When in Rome and the Top 10
Written: Jul 11 '05 (Updated Oct 04 '05)
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Pros: Ruins ruins ruins everywhere...
Cons: ...pickpockets, crowds, beggars, rude Romans.
The Bottom Line: There are certainly lots of things to do, but for the love of god, don't go to Rome in June.
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| munkus's Full Review: Rome |
Rome is full of startling contradictions- it is the centre of Christianity yet has a 24-hour Tarot channel largely hosted by an effeminate man named Luis. Italy is the world's seventh largest economy but with a social structure more akin to a teetering ex-socialist banana republic and with some truly startling examples of poverty (though I'm sure as far as things go, Roman shanty towns are much more pleasant than a shanty town in, say, Durban). In the same city block you'll see nuns in the traditional wimple (nowhere else in the world will you see more variations on religious robes) and some devastatingly unattractive hookers. I was propositioned and as I was reeling backwards in horror was almost taken out by a Vespa (propositioned by a priest or a prostitute? I'll let you figure it out). It is an incredibly conservative society- whilst I was there a referendum passed very restrictive IVF laws- yet at the kiosks hardcore pornography is sold alongside international press.
I didn't really like Rome. I liked the things in Rome, but the actual city left me unimpressed. Its dirty, hot and full of pickpockets and beggars. The public transport system is badly under-resourced and you can barely move without tripping over a shifty Ethiopian selling fake handbags. In fairness to the Eternal City though, it did come after France in my journey which was a hard act to follow. I don't speak any Italian which of course is a setback, it can't help its climate and in June Rome is completely overwhelmed with tourists. It is not an exaggeration to say I heard more American accents in Rome than Italian. In fact I'm not entirely convinced that they are any Romans in Rome, unless they speak in midwestern accents or look Japanese or wear the short shorts that for some unfathomable reason are popular with people of both genders from former USSR states. The fact I visited the horrific Vatican Museums on my first day didn't help either, nor the incompetencies of my hotel.
How I Got There
I flew to Rome from Nice onboard the only carrier that flies the route- Alitalia. Its not a cheap service thanks to this monopoly at around AUD$700 one way but return was $220 so guess who just didn't show up for the return flight. There are so many horror stories about Alitalia but for this short 1 hour flight it was fine. The aircraft, an old MD80, looked a bit worse for wear inside and felt particularly snug. But they fed us, yummy icecream, and gave us drinks so all was forgiven. Its hard to judge inflight service on such a snappy hop, but the two men in my section were fine but not as friendly as the woman at the door. The flight took forever to board as there were all these immaculately groomed Italian men in well-cut suits (the guy next to me dropped some icecream on his linen trousers and I thought he was going to kill someone) standing in the aisles who just would not let a woman lift her own luggage into the overhead lockers. Especially if she was young and pretty.
Fiumicino Airport is one of those places that on the surface looks efficient but really it isn't. It seems only about eight or nine of the 120ish passengers were ending their journey in Rome by the number of people at the baggage carousel. So you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to get the luggage out. The Sistine Chapel was painted in less time than it took for my one suitcase to appear with eight others in Fiumicino's gloomy Terminal B baggage hall. When I asked the Alitalia baggage counter how much longer it would be, the clerk looked at me with almost the same look the suit man gave to the drop of icecream on his trousers and told me just to wait. When I was checking in for my flight home a week later- things were just as chaotic as you can read a third of the way down here.
To get into Rome, the easiest way is by one of the two train routes. The station is linked to the airport by a series of walkways and there are no stairs, which is a big help in regards to luggage. However the doors to the trains are high and narrow so that's a bit of fun for lower back pain. The local FS service stops all stations but not the big one, Termini and the more expensive Leonardo Express takes thirty minutes to run direct to Termini where you can easily get a cab to your final destination or walk to the dozens of cheap hotels on and around the Via Cavour.
