midwife's muse

Rome - The Eternal City

The break was everything I could have wished for, from a no hastle trip with Ryanair, made easier my my long-legged Hubby having a seat infront of a bulkhead, so he could stretch out, to the easy collection on our return from Luton to pick up my car. Our hotel was clean, the staff friendly, and we even had a small balcony overlooking a busy Via so we could drink in the sounds of The Eternal City. Sounds there are in abundance, cars hooting constantly and emergency vehicles endlessly roaring past sounding their sirens. Weather was fantastic, sunny and comfortably hot. We did all the tourist bits, Colosseum, Vatican, Forum, Trevi Fountain etc., walking miles in the process. In isolation they were all truly impressive, but then given the fact that just a few steps away there would be another monument, ruin or fountain deserving of admiration, it was awe-inspiring. There were thousands of other tourists everywhere, all the sites were very crowded, add to this the security measures at St Peters Basilica and the Colosseum and queues become an accepted part of the experience. Crossing the roads are an acquired art. They do have signals on the lights to tell you when to go, but the motorists don't seem to be aware of them. In return though drivers do seem to be alert to pedestrians so our attitude became 'go for it'. 

Top Tips

• Wear comfortatable, thick soled shoes. Sightseeing involves loads of walking, even if you take a taxi or publc transport to the first place many of the sights then require treking skills. Much of Rome is cobbled streets, very hard on the feet and ankles.
• Have a bag that pick-pockets would have difficulty getting into, a draw-string seems favourite. Pick-pockets everywhere. Within 5 minutes of arriving at our hotel another guest came in having just had his wallet lifted on the bus. Sitting having a coffee I watched as two men approached the table near ours, the tourists had a rucksack on the seat, one suspicious man stood a couple of feet away looking around whilst the other bent down to talk to the unsuspecting traveller, being an interferring old busy-body just as the standing one moved to grag the bag I leapt forward and alerted the guy to what was happening. Hubby was angry, he thought I could have been hurt, and only half an hour later, seeing a guy resisting thieves be 'bottled', made me far more cautious the rest of the time. Having said this Italians themselves are welcoming and friendly.
• Invest in a good map, with bus numbers and routes on it. Rome's transport system, during the day, is amazing. Tickets cost 1 Euro from a kiosk or small shop and that entitles you to all day on the buses or tram, or one metro trip. In reality you don't need to buy one at all for the bus or tram, no one checks it so it is basically free, and crowded!
• Take a good guidebook with you. The descriptions at many sites are non-existant or leave many questions unanswered. If you have the money there are hundreds of tour-guides available and using one will often entitle you to avoid the queues for entrance. We were lucky and had the most amazing free tour of St Peters by an extremely knowledgable and entertaining American guy. I wish we could have afforded a tour guide for the Vatican museums and Cistine chapel as I know we missed out on a lot of the significance of much of the paintings, statues and history.
• Don't buy food, ice-cream or drink from the street vendors. They are real rip-off merchants, walk a couple of streets away and find a trattoria or pizzeria, much cheaper and you can sit and people watch. (They also have toilets, long queues if you need to go at one of the attractions!)
• Leave visiting St Peters and the Vatican Museums until the afternoon. Not nearly as crowded.

So many places we didn't go, not enough time. I know I will return though, as I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain!  My sightseeing highlights were St Peters Basilica and the Palatine Hill, the first because you have to see it to believe it, the second for much the same thing but a very tranquil place in a bustling city, for eating and a relaxed nightlife, Trastevere.

To read whilst away I took Dan Brown's 'Angels and Demons', like the 'DaVinci Code' there were many arid sections, but a great book to read whilst in Rome as it gives lots of interesting snippets of information, would recommend as a 'Good Read whilst in Rome'.

8.10.06 11:26