People watching: The eternal pastime in the eternal city.
Written: Aug 25 '04 (Updated Feb 04 '05)
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Pros: May be one of the best places in the world for people watching.
Cons: If you don't like watching people, too bad.
The Bottom Line: Rome is a great city for people watching. Just look out your hotel window, or go to any of the piazzas. You're bound to see something interesting.
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| jsquarejj's Full Review: Rome |
This isn't a typical review of Rome. It's an extract from the journal I kept during my recent trip to Italy. So, it doesn't mention a lot a specifics about Rome, but I hope it creates an impression that makes you want to visit this amazing city (but probably not during the summer, when I went!).
Roma 6/24/04
Rome, hot--quaranta gradi.
At bedtime, look out the courtyard window to see how Romans cope (after all, when in Rome...). Windows, shutters and drapes thrown wide, people loll in the openings. A shirtless man sits in his window, fan fluttering like a dove's wings. The beautiful motion of his fan almost mask the huge size of his belly. He's sweating, fanning and smoking. An immodest young woman rotates slowly in front of an electric fan in half light, wets her face, neck, shoulders and chest with a cloth from a basin. A couple stands at another window cooing to a fussy baby. In the background, a child's head darts back and forth. In another window, a lively teenage couple paws at each other.
Police the room for mosquitoes and kill every one. Sleep naked with the shutters, windows and drapes open wide to admit even the weakest puff of night air (mal aria or buon'aria?), ceiling fan on full blast. By morning, the room has cooled down to 80 degrees. In the morning, close it up tight--shutters, windows, drapes. If you do that, the room will be twenty degrees cooler than outside when you come back for siesta at 2:00 PM. If you make the mistake of leaving the window open, the room will get just as warm as the outside--100 degrees.
Get up early. Get breakfast. Hit a museum. Buy those souvenirs. Drink lots of water. Quick lunch. More water. By 2:00 PM it's too hot to move or even be conscious--siesta time. Thank god the room's so cool. Sleep until 6:00 PM. Get up and think about dinner. Quick shower cools you down for about five minutes. Have a snack. Read the guide book. Get dressed. The restaurants don't open 'til 7:30 or 8:00 PM.
Outside, it's hot, but buildings hide the sun. Get a cool drink. More water. More water. Saunter around Piazza Navona.
Quick portrait artists display samples of Michael Jackson, President Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, and pretty women with the same Madonna faces we've seen in museums. The caricaturists have fun with the faces of Bush and obscure Italian politicians. Undernourished waifs try to sell rosebuds to everyone in sight. "If you don't want one, just give me money." Waiters in cafes are indulgent but kick them out when they see customers get too irritated. Their adult masters box their ears. Street musicians perform just outside cafes and venture inside for donations from patrons of the arts. Little boys play statues, cheating as much as possible. Teenage girls flaunt strips of belly with bejeweled navels and oversized crucifixes hang between their breasts. They skillfully deflect wine-softened male attention. Despite their appearance, their confessions must be boring.
Hawkers hawk the same wind-up birds they hawk everywhere, but live bats join them in daring twilight dives. Stroboscopic yo-yos zoom up and down, and everywhere, people are wearing chemical light necklaces and bracelets. T-shirts fly in the breeze like flags, and so do flags. At least two entrepreneurs will write "your name on a grain of rice" and seal it in an amulet that you can wear around your neck--forever. Several people--all young men--weave brightly colored strings and beads into one's hair at very reasonable prices. Their customers are invariably attractive young women whose charms attract male onlookers who leave tips without receiving the hair weaving service. There are astrologers and tarot readers, but only people who actually receive their services seem to pay them. And don't forget the piano-playing marionette.
Not many skateboards or roller skates. No rowdiness. Only the occasional schizophrenic yelling obscenities that American tourists don't understand. (Sono Americano. Non parlo italiano.)
The fountains attract people trying to cool off. Tongues from a dozen countries flick at mounds of delicious gelato from Tre Scalini. Hairy, sweaty men in tank tops fight to separate dogs trying to be dogs. Cats stick close to the buildings or peer cautiously from doorways. Police wait, but nothing untoward seems to happen--at least not yet.
A child running with abandon vaults head first into a cobblestone and starts to scream. A stranger picks it up and dusts it off, gets a nod from its parents. Two not so great Frisbee players toss a disc back and forth. They seem to dip their fingers into the fountain a lot. A bad three piece street band tries to draw a crowd, but no one seems interested. Old women sit alone or in pairs, talking or not talking.
A beautiful woman--looks like a great, great, etc. granddaughter of Boticelli's Venus, only more provocative by being covered up--sits on the edge of a fountain. Several young men notice her, and the quickest walks over to sit a few feet away as the rest curse their milliseconds of indecision. She crosses her legs, turns away. He glances at her occasionally, sizing her up. Both look up at the nearly half-moon. He lights a cigarette, inhales, muses. She notices the smoke, produces a cigarette of her own. At the moment it touches her lips, his lighter bursts into flame at its tip. Her eyes flash, cheeks flush, and she inhales, momentarily disarmed, exhales and smiles, "Grazie." They start to talk, she turns toward him in stages, regains her self-assurance, recrosses her legs in his direction. They talk some more, occasionally laughing. She starts to preen, finishes by shaking the hair away from her face and shoulders. They talk a long time, smile and laugh a lot, then walk away together. She looks like the woman with the electric fan. Maybe her cousin.
Next day, the Coloseum. More hawkers than ever. Mostly cheap post cards. Can't get their postcard deals anywhere else. "What a lovely girl. What a lovely family. Buy my post cards." Plastic Coloseums on sorta-marble bases. Every significant achievement of the Romans turned into kitsch. ["No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition."--Milan Kundera, Unbearable Lightness of Being] Makes you wish the lions were still an integral part of the human condition.
What an incredible place.
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Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Epinions.com ID:
jsquarejj
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 - Top 200 |
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Member: Jim J
Location: Santa Cruz, California
Reviews written: 190
Trusted by: 78 members
About Me:
#7 in Personal Finance, #14 in Travel. My goal? Saving you money.
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