Where I Stayed
I stayed at the Hotel Altavilla on the Via Principe Amedeo, which runs off Via Cavour and is about a three minute walk from Termini. Or it is if you leave Termini at the main entrance, and not the side entrance which I foolishly did and wandered around lost on a hot Sunday afternoon until some kindly Indian man escorted me personally to the hotel door some 90 minutes later. A fifteen minute walk down the Via Cavour brings you to the Colosseum and Forum, and another five minutes to the busy Piazza Venezia. Santa Maria Maggiore is about a five minute walk from the hotel. If you're an opera buff, the Teatro dell'Opera is about three minutes stroll away. Via Principe Amedeo is a cheap hotel strip, with a handful of equally cheap tourist-orientated restaurants but by this point of my travels I just didn't care about authenticity anymore.
My single room was tiny, with a window covered in a gauze curtain, a thick mock-velvet affair and wooden shutters which pretty much meant natural light was not an option so it all seemed gloomier than it probably was. This was also the only single room on my trip that actually meant a single bed. The bathroom was woeful, with a shower that had seven (I counted) jets of water that ranged from an end-of-urination-dribble to sandblasting-force that actually caused shoulder pain.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, whilst I was out one day the hotel took it upon themselves to pack up my luggage and move me to another room in Hotel Giardia, which is owned by the same people and is on alternate floors. This was a nicer room with a bigger, modern bathroom with a shower that demonstrated some of the plumbing advances of the twentieth century. However I wasn't too impressed at the luggage handling considering I wasn't there in these days of drug mules but apparently the shower was exploding. It was all a bit suspect anyhow.
The staff are rather annoyingly incompetent (perhaps it was because I was at the end of a trip, and had I stayed here in the first week they would've been quaintly incompetent). I was leaving early on the last day, so offered to settle the bill the night before but was assured it'd be fine to do it the next morning. Only when I arrived to check out, the morning clerk didn't know what to do. The room/s did have ceiling fans which is a massive plus in a Roman summer, though the new room had only on/off which meant I either gently broiled or it sounded like a helicopter was taking off inside the room.
I didn't know where else to put this so I'll just through it out there- Italian TV is horrendous. Think variety shows hosted by men with big moustaches wearing sequin jackets playing a mandolin with a kick-line of plain women in French maid's uniforms behind.
Romans don't like me, the handful I did actually encounter. Everyone always warns about rude Parisians, but I found the Parisians positively warm compared to the brusque Romans. However this is probably due my complete lack of Italian skills. When I tried a bit of Italian (I was hoping to pick some more up whilst in Rome but unless I wanted to learn the American way of saying piazza- there are more than you think- this was futile) there was a 50% chance the Roman in question would just look at me like I was a malformed turd in a punchbowl and either yell "what you want?" or speak in carefully measured patronising English with a scowl. By the end of my week in Rome, I think the odds were about 50:50 that each Roman I encountered would be nasty or nice. If you need help in Rome, the policemen seemed quite friendly to tourists (much friendlier than they were to locals at any rate and if you're black just forget about it) and nuns, priests and monks are a safe bet.
One of the most under-appreciated tourist attractions of Rome is the traffic. Sure, each time you cross a street you risk your neck, but this is actually rather invigorating. Paris may have aggressive drivers and London may have gridlock galore, but both are blissfully ordered compared to Rome. Pedestrian crossings, one way streets and stairs mean nothing to the Roman driver or, even worse, the Vespa. Whilst only tourists in Paris wait for the green man to cross the street, in Rome its pointless as just because you have a green light doesn't mean anyone else is going to be bothered to stop anyhow. The good news is, Roman drivers have quick reflexes (the ones that survive their first month on the roads anyhow) and that under Italian law in any accident between a pedestrian and a vehicle the vehicle is always at fault. The other alternative, as wisely observed by Bill Bryson, is to find a nun and stick to her 'like a wet t-shirt' as she crosses the street. One of my more entertaining Roman experiences was watching the traffic try to right itself after mass road-closures for the Pope (more on that later).
Whinge whinge grumble, so here are my Top 10 good things about Rome. I used the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Series, which is superb and so beautifully published it doubles up as a souvenir. It also has the clearest maps I've ever seen in a guide book. I also used the Lonely Planet Condensed Rome which is designed for short breaks, is pocket sized and is a bit more brutal in its assessment of sites as opposed to DK which generally puts a positive spin on everything (except, amusingly, Roman traffic). It also has the admission fees, which whilst a few years out of date, are a good guide nonetheless.
