Rome if you want to, Rome around the world
May. 4th, 2019 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsThe world is ruined by tourists. Hard Rock Cafes, padlocks weighing down bridges, selfie-stick wankers, Segway wankers. Although of course one can't note this if one is not onself a tourist. Although a tourist wanker is not as bad as someone who calls themself a "traveller" and refuses to eat at any restaurant where the menu is translated.
Before we even get to the Coliseum, we've been offered selfie-sticks, open top bus tours, phone chargers, trinkets, leather bracelets, and assorted tat. Or rather Dave has been offered these things; sexism can be handy at times. The queues are massive, so we walk past the Temple of Venus, il Forum and the Arch Constantine, up Palatine Hill, where reliefs of the twelve stations of the Cross, which leads away from the madding crowd up to a quiet little church (San Boneventura). I'm a confirmed atheist but it is oddly touching in its simplicity.
On our way to look at Altare Della Patria (that big white building with statues of a chariot race on the top), it starts to piss it down so we take shelter inside, along with every other person in Rome, it seems. It's a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, who unified Italy - along with some help from Garibaldi,who also invented the biscuit. The rain carries on for about four hours, necessitating trips to churches (God bless the Catholics for building so many), the Co-op, the Bocca Del Verite and its accompanying church, St Maria in Cosmedin, and the opposite Forum Boarium, (it's great that random bits of surviving Roman architecture are just there as you wander around) a restaurant that specialises in melted cheese (not fondue, just plates of melted cheese), a coffee shop (where I very much enjoy a thick, dark hot chocolate), and a Trastevere birraria, which plays Jonathan Richman and Rome vs Cagliari (3-0). The tourist-tat sellers change up their wares to ponchos and umbrellas (umbrelli?).
We have to pay three euros per day per person tourist tax, which I'd suggest that the Borough of Rome spends on tarmaccing over the cobbled slippy-to-walk-on pavements.
Finally, the sun comes out and we walk over the Isola, an island in the middle of the Tiber, now housing a hospital, to the Fonta Acqua Paola and thus up Via Garibaldi to the Gazza statue, which Dave is interested in for Nottingham Forest reasons, and I am happy to be up on a hill in the sunshine, with a bella vista and min. tourist activity. Past the Faro al Gianicolo and down to Bir and Fud, where we have Italian craft beer and the best aubergine parmigiana I've ever tasted, which makes up for the rude staff, one of whom literally walks away after Dave has placed his food order, without waiting for mine.
We meander back over the river, through Campo di Fiori, where there is a statue of Giordano Brun (aka Gordon Brown), one of the first astronomers, as well as open air restaurants, outside seats and gas heaters, then down a tiny alleyway into silence, round an apartment block, once the Teatro di Satire, which is a rare curved Roman road as it follows the curves of Hadrian's ex-villa. We stop at another random bit of archaeology: the Largo di Torre Argentina, which doubles up as a cat shelter, where one big bruiser with a busted eye is happy for strokies.
Nuns spotted = 4
*
Today is a ticky-off day. To the Trevi fountain, where girls posing like Anita E perch on the edge of the water, pouting for their instagrams and being whistled at (not in cat-call way but because they are eating ice-cream too close to the edge. I also witness an amusing tourist-local encounter wherein a middle aged, mid-west American tries to get a machine gun-toting teenage soldier to pose with him and a toy doggie. The soldier looks horrified. No, he says, No. Go on, says the American, I'm from the States. Fortunately, he does not add "we liberated you" or "without us, there'd be no Americanos"). Then past Keats and Shelley's house to the Spanish steps and then the Parthenon, which is beautiful inside, but full of terribly and noisy people. Down charming, plant-filled pedestrian backstreets (pedestrians do not have priority in Rome so much as nerves of steel. We went over the central square, Pizza Venezia, last night and it made crossing the A1 look pleasant. Not every ambulance siren we hear can be for a stroke or heart attack victims) for a chocolate and cherry cheese cake ice-cream (molto bene!) and thus to the Vatican, which is a relief when we finally cross its border as the tourist touts are proibito from entering. There's a line and the touts have no jurisdiction beyond it. There's also a line to get into St Peter's Basilica, so after taking in the atmosphere (catholic), looking at Pontifex Maximus's windows (but not the black smoke chimney), and admiring the Swiss guards with their puffball sleeve blouses ( Catholicism is as camp as Christmas), we go downr to the Prati district and bump into a vegeburger place for lunch.
