When in Rome…

Rome is definitely not a pedestrian friendly city. But just how the traffic works in Italy is something of a mystery, and it took me a couple of days to adjust and figure it all out. I mean Italy in general is pretty chaotic in terms of traffic, but Rome raises the bar to a whole new level. Leaving the main train station for the first time, I was almost scared to jump into the fray, but after standing there watching the traffic ebb and flow around me, I thought I finally got the jist of it, and jumped head first into the madness. There are no lane markings on any of the roads, and sometimes exactly what constitutes a road can come into question also. The cobblestone streets throughout the entire city are so well traversed, that they are worn down so that it doesn’t even feel like you are cycling on bumpy cobblestones in some parts. In other areas, enormous potholes or sections of the road are missing or falling apart, and lumps of asphalt and concrete are layered one after the other in bodgy repair jobs that do the trick, but make for one hell of a rough ride. Mopeds swarm through the traffic like a plague of locusts, and the cars expect this behaviour and tolerate it. Pedestrians unfamiliar with the road rules will foolishly wander out onto a pedestrian zebra crossing, but no car will stop for a pedestrian – you need to wait for a gap first, then start to cross the road, whereby the traffic approaching will slow and swerve around you once you are already moving across the street. Red lights seem to have no meaning to the motorcycles, mopeds and cyclists at all, and the trams and buses that run all over the place have their own light signals and symbols also and I never figured out what they all meant!

But you do manage to get by and sooner or later your confidence in the system reaches a tipping point, and then it’s like somebody turned on the light all of a sudden. On my first afternoon, I was cycling along a busy peak hour road by the station, when all four lanes suddenly merged into one. Cars were parked randomly all over the place where they shouldn’t have been, making things even more difficult. Yet there was no road rage, and the traffic just ‘flowed and sorted itself out’ without fuss. Then I figured it out. When you are ‘in’ the traffic, you have no problems. Even on a bicycle, drivers who at first I thought were being rude and inconsiderate, were actually just treating me like a slow moped scooter. If they could find a gap and overtake me, they would. In the end I took control of my cycling and became much more involved in the flow of things, as opposed to just ambling along the road, sticking to the side. When oyu figure it out it’s easy and not that scary. Stuck in the outside lane and need to cut across 4 lanes of fast moving traffic to turn left? No problems, just indicate, make your own lane and move across making sure not to hit those around you. The cars behind aren’t exactly in any lane order and so they will flow around your movements once you make it clear what you are doing. Just don’t stop in the middle of the road and don’t hesitate. When you figure out how the traffic in Rome works, it’s no longer scary. It’s actually a lot of fun!

I just spent the past six days bunked down in Rome. I was extremely fortunate to have a marvellous couple host me for the whole duration, Marcella and Margherita (his wife, not the drink). Spending nearly a whole week in the one place was something of a luxury that I haven’t had since leaving London, and it gave me enough time to thoroughly explore the city, see all the sights that I wanted to, and also do some catching up on the Internet blogging, photos and other stuff that had fallen behind (well, sort of).

I arrived at Marcella’s house in the early evening, which was conveniently quite centrally located, just a few minutes cycle west of the Rome Termini train station. Things picked up immediately, when before I could even finish dumping my bags, I was introduced to a couple of Yanks that had popped around for dinner. Before you know it, my hosts had ordered pizza (woe is me, I’d also had Pizza for breakfast and lunch that day, oh well!). I was assured that this was probably the best takeaway pizza you can get in Rome. Well, who was I to argue, it was pretty good and it came with a few extras like rice and cheese balls, a bit of a Naples specialty so I’m told. Anyway, the Yanks turned out to be Marines and they had contacted Marcella via email only weeks beforehand. Apparently Marcella as a member of the Rome chapter of the Hash Hound Harriers – basically a drinking group with a running problem. They normally run every Sunday, however they had organised a special run to be held the next afternoon. A US warship had docked at the coast nearby, and 150 US Marines were going to go for a hash run. Would I like to join them? Is Julia Gillard a ‘ranga? Nobody got it. “Bloody oath”.

So at 3pm the next day, I joined the Marines underneath the ancient Constantine Arch, right next to the Colosseum, handed over 20€ and cracked my first tinnie. It was amazing value – the price covered a souvenir t-shirt, unlimited beer for the duration of the run, plus two pub stops with pitchers on the bar tab. 20 regular ‘hashers’ from the Rome and Naples hash groups joined us, and Marcella was the ‘hare’ as he had the local knowledge, which meant he ran ahead by 10-15 minutes to leave a chalk, flour trail and we had to follow it to the end of the run, with beer stops along the way. Marcella had arranged the run so that it pretty much went past 90% of Rome’s famous landmarks over the 3 hour period. And it was brilliant!

