Tuesday, March 31, 2009
London-Rome
Because, as the Chinese saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first footstep, Llew and I left our Holborn apartment at 2. 20 am to catch the 2. 25 bus to Victoria—thank Goodness for London’s all-night red bus service that takes over when the Tube shuts down at midnight. We arrived at the Coach Station to board our 3. 30 am coach to Gatwick and were at the airport at 4. 30 am ready to check-in for our 6. 40 am Easyjet flight to Rome. With hot caffe lattes obtained from McDonald’s, we boarded our flight and as Llew snoozed across the Channel, I began to read the DK Eye Witness Guide to Rome to find out all about the ‘must-see, must-do’ items I needed to put on our list while touring this ancient city. I was excited to be returning to Rome after 22 years and to see it again with Llew for company.
All went well on board and when we touched down at Leonardo da Vinci airport at Fuimicino, I could scarcely believe that less than three hours after leaving London, we were in a completely different world. A quick hop across Immigration took us to a mini shuttle bus stand that for 15 Euros each promised to drop us off at our hotel near the Vatican called the Hotel Sant’ Angelo. It was a very sunny spring morning in Rome as we caught our first glimpses of this sprawling city from the window of our shuttle bus which dropped us off at our destination by 1 pm. After we were checked in by a very friendly receptionist called Sylvia, we stashed our bags in our room with its little French window and set off to discover the city.
The Piazza Venezia, the Roman Forum and the Coliseum:
It was thrilling to make the discovery that almost every important tourist location was just a fifteen minute walk away from our hotel that was located on the banks of the River Tiber that glowed rather greenly below the stone parapets that lined it. Using the superb graphic map that was given to us by the hotel, we wound our way along Via del Corso taking in the interesting shops and the piazzas that were thronging with tourists. Indeed, in all my travels this past year, I have never come upon so many visitors in one place and I have to say that I was frequently overwhelmed by the crowds.
It was not long before we saw the white marble opulence of the Vittorio Emmanuel Monument looming ahead of us and we spent the next few minutes studying the expansive piazza from which Mussolini made his victorious war-time speeches even as we paid our respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with its eternal flame and its changing of the guard. When we had rested a bit, we started to skirt the area around this piazza and found our way to the Piazza de Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo with its twin marble sentries on horseback and its geometric marble inlaid floor.
Onward we pressed, past vast groups of high school kids accompanied by their harassed teachers until we arrived at Theater Marcello which forms the border into the Roman Forum. It was our intention to tour the Forum and the Coliseum today and indeed there was much to see and admire. The weather was perfect for outdoor exploration and we took in the vastness and the majesty of this most ancient of European cities with a mounting sense of excitement.
As we walked along the Via de Cerchi, we found ourselves sandwiched between the Roman Forum on one side and the Circus Maximus on the other. There were loads of photo opportunities as the various ruined buildings of the Forum came into view including the splendid Arch of Septimus Severus which inspired the design of Paris’ Arc de Carousel. The uniformly planned streets of Rome with its four or five storey buildings all painted in shades of ochre also fascinated me and I could not stop taking pictures. We rested frequently along the way as the distances are massive and my feet are still rather too delicate to undertake long spurts of walking without adequate rest.
It wasn’t long before we arrived at the Arc of Constantine at the end of lovely Via de San Gregorio which must be one of the prettiest tree-lined streets in Rome. Crowds grew thicker each time we approached a famous landmark and as we caught our first glimpse of the mammoth Coliseum, we posed for pictures ourselves. The ingenuity of Roman engineering never fails to take my breath way and walking through the corridors of the Coliseum had the same effect upon me as we bought our tickets (12 Euros provides entry to the Forum, the Palatino and the Coliseum) and entered one of the ancient wonders of the world. Needless to say, we took many photographs of this magnificent structure that has withstood the test of time and despite being systematically destroyed and recast in various guises (its marble was used for the facing of many other Roman buildings), we could still discern the differences between the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns that make up its three tiers. Despite that fact that one has seen it often in pictures, its towering height in still stunning in reality and we felt suitably chastened by its grandeur.
We continued our walking tour along the Via del Fiori Imperiali stopping frequently to read the material and explanatory notes to be found in our guide book and marveling at the antiquity of the ruins in front of us. I remembered various locations from my last travels in Rome more than two decades ago, where we stopped again to take pictures until we arrived at Trajan’s Column, a copy of which we had seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This wonderful monument sits right by the ruined remains of Trajan’s Markets and I tried to think of how amazingly bustling this place might have been more than two millennia ago when Rome was the center of the ancient world. Across the street we went, once again, to the Piazza de Campidoglio to admire Michelangelo’s handiwork from another vantage point—the piazza itself where we saw the sculpture featuring the she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of the city on the Seven Hills. The museums around us were tempting but we did not enter any of them as we were already rather exhausted by our travels and needed to find some sustenance in the form of our first Italian meal.
It was in one of the by lanes near Piazza de Trevi that we ate the first of many delicious bistro meals—Llew chose the Veal with Potatoes while I went for the Tagliatelle with Bolognese Sauce in a very humble street side trattoria which offered great people-observing opportunities. It was not long before we found our way to the Gelateria San Crispino which is written up in Lonely Planet as one of Rome’s best (on Via della Paneterria) and there we ate the first of many frozen treats that seemed to get better each time! Not too far away was the elaborate Fountain of Trevi beautifully lit and superbly highlighted. It is a breathtaking sight especially at night and though we might have succumbed to tradition and thrown three coins in the fountain to ensure our return to the Eternal City, the milling crowds made such an intention rather challenging.
By this point, we were both ready to call it a day delighted to note that our first day in Rome had proven to be so fascinating. As we crossed the Ponte Cavour, close to our hotel, we began to get our bearings and found that we were very well located indeed for all the sight seeing we wished to accomplish in the next few days.