San Pietro
We'll start with a slightly cliched choice, but everything you've heard about St Peters is true. It is startlingly massive and thankfully the organisers of the Vatican Museums are evidently not allowed near it as it is exceptionally well run. Mark Twain wrote that it is impossible to describe the vast interior because it is so beyond the limitations of the English language in size and grandeur. But I'll have a go anyway.
It is really, really, really, really big.
Outside is the Piazza San Pietro. On my visit it was filled with a temporary stage and seating (perhaps for a death metal concert, who knows) so the grandeur was somewhat ruined, but when I saw it on the the very addictive Google Earth, you suddenly appreciate the divine symmetry of it. Also its one of the few places in Rome where you won't be offered some fake Prada clutch purses, so hurrah for that. It is also a good place to get the compulsory photo of the colourfully striped Swiss Guards. They also seem happy to pose with small children, but will not do the same for adults.
The size is so massive that it comfortably absorbs the thousands of tourists and pilgrims and yet you never, ever feel cramped or crowded. The security is, obviously, strict and St Peters enforces a suitable dress code more than any other church in Rome- the clever touristette wearing a singlet will have a wrap in her bag for this very reason. No bare legs or shoulders on any gender.
Palazzo Massimo
This is one of the greatest wonders of Rome, yet often neglected by tourists and locals alike so you'll often have almost the whole museum to yourself. It is located just near Termini and the Piazza Repubblicca and is home to an unparallelled collection of Roman statues and other assorted bits and pieces in marble, the Roman coin museum (bit boring that) and some rather wonderful Roman and Late Roman jewellery.
But the real glories are on level 2. Both my guidebooks to Rome said this floor was open for regular guided visits only but when I was there I just walked in. This is where all the frescos and mosaics from around the Forum and Palatine have ended up and their realism is astonishing and mindblowing. The highlight of this huge collection are the suite of frescos from Domus Livia- Livia's, one of Augustus' wives, House. Her summer dining room had wrap-around wall frescos of a pastoral scene and here in the Palazzo Massimo three complete walls are presented. Also from Domus Livia are three bedrooms- one for adults with erotic paintings and a child's bedroom with protective god mosaics. Nowhere have I ever felt Ancient Rome to be more 'real'.
Pleasingly, especially in Rome, the museum is well run, well signposted with multi-lingual labels and in spacious, modern airy galleries. No free map though, but this seems to be a concept completely foreign to Rome.
The ticket to Massimo will get you into the three other national museums in Rome- the Diocletian Baths across the street, the Palazzo Altemps in the historic centre and another one with a long complicated name near the Gesu church. None of them are really worth the bother, but are good places to get out of the heat.
Capitoline Museums
Perched atop Capital Hill, these two palazzos face each other across the beautiful Michelangelo designed Piazza del Campidoglio. Its another world, miles away from chaotic Piazza Venezia and the hilariously overwrought Vittoriano Monument. The museums, on the same ticket, feature a wide array of sculpture from Roman times. The Palazzo dei Conservatori also has some painting masters including Caravaggio's disturbingly sensual St John the Baptist and other random Rubens and Titians.
This palazzo has the strongest collection of the two, with the famous Estrucan She-Wolf statue from 5th Century BC with Romulus and Remus suckling at her teats, added sometime around the 15th Century. However the Palazzo Nuovo has some interesting pieces too including the heartbreaking Dying Galatian from the 3rd Century BC and the charming naturalistic Dove Mosaic from Hadrian's Villa- the finest mosaic outside the Palazzo Massimo.
The only downside is the lack of a free map and labelling. But the bookshop/gift shop is excellent. They're also remarkably crowd-free, and from the back there are fantastic views over the Forum, which are particularly striking at dusk and after dark.
Forum/Colosseum
Behind the Capitoline Museums is the heart of Ancient Rome and my main reason for coming to Rome in the first place. When I was a pre-teen I had an absolute fascination with Ancient Rome and Egypt (but not funnily enough, Greece) until a painfully boring history teacher in my first year of high school sucked this interest out of me.