As well as selfie-sticks, we have also not bought: Limoncello in a penis and testicles shaped bottle, coloured pasta, tiny or huge jars of Nutella (what would happen if Nutella went into receivership? the government would have to bail it out. Nothing else signifies national unity like choc-hazelnut spread) the handsome priests calendar (although I'm tempted, Padre Dicembre is caldo!) or the three popes (JP2, Nazi Pope and Jim Bowen Pope) fridge magnets. Dave suggests that tat shops should sell pens featuring a pic of a pope who loses his surplice if you turn it upside down. I would be quite tempted to buy the lift in our hotel, if such a thing were possible, with its three hand-operated doors and a slot for 10c to operate it, it's quite charming. In bars, sinks are not operated by sensors but by mechanical foot pedalling. One more high-tech thing we've seen is free acqua frizzante at newer water fountains.
We stop in the Piazza del Popolo, which has a fountain, a church, and tourist fatigue, and after a rest, go down to the Mauseleo Augusto. Which is huge, so Augie must have been a big lad. Or maybe he had all his stuff buried wirth him, his Marvel comic collection, scart leads, trainers, rawl plugs - you know how men horde things. Next door to this is the Ara Pacis, a (re)construction of a temple of peace from Claudius's reign. Inside, we learn that Caesar, Claudius and Nero were all related. As well as the temple itelf there are recreations of busts of the time, including one of Geraintus Thomasus (perhaps). I'm thinking of pivoting to Latin, but unfortunately nobody needs to know that Caicilius est in horto.
We go back into tourist centrale and have a caffe zabaglione at a gelatria. This is espresso with a chunk of semi-freddo floating on top and is delicioso.
There was no pizza in Rome until after the war, when the Neapolitan immigrants brought it with them. Now they're so mad fer it that the neighbourhood pizza place we go to is full after twenty minutes (mostly by a three table American tour group: it's my theory that American travel in packs because they've watched far too many films about yankees coming a-cropper in Europe) and sad couples stand at the doorway urging us with their eyes to finish our ortalano, pinot grigio and chocolate mousse cake. Afterwards, we go to a nearby hipster bar for blueberry juice and beer.
Nun count = 8
*
We have an hour or so to kill before we head to Termini, so visit the Santa Maria Magiore, one of the Vatican's four basilicas in Rome. It's golden and sumptuous and what I think Martin Luther didn't realise when he was proclaiming all over the place is that atheists brought up in the protestant tradition would in the future be somewhat impressed by bells, smells, gold and the sheer fanciness of Catholicism. Perhaps the god stuff is so OTT in Rome to make up for burning the Christians for a number of years. I witness another tourist-local tryst, a counterpoint to yesterday's encounter, whereby a tiny, pruney old lady, peering into a chapel where a service is being sung, totters on the steps and almost topples over before a German? Dutch? tourists grabs her, and the vecchia donna thanks her in Italian, double kissing her cheek.
Final nun count = 14
Before we even get to the Coliseum, we've been offered selfie-sticks, open top bus tours, phone chargers, trinkets, leather bracelets, and assorted tat. Or rather Dave has been offered these things; sexism can be handy at times. The queues are massive, so we walk past the Temple of Venus, il Forum and the Arch Constantine, up Palatine Hill, where reliefs of the twelve stations of the Cross, which leads away from the madding crowd up to a quiet little church (San Boneventura). I'm a confirmed atheist but it is oddly touching in its simplicity.
On our way to look at Altare Della Patria (that big white building with statues of a chariot race on the top), it starts to piss it down so we take shelter inside, along with every other person in Rome, it seems. It's a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, who unified Italy - along with some help from Garibaldi,
We have to pay three euros per day per person tourist tax, which I'd suggest that the Borough of Rome spends on tarmaccing over the cobbled slippy-to-walk-on pavements.
Finally, the sun comes out and we walk over the Isola, an island in the middle of the Tiber, now housing a hospital, to the Fonta Acqua Paola and thus up Via Garibaldi to the Gazza statue, which Dave is interested in for Nottingham Forest reasons, and I am happy to be up on a hill in the sunshine, with a bella vista and min. tourist activity. Past the Faro al Gianicolo and down to Bir and Fud, where we have Italian craft beer and the best aubergine parmigiana I've ever tasted, which makes up for the rude staff, one of whom literally walks away after Dave has placed his food order, without waiting for mine.
We meander back over the river, through Campo di Fiori, where there is a statue of Giordano Brun (aka Gordon Brown), one of the first astronomers, as well as open air restaurants, outside seats and gas heaters, then down a tiny alleyway into silence, round an apartment block, once the Teatro di Satire, which is a rare curved Roman road as it follows the curves of Hadrian's ex-villa. We stop at another random bit of archaeology: the Largo di Torre Argentina, which doubles up as a cat shelter, where one big bruiser with a busted eye is happy for strokies.