The Marine Sergeant took great pleasure in ‘warming us up’ with stretches as we chanted a pretty obscene army song called ‘Father Birmingham’ which had plenty of actions and lyrics suggesting that the father particularly liked to touch young boys in the “rectalry”. Tourists around us took photos, some were delighted, a few walked away in disgust. And so the US Marines left their impression on Rome just as I suspected, with a mix of pompous show mixed with moments that would make you want to cheer, or alternatively hide from the cringeworthy mob that was running amok. Well, that’s Americans for you. Individually they were all top guys, but collectively, Americans – Marines or not – sure know how to rub up the city in their own particular way, not that they mean any harm of course.

We circled the Colosseum, ran past the Roman Forum, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, then up through the guts of the city via the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navonna, the Castello and then across the river and up to the Vatican. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of 170 people charging through the square at St Peter’s Basilica and through the Vatican, wearing nothing but singlets and shorts. Only two days before, the news headlines were sensationalising the fact that the Vatican police were now being extremely rigid in enforcing the strict dress code for entering the Vatican – no entry if your pants were above the knee, and no exposed shoulders. Oops!

We finished up at an American themed bar called The Drunken Ship, where finally penalty skols were awarded and more songs sung. Marcella had to do a penalty skol for laying a trail so bad that the entire group missed an entire pub stop along the way. I had to skol because apparently I was beating all the Marines on the run, and that was ‘too competitive’ not that I was trying. I think that says something about the fitness of the boys from the ship! After 4 hours of solid drinking and a good run, we were pretty shagged, but a group of us decided not to let the other bar tab go to waste (there was $400 USD sitting on the bar) so we headed back to another Piazza for pizza and more beer. The night got hazy from there on, when I recall vaguely heading off to a nightclub by the river with a few of the marines (that were by now never going to make curfew back on the ship) and a bunch of girls from Israel that we’d picked up along the way. I think they’d actually yelled at us to shut the hell up, but we convinced them that it would be more fun if they came and drank with us, so they did. By 1am, I’d been kicked out of the riverside nightclub by the same bouncer twice, and figured that it was time to go home. I don’t know what he had against me, but possibly my dress sense wasn’t in order – I was still wearing my running shorts and shirt, and my Aussie flag bandanna stuck out like dogs balls attracting his attention. I grabbed a taxi and stumbled through the door at 2am to pass out.

Well, I felt like crap for about 2 days but hid it well. Half a dozen Jaegermeister and Red Bull combinations will do that to you, especially when you top it up with the roughly 8 litres of beert I drank with it. Nonetheless, I pulled my finger out and organised some tickets to the Colosseum and The Vatican Museums. I payed a bit extra to reserve the tix online – normally I’d say go and get stuffed for making us pay extra for the privilege, but I’m so glad I did because on both occasions it saved me at least 1 ½ hours in the queue.

At first glance of the Colosseum from the outside, I have to say I was a little disappointed. But I guess it’s built up so much, that the expectations are that you are going to see something so grand, it’s easy to be let down. But I have to admit, after a few days I definitely warmed to it, and once I saw the inside and got a bit of the history of it figured out, I was more than impressed. The thing with Rome is, that all the ruins are SO old, that we’re lucky anything remains at all, let along the Colosseum or the Pantheon in their ‘pretty good condition’, considering. One of the biggest things to remember is that in it’s day, the Colosseum was totally covered in white marble, and it would have been marvellously grandiose. Now, all the marble has been removed, leaving holes in the bring and stone walls that look like they could be damage from some past conflict, like large bullet holes. In addition, half of the outermost wall collapsed in the 5th and 6th centuries with two large earthquakes in the region. And given the penchant of past generations to pilfer the building materials to renovate, repair or build new structures, we’re lucky there is any Colosseum standing at all!

The same goes for the Roman forum. There is much less of this left than there is of the senate, but there’s enough that you get an ‘idea’ of what it was like. Check out a few of the 3D renderings on sale at the souvenir shops and then you figure out how it all falls into place. The whole city of Rome some 1700 years ago must have been a fabulous place. It is a shadow of its former self really, and Rome itself is basically just a ‘city of ruins’ because of this. Everywhere you go there are old buildings falling apart, fenced off from tourists and pedestrians to preserve what little is left standing. There are holes in the ground showing the foundations of some important Roman building – you need to stretch your imagination a long way to picture what it might once have been. New excavations are popping up all the time. It’s nearly impossible to do any construction work around Rome because every time you try to set the foundations, somebody will dig up something of historical significance and then the whole project comes to a crashing halt as the excavators, archaeologists and the like are called in. If you’re lucky, the site won’t be turned into another open air museum of piles of bricks and broken off columns.

Bus in all seriousness, the old Roman Forum area, where the Bascilia, the Senate, loads of temples and statues and the Treasury, Prison and all that stuff used to stand – it is VERY impressive once you can picture it in your mind. Other Roman attractions are not so ancient, and the Trevi Fountain is certainly worth a visit, as are the Spanish steps. Be prepared to fight the crowds however, no matter where you go!