The Forum is extraordinary (and free!) but can sometimes be so crowded with tourists and groups the history of it all can be a little lost. And after all, your do need a fairly good imagination to convert these prettily decrepit piles of bricks and marble into the bustling heart of the Ancient world. Of the dozens of sites (here the DK guidebook proved invaluable as there is no free map of the Forum, but DK had a beautifully illustrated one) highlights include the three remaining pillars of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (who I adopted as my patron Roman gods for some reason- they have larger-than-life-sized statues guarding the Capitol Hill), and the eight remaining pillars of the Temple of Saturn. What remains of the House of the Vestal Virgins is also atmospheric, and you can see where Caesar was cremated (and, curiously, where people leave flowers). Across the street is the vast remains of Trajan's Markets. I saw tourists in it, but I have no idea how they got there.
The Colosseum is also remarkable, despite standing in a traffic island surrounded by litter, tourists and saggy old men dressed as gladiators (now regulated by Rome after rumours of organised crime). A combined ticket with the Palatine (more ruins) will get you inside, but its not really worth the bother. By the time I visited the Palatine, I was a bit over looking at bricks without knowing what I was seeing but if you had a guide it would probably be considerably more interesting.
The Via dei Fori Imperiali is closed to traffic on Sundays, which makes it a lot less life-threatening to get that Yes-I'm-In-Rome photo of the Colosseum.
Pantheon
The world's finest preserved Roman temple was saved by becoming an early Christian church, though the bronze was stripped for San Pietro. The whole building is a masterly optical illusion- the rather daggy looking portico hides the dome from the entrance, making it a surprise even when you know its coming. The height of the dome is identical to its diameter- 42 metres- and the oculus, the hole, is 9 metres wide and provides the only light into the whole building- giving it a magical feeling that is only marginally diminished by the hordes of tourists walking around with their necks craned upwards.
If it rains in Rome and you're near the Piazza della Rotonda, dash to the Pantheon for cover where you'll see the sight of rain falling down the oculus in a perfect column before draining away in the invisible holes drilled in the floor by the original builders.
Villa Giulia
On the outskirts of the massive Borghese park is the Villa Giulia, home to the national collection of Estrucan relics. The Ancient Romans did a very thorough job of wiping out the Estrucans so we know very little about them- except what we find in their tombs and nowhere will you see more broken terracotta pots than in the Villa Giulia.
I tired of the pottery after a while, but the other relics, especially the gold jewellery, is extraordinary. But the real highlight is the Villa itself. Built as a pleasure palace for one of the more naughtier Popes (apparently it would be unseemly to have debauchery at St Peters), it is a series of immaculately maintained interlocking courtyard gardens, complete with resident turtles. And you'll have almost entirely to yourself.
Galleria Doria Pamphilj
Pamphilj isn't a very Italian looking word, but the last letter is pronounced as an i. The Doria Pamphilj family were one of Italy's most important Renaissance families due to a papal connection thanks to Nepotism- it is because one of the Dorias name was Nepote that the term exists. Anyway, they still live in this Palazzo near the Piazza Venezia but the picture galleries and some of the former state rooms are open to the public in one of Rome's least known treasures.
You can look at the hundreds of Baroque treasures and the lavish state rooms but the real charm of the Doria Pamphilj is the audio guide, included in the price, narrated by the wonderfully posh sounding half-Irish descendants of the Doria Pamphilj clan. I have never been so entranced by an audio guide in my life, as the male descendant talked about the 'pictures' and childhood memories of scrubbing the state room floors and rollerskating down the ornate picture galleries. I also can track my growing appreciation of Carravaggio to this glorious narration as he shared all sorts of interesting and wacky facts about the artist- like how he used the same model for the Virgin Mary in Flight out of Egypt as for Mary Magdalen in the portrait of the same name. Now there's a Dan Brown novel waiting to happen.
Tucked away on the ground floor is the Caffe Doria, which in my opinion is Rome's best cafe/tearoom in charmingly formal surrounds and with friendly service- rarity indeed in Rome.
Santa Maria della Concezione
The austere facade on the tourist-saturated Via Veneto (which by all rights should be the most beautiful street in Rome) gives no hint to what is probably Rome's quirkiest sight. Bill Bryson gave the game away in Here, There and Everywhere but some mad Capuchin monk around 1600 decided instead of burying his fellow monks, he'd use their skeletons as decorative features in the crypt as a giant memento mori.