Nuns spotted = 4
*
Today is a ticky-off day. To the Trevi fountain, where girls posing like Anita E perch on the edge of the water, pouting for their instagrams and being whistled at (not in cat-call way but because they are eating ice-cream too close to the edge. I also witness an amusing tourist-local encounter wherein a middle aged, mid-west American tries to get a machine gun-toting teenage soldier to pose with him and a toy doggie. The soldier looks horrified. No, he says, No. Go on, says the American, I'm from the States. Fortunately, he does not add "we liberated you" or "without us, there'd be no Americanos"). Then past Keats and Shelley's house to the Spanish steps and then the Parthenon, which is beautiful inside, but full of terribly and noisy people. Down charming, plant-filled pedestrian backstreets (pedestrians do not have priority in Rome so much as nerves of steel. We went over the central square, Pizza Venezia, last night and it made crossing the A1 look pleasant. Not every ambulance siren we hear can be for a stroke or heart attack victims) for a chocolate and cherry cheese cake ice-cream (molto bene!) and thus to the Vatican, which is a relief when we finally cross its border as the tourist touts are proibito from entering. There's a line and the touts have no jurisdiction beyond it. There's also a line to get into St Peter's Basilica, so after taking in the atmosphere (catholic), looking at Pontifex Maximus's windows (but not the black smoke chimney), and admiring the Swiss guards with their puffball sleeve blouses ( Catholicism is as camp as Christmas), we go downr to the Prati district and bump into a vegeburger place for lunch.
As well as selfie-sticks, we have also not bought: Limoncello in a penis and testicles shaped bottle, coloured pasta, tiny or huge jars of Nutella (what would happen if Nutella went into receivership? the government would have to bail it out. Nothing else signifies national unity like choc-hazelnut spread) the handsome priests calendar (although I'm tempted, Padre Dicembre is caldo!) or the three popes (JP2, Nazi Pope and Jim Bowen Pope) fridge magnets. Dave suggests that tat shops should sell pens featuring a pic of a pope who loses his surplice if you turn it upside down. I would be quite tempted to buy the lift in our hotel, if such a thing were possible, with its three hand-operated doors and a slot for 10c to operate it, it's quite charming. In bars, sinks are not operated by sensors but by mechanical foot pedalling. One more high-tech thing we've seen is free acqua frizzante at newer water fountains.
We stop in the Piazza del Popolo, which has a fountain, a church, and tourist fatigue, and after a rest, go down to the Mauseleo Augusto. Which is huge, so Augie must have been a big lad. Or maybe he had all his stuff buried wirth him, his Marvel comic collection, scart leads, trainers, rawl plugs - you know how men horde things. Next door to this is the Ara Pacis, a (re)construction of a temple of peace from Claudius's reign. Inside, we learn that Caesar, Claudius and Nero were all related. As well as the temple itelf there are recreations of busts of the time, including one of Geraintus Thomasus (perhaps). I'm thinking of pivoting to Latin, but unfortunately nobody needs to know that Caicilius est in horto.
We go back into tourist centrale and have a caffe zabaglione at a gelatria. This is espresso with a chunk of semi-freddo floating on top and is delicioso.
There was no pizza in Rome until after the war, when the Neapolitan immigrants brought it with them. Now they're so mad fer it that the neighbourhood pizza place we go to is full after twenty minutes (mostly by a three table American tour group: it's my theory that American travel in packs because they've watched far too many films about yankees coming a-cropper in Europe) and sad couples stand at the doorway urging us with their eyes to finish our ortalano, pinot grigio and chocolate mousse cake. Afterwards, we go to a nearby hipster bar for blueberry juice and beer.
Nun count = 8
*
We have an hour or so to kill before we head to Termini, so visit the Santa Maria Magiore, one of the Vatican's four basilicas in Rome. It's golden and sumptuous and what I think Martin Luther didn't realise when he was proclaiming all over the place is that atheists brought up in the protestant tradition would in the future be somewhat impressed by bells, smells, gold and the sheer fanciness of Catholicism. Perhaps the god stuff is so OTT in Rome to make up for burning the Christians for a number of years. I witness another tourist-local tryst, a counterpoint to yesterday's encounter, whereby a tiny, pruney old lady, peering into a chapel where a service is being sung, totters on the steps and almost topples over before a German? Dutch? tourists grabs her, and the vecchia donna thanks her in Italian, double kissing her cheek.
Final nun count = 14