On my second last day, I headed to The Vatican Museums. I have to say, I absolutely HAD to see it or I would have felt like I was missing out on something. But in hindsight, there wasn’t a lot of new stuff I hadn’t already seen similar to in other museums, like in Florence, or at the V&A in London. But I did manage to find a room containing all the ‘pope mobiles’ and carriages and stage coaches that the various Popes had used over the years. Cool. Another interesting section was the Artwork collected by various Popes over the centuries. Most if it looked like Renascence period or later, most if it was very dark and religious themed (of course). I have to wonder about the message that the Church is trying to portray. I mean, you think that religious is about the celebration of God and all that, but depicted in the artwork is so much suffering and the themes are so dark and foreboding, that I walked out thinking, “isn’t there anything happy written in the Bible?”. Several paintings stood out – one particular crucifiction scene was above and beyond the regular ‘Jesus on a Cross’ image that it bordered on sadistic torture. There was another painting depicting some poor guy who was tied to a bench, having his intestines methodically pulled out of his gut by two men. Charming stuff. There was also a statue of some guy who was literally ripping the heads off his victims and holding them up in the air with the spine still attached. Mate, if the Bible was a TV show, it would be X-Rated!

I don’t know how I managed it, but I survived the crush and clawed my way through the crowd that was constantly heading in the direction of the Sistine Chapel. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who come into the Museum and just make a beeline for that room, skipping and missing everything else. Which is a shame because some of the exhibits are really worth visiting. The Egyptian monuments for example, were really good. Entire mummy sarcophaguses with the actual mummified remains inside, and all that jazz. Anyway, the Sistine Chapel was kind of impressive, but in my opinion overrated. I liked the Raphael Rooms more than the Sistine Chapel. Maybe I was just missing something in the explanation however. I’m not religious and I didn’t ‘get’ the significance of it possibly. I thought the artwork was better in plenty of other places around the museums. The Raphael Tapestries likewise, were fantastic, but like everything else in Rome, they are certainly getting on a bit. The room they are hung in is so dark in order to protect them from fading, that you can barely see them. And I felt that if I reached out and touched them (which I didn’t, don’t worry) they looked so brittle that they might crumble at the touch!

St Peter’s Basilica on the other hand – FANTASTIC! I’ve not seen the best Cathedral in the world, in my opinion. I don’t need to go to another one. Hopefully I’ll stop whining about ABC’s from now on. Yep, St Peter’s was definitely worth a visit, and that was the FREE part! Oh well, hindsight is a wonderful thing. The elaborate decoration throughout is phenomenal, and I can’t believe that they actually have the bodies of previous Pope’s buried in there. Kind of creepy when you can see at least three of them through glass windows lying in their clear coffins…

I left The Vatican impressed, feeling like it was a day well spent. The same went for the Colosseum, when I also tacked the Roman Forum and Palantine Hill on the same afternoon. On my last day in town, I cycled out to the Via Appia – the first ever road built by the Romans. It goes all the way to Pompeii in one straight line. You may recall that I’d previously mentioned the Romans are famous for building their straight roads, and this is why. In fact the saying ‘All roads lead to Rome’ is derived from the fact that all roads did in fact, once lead to Rome. They build straight roads in every direction, to all corners of their empire to facilitate the quick movement of their army. And for centuries it worked, until the Empire was stretched to the limit, and finally in the 5th Century AD, Rome was eventually sacked by invading barbarian hordes. Via Appia – the ancient road – was an interesting idea for a tourist destination, but to be honest, when you actually get there, it’s not overly impressive. Most of the road, whilst it’s still straight, has been replaced with modern cobblestones. And because it was a Sunday, the catacombs that I wanted to also see down that way were closed. So I rattled home over the cobblestones on my bike, a bit disappointed with the last day’s sightseeing, well compared to the other days anyway.

Having a kitchen at Marcella’s was definitely a bonus. I was able to cook myself lunch and dinner several times whilst I stayed, which saved me a load of cash when I could use the supermarket instead of having to resort to take-away once again. (Not that I was sick of Pizza mind you!). I mixed up a tortellini and tomato pasta sauce on one occasion, and a fettuccine bolognaise a few days later. Both times there was easily enough to last me until the next lunchtime also. I even cooked dinner for Marcella and Margherita one night. Thanks mum, for emailing me over the Tuna Mornay recipe from Oz, it was a sensational hit! Marcella especially has particular tastes in what he eats, but he was into his second serving before I’d even got half way through my first plate. Marcella got even with a magnificent chicken yellow curry that was delightfully spicy and so tasty! It was easily the best yellow curry I’ve ever had. Possibly one of the best curries of all time actually! Topping off dinner every night was watermelon. I’ve never eaten so much of the stuff, but it’s in season now and Marcello was literally buying them whole and every day or two, another new one would end up on the kitchen table. I’m adding watermelon to the list of foods that I now officially like to eat. Excellent 🙂

So, summing up Rome… bloody unreal. From the hash run with the Marines, to the old ruins and all the other fabulous things about the cuty, all I can say is thankfully I’d designated six nights, as I enjoyed every moment. And so end just over two weeks in Italy. That time has certainly flown by, but it only gets better. Next stop, Croatia!

Be Sociable, Share!

• 
•