It is absolutely wonderful.
Light fittings are made with finger bones and held from the roof by an arm bone, whilst cavorting on the ceiling in either superb parody or startling homage to Baroque tastes are cherubs made out of child skeletons with adult should-bladers for wings, and scythes made out of hip bones and leg bones.
Nearby is another of Rome's quirky churches, and another Dan Brown novel waiting to happen, in Santa Maria della Vittoria with Bernini's bizarre Ecstasy of St Teresa in which the saint looks like she's having a rather intense orgasm and depending on which angle you look at the cherub he either looks angelic or demonic.
Santi Nereo e Achilleo
You'll have to get through the rather depressing Caracalla district behind the Colosseum to get to this gloomy, dusty 16th century church on a busy traffic intersection, but for fans of the gory and quirky its worth it. The walls of the poky nave are decorated with a series of frescos showing in gruesomely clinical detail how each of the Apostles met their grisly end. My favourite is the p/ssed off look on the guy getting boiled in oil.
Gelati/Grattachecche
The final entry in the Top 10 is not a place but a thing, and no visitor to Rome should leave without eating as much of these two delights as possible. Whilst pasta in Italy seemed no better than anywhere else and the pizza not as mindblowing as I'd been promised, Roman gelati has ruined me for life, making all icecream back home taste bland by comparison. I have a particular soft spot for cappucino and green apple flavours. Grattachecche is harder to find but basically is shaved ice with syrup (we call them Snow Cones) and is blissfully refreshing on a hot day. There is a gelaterie on the busy Campo di Fiori that sells it.
A few things didn't make the list- the churches of Rome are, naturally, spectacular. The general highlights are usually Santa Maria Maggiore, Gesu and San Giovanni in Lateran. The latter was my favourite, it was the papal church until St Peters, and outside is Rome's tallest obelisk at 42m. The interior was slightly ruined though by cheap plastic chairs but I suppose it makes it easier to clear the nave for the weekly barn dance. I didn't make it to the Galleria Borghese which is considered outstanding, and the nearby Modern Art Museum was a bit blah except for an outstanding collection of Futurists (and amuseument that in the Eternal City, 'modern' starts at 1800).
This isn't really one for the Top 10, but if you're Catholic a visit to Rome usually involves the Pope in way or another. I'm not Catholic by any means, but even I felt excited when I stumbled upon Pope Benedict XVI by accident twice in the same day. Turns out he was making his first state visit to the President of Italy up on the Quirinale and a whole stack of roads were closed. I saw him once by accident on his way to the President, and then again on his way back to his Vatican digs. It made my Roman jaunt feel very authentic. On a related note, the Vatican produces more tourist crap than anywhere not owned by the Disney Corporation, and you can merrily pass hours playing Tackiest-Thing-in-the-Store in the shops around the Vatican. If a Roman finds a flat surface, you can bet he'll get a likeness of the Pope on it somehow.
In Rome you really need to be aware of street crime- pickpocketing is a big problem and tourists are an obvious target. I saw two occur- one was very clever. This ten year old girl managed to snatch a guy's wallet from his back pocket just as the train doors were closing. Fortunately the train rallied round, forced open the doors and he got his wallet back. The second was more crude, an old woman distracted a guy outside my hotel whilst separating him from his cash in a matter of seconds. She got away with it.
Its also good to know that Romans take coffee as seriously as the French take wine- only tourists have milk in the coffee after double digits in the morning. The plus side is coffee prices are government regulated, so its always a cheap pick-me-up.
Some people thrive on the madhouse that is Rome- the noise, heat, pollution- and perhaps if it hadn't come at the end of a long solo trip I would've too. It is a completely overwhelming destination- bombarding you from every angle relentlessly. If I were to go again I would go in winter, away from the heat and the maddening crowds of brightly attired, mostly American, tourists.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Time to Travel Here: Mar - May
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munkus
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Location: Ruritania
Reviews written: 205
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About Me:
Munkus now lives in America. He is the size of a house.
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