Roman holiday

Roma

Trip miles 2,235

Home for the night in the Lazio hills

We broke up the drive to the eternal city with a free stopover at the picturesque village of Strangolagalli high up in the Lazio hills. The parking gave a panoramic view of the green fields and olive groves below but the town’s bells rang out every quarter hour above Bertha’s cab and it was a weary drive the next morning into Rome listening in to Pope Francis’ Sunday address on the radio.


 

From our campsite we could hear the bells of St Peter’s, being only 4kms away down the tram track from the ancient gateway of Porta Maggiore.The 4kms proved to be a grubby stretch of high rise flats and cheap shops with buildings covered in graffiti and public urinating common place. Quite probably a taste of timeless Roman life outside of the famous centre, but we were surprised generally by how down at heel and decrepit even the big sights currently are.

Rome wasn’t tidied up in a day

 

Queuing to get inside the Vatican walls

A day on foot gave us the chance to see the ancient and modern city and we began at St Peter’s Square where thousands of chairs and barricades were still in place following yesterday’s packed service by the new Pope. 

We were amused to see huge banners advertising an exhibition about Argentina within St Paul’s and generally saw many other references to the city’s love affair with its new Pope and his homeland.

  

Venturing off the beaten track and winding our way down through steep cobbled lanes we came upon an unforgettable view across the remains of the Roman Forum from the fenced off Palatine Hill. It was worth the drive alone to be struck in wonder at the scale of the architecture and ancient street pattern still clearly visible and open to wander amongst the towering columns and porticos. 

A view from Palatine Hill

We chose not to revisit the Coliseum (having been before) but we enjoyed walking around its perfect perimeter dodging the traffic that speeds past it as the site is effectively a roundabout.

Timeless & mysterious

 

Let’s go round again

We meandered along the graffiti’d walls of the Tiber 

and down and round the many large and small piazzas where we jostled for pavement space with an army of tables and chairs being set up for lunch under the hot sun. Our tourist menu should have cost us 12euros for a salad and plate of pasta each but ended up costing twice that amount as various cover charges, tourist taxes and an extortionately priced glass of table wine was added. We then had to wrestle our change from the waiter who was hustling aggressively for a tip. Simon had plenty to offer him but thankfully was defeated by the language barrier!

Posing for the tourists

Back in the 18^th century centre we watched the posing Carabinieri on the Spanish Steps and joined the throng at the Trevi Fountain but were unable to make a wish as the water was drained and the millions of coins were being shovelled up and bagged by city officials. It was an interesting sight and one that did rather sum up our short experience of Rome which seems to be that it is very driven toward taking money but is not visibly spending it on its shamefully deteriorating attractions.

 

Who gets the wish money?

Several thousand pennies in the fountain