Thursday 7 - Rome

Breakfast

What a great day. We’d been looking forward to looking around central Rome with both anticipation and trepidation. Our memories of it from 1982 (our post-university OE) were of very long and tiring days walking in the hot sun, plus of course the thrill of seeing the old Roman Rome. So we were expecting much the same, but it turned out quite different to what we’d imagined. The vistas across the city and down the wide streets are simply stunning. Everywhere you look is something ancient, or attractive, or most likely both.

We woke to a fine day, temperature around 20 and heating up. The locals seem to think it is pretty cool, as most had two layers on. We felt warm with a single layer. We started by heading to the Colosseum. It’s a big brute of a building. The crowds are not too bad at all, but quite a different composition to those of 29 years ago. Back then, they were all Western European or English-speaking, but now there are plenty of Japanese, Chinese, and an large number of Russians. We wonder if the Japanese are not quite as bad as they used to be at making sure they are in each and every photo they take. However they are now all keen photographers, toting around monster DSLR cameras. Today there were also many school groups, mainly Italian or American.

The Colosseum

The Forum

We were a little disappointed at the interpretation panels, as they were very hard to follow, and we also felt the Colosseum could have been better set up for visitors – for example nowhere is there a full run of seats that would have made it more clear how it used to look. We wandered around for a while and then sat down in a shady spot to read all about it in detail in our tablet (computer notebook). Unfortunately, we had left it turned on overnight so its battery was dead. No problem – will just read up on the history of the place tonight. We left the Colosseum and walked across to the nearby hill, which housed the Palatino, Forum, various other structures and botanical gardens. It was extremely pleasant strolling around, soaking up the multitude of stunning vistas and generally having a lovely relaxing time. Everywhere you look appears to be a vista with layer on layer of old buildings, columns, towers and domes.

Spring in the Roman Forum

A nice surprise for us was that it is clearly Spring here. We knew it would be, but it means that the hot dry Forum of 1982 was this year bright blossom, green grass and pleasant temperatures, and the lovely scents of orange flowers and wisteria.

Lamborghini Launch

Heading towards the National Monument, we stumbled into a piazza where a public launch of the latest model Lamborghini was underway.  A number of men in perfectly-tailored suits were standing around a cordoned off silver Lamborghini, with one of them being interviewed by TV. He was continuously primping his already perfectly-coiffed hair. It was all good fun to watch.

By this time it was nearly 2pm and we had staved off hunger with just a few nut bars. We took ourselves off the tourist track by a few streets and, instead of buying overpriced pre-filled panini, found a deli where you buy a panini, ham and whatever you feel like and they put it together for only a few euros each.

From here it was only a hop skip and a jump to the National Monument, an enormous and ostentatious white marble structure, adorned by over-size bronze and marble sculptures. Keen on continuing our walking tour, we kept heading west and came across the Pantheon. We both remember sheltering from the rain in this building in 1982. It seemed a bit more stirring when we saw it then for the first time, though it is quite lovely inside, with its circular marble walls, coffered ceiling and oculus.

Piazza Navona had a wonderful feel to it and we were really pleased we walked the extra bit to get there. We were starting to flag by 4.30pm so found a gelateria on the way home for some delicious gelatos. It’s funny how quickly the prices decrease as you get move away from “famous” tourist sights. One street back and its cheaper and mostly far more pleasant.