of a particular place that is well documented in thousands of guidebooks. There were so many sites, ruins, and churches that spanned millenniums of use and reuse as contradictory functions that we didn’t even know what we were looking at half the time. Artifacts and ruins were literally strewn about the city. Intricately carved marble pillars that would make the A-list of most museums were seen overgrown with weeds on the median strip of a large road. Historic buildings were “restored” at the turn of the 14th century and ancient sacred sites were reconsecrated and renamed under Christianity. It was mind boggling to try and keep track of everything.
So, I’ll focus this little description toward a few key highlights of our adventure, and let the rest to the reader’s imagination.
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It didn’t take long to orient ourselves to the layout of the old city center. Our hotel location was perfect; even though the room itself was little more than a closet. We only paid 90 Euro/night…a bargain in high priced Rome. Two blocks to the west of the hotel was Piazza Navona – a large baroque oval plaza built on the foundation of a 1st century Roman arena. It is now adorned by 3 large Bernini fountains and a host of restaurants. Two blocks to the east was The Pantheon- the world famous temple of all gods. If I had to pick a favorite building in Rome, it would be this one. The setting of the temple was sublime, nestled into a small piazza surrounded by more modern buildings (15th and 16th century). The narrow cobbled streets just give you a teasing glimpse of the imposing, yet simple structure. I always made sure that our evening walks home from the local restaurant or pub somehow managed to pass through here. I couldn’t get enough of it.
The historic center of Rome is a tangled maze of narrow cobble stoned streets lined with colorful stucco buildings. At 75% of the intersections of these winding streets is a piazza. Some piazzas are little more than a wider spot in the street that is taken over by parked cars. Others are huge public gathering spots with grandiose fountains and statues surrounded by restaurants and vendors. Most are somewhere in between these two extremes, but all were fun to explore. I was a bit surprised how much we enjoyed all of the fountains. Even the huge, “bus tour route” Trevi Fountain with its throngs of tourists was worth a visit. Bernini also designed this one. The sunken viewing pit with the ancient building as a backdrop made you feel like you were alone with the charging horses and rushing waves. I guess that the water pressure generated from the aqueducts made such fountains possible.
The manipulation of water by the Romans was astounding. We also visited the Baths of Caracalla – built in 246 AD. This was a complete entertainment complex with hot baths, swimming pools, gymnasiums, cool misting rooms and an opera theater. The entire complex was designed to handle 8000 people per day. Huge water tanks built into the walls allowed for the water to be completely controlled on any of the 4 levels of the main building. At 30 meters high (90 feet) they could also get quit a bit of localized pressure to flush the entire baths. We were amazed that they let you walk on the intricate tile work, which was still in place in many of the rooms. The sheer size of this complex, along with the imagined social interactions that must have taken place here over the course of the 300 years it operated, made this one of our favorite ruins to explore.
Back in the city center, we were starting to get comfortable with the odd interaction between motorized vehicle and pedestrian. The traffic in Rome is atrocious. There are plenty of cars and busses clogging up the broader avenues, blatantly disregarding any concept of traffic rules. But scooters are the true rulers of the streets here, much the same way that bicycles rule the streets of Amsterdam. The advantage of a scooter is that you can zip around the very narrow side streets and also weave your way to the head of the pack on the larger main roads. As a pedestrian, they are your sworn enemy. On the back streets they constantly bob and weave through crowds of pedestrians. It took us a while to figure out that in order to cross a street, you simple have to step out into traffic. If you wait for the cars to stop, you will be there all day. When you step into the road, some vehicles actually race their motor in a threatening manner, but if you have a determined composure they will give way. They will come close. Very, very close, but they will stop and let you cross. Once we got the hang of it, it stopped feeling like you were a 10-point target for some maniacal driver every time you stepped off the curb.
At one spot, we think we saw the Italian president…or maybe the pope. Not that we would know either of them if they were seated beside us eating cabernari and drinking red wine. But it must have been someone important. As we walked toward the Roman Forum, we tried to cross a large piazza to ascend the capital steps. Traffic was hopelessly snarled and we had to shimmy our way through the stuck cars. When we reached the source of the clog, armed guards with Uzi’s stopped us from proceeding with a very stern look. Sirens wailed in the distance and a procession of speeding Mercedes with Italian flags raced by. It felt like a motocross when the 20 or 30 scooters that had managed to squeeze to the front of the traffic jam, buzzed out across the circle after the armed guards gave the “all clear” sign.
Free from the chaos of the streets, we climbed the steps to capital hill and admired the view of the city sprawled out in front of us. In the distance we could see the dome of St. Peters Basilica. We milled around the museums on the top of the hill, but the weather was so nice that we decided to cross the piazza and head for the larger ruins on the other side of Capital hill. As we rounded the hill to a viewing point where we hoped to get a glimpse of the colosseum in the distance, both of our jaws dropped in awe.
“Oh my god”, Beth said. I could barely reply and only mustered a faint “Holy shit” at the view that greeted us.
There before us lay the Forum…the heart of political and social life of ancient Rome. It stretched for 2 kilometers in front of us, a mass of buildings, arches, pillars and ruins. To the right and covering the original of the 7 Roman hills were the sprawling ruined palaces of the Palentine – where Remus and Romulus were raised by the she-wolf. And towering over it all in the distance was the colosseum. A massive archeological site that encompassed an area 3 times the size of the capital mall in Washington D.C. All protected from modern intrusion….all available for us to wander through. This view is the picture that I have included in the posting. You have to pick out the people down on the sacred road to get a full appreciation of the scale. It was enormous. We spent the entire day here.
Elsewhere on our sojourns around the city we encountered a huge colony of feral cats that had taken up residence in a small, but remarkably well-preserved set of temple ruins. We stopped counting at 50 the number of cats that we saw prowling the site. The Rome humane society seemed to be caring for them. There were several signs stating that they were well fed and if you wanted to help to please donate to the society for sterilization programs.
We also really enjoyed Castel St. Angelo. It started out as Hadrian’s mausoleum, but a castle and fortifications where built over top of it during the rise of Christianity. It was the only place to withstand the many sackings of Rome during the fall of the empire. The views from the very top of the tower were the best in the city.
Piazza del Popolo, with it’s massive stolen Egyptian Obelisk (when the Romans sacked Egypt) was another favorite.
We still didn’t quite “get” the Italians. Our experience here was much better than our trip to Tuscany 10 years ago, although the food and wine don’t even come close to superb quality found near Florence. But the Italians themselves were just as we remembered. I’m sure that the big city population of Rome, overrun with millions of tourists, is a bit more standoffish, but there is still a lingering sense of unfriendliness about Italians for me. We always presented ourselves as Netherlanders and even conversed in Dutch with an Italian waiter, but I don’t think it has anything to do with nationality. It’s more of a machismo thing…like Spain, or Mexico but more pronounced. As I said, maybe we just don’t get them.
There are too many other sites and experiences to mention. Suffice it say that I would highly recommend Rome. It’s big, crowded, dirty, and expensive. But it’s also one of the most fantastic places that I’ve ever been. All it takes is a little attitude.
Scroll down to the next postings for more pictures.
