ROME, ITALY

The train from Florence to Rome was of the high-speed variety and it made no stops in between. I met a 30-year-old American girl on the train who was retired from the Air Force after one of their doctors botched a stomach surgery and she was just going to Rome for the day while on a trip visiting a friend in Florence. I guess she is a shopaholic so spending €55 on a roundtrip train ticket was cheaper than the €600 she spent the previous day. The train pulled into to the Termini Station on Rome in less than two hours.

I didn’t have a hotel reservation, but I wasn’t worried since it was so early. The Web site that I had been using only showed a few hotels anywhere near my price range and all of those were far outside the city so I was going to use a recommendation from my Rick Steves book. Rome is definitely an expensive city for hotels any time of the year and I found that a bit surprising. Venice is expensive, but it’s so small and tourist-filled that the demand always outstrips the supply, but Rome is huge. This was going to be the last expensive city on my whole trip (probably) so I decided not to be too cheap about it. I could get a small room on the wrong side of the train station for about €50, but I wanted something more central and hopefully a bit nicer. I decided on a place about a 10-minute walk from the station on Via Firenze, a street filled with mid-price hotels on one side of the street and the heavily armed Defense Ministry on the other, so safety is guaranteed.

I found it quickly and was impressed by the lobby and the friendly women that were running the place. The normal rate was €110 for a single this time of the year, but if you show your Rick Steves book it’s only €87 (always including tax and breakfast). I checked in and was amazed at the marble hallways leading to my room. The hotel was really up to 4-star standards in every way and had a central location so I felt lucky to have found it for the somewhat reasonable price. Rick Steves strikes again. Evidently he stays there when he is in town often and there was actually one of his tour groups staying at the hotel during my stay as well.

I had a flight to Athens in 3 days so I was pretty much locked in to a 3-night stay. Once I actually read the Rome chapter in the Rick Steves book I discovered that he actually recommends spending as little time in Rome as you can. He says it’s important, but expensive and the least charming place in Italy. As I hit the streets I knew what he was talking about.

Almost every city I have visited had a population of maybe 100,000 people when the cathedrals and town squares were located, but Rome had 1 million people 2,000 years ago. In other words, the urban sprawl is Los Angeles-like. The sights are far apart, but worse than that the traffic is a mess and the subway only has two lines and those are only helpful for a few things. I had two full days after my arrival date, but I decided to hit the Coliseum just after I got there.

There was a metro stop near my hotel, but not near the Coliseum so walking was definitely the best way. I always enjoy walking instead of public transport, but I quickly discovered that traffic in Rome was chaotic, sidewalks are thin, and crosswalks are rare. I walked anyway and actually had a headache when I finally got to The Coliseum. I hadn’t had lunch yet so I thought I would grab some pizza or a sandwich nearby, but the only options I saw were these large carts like you might see in a zoo or theme park that sold unappetizing looking sandwiches for €5 each. This was Rome, after all, so I wanted something better. I paid the €10 and went into the Coliseum, but I passed on the Audioguides. Instead I read the detailed explanations from my book and eavesdropped on several other live tour guides.

I wasn’t in a great mood, but The Coliseum is a very interesting attraction. I am almost positive I was there when I was 8-years-old, but that hardly counts. The structure is obviously falling apart, but the interesting thing is the description of what went on there. I find professional wrestling to be an embarrassment to our society, but this was far, far worse. I still think the movie Gladiator was twisted to appeal to the wrestling crowd, but to see the place and hear the real story of what went on there makes me wonder if they were close to the truth in that movie.

After the Coliseum I decided to hit all the rest of the nearby sights of Ancient Rome. I didn’t really understand that term until I saw it in person, but Ancient Rome is basically an archeological site from about 2,000 years ago that was uncovered in the 19th century. It consists of many columns and partial buildings and pedestals and whatnot. It’s very interesting, but it was crowded with tour groups.

It was at this point that I began to wonder if there is an ideal time to see these tourist attractions. While in Spain I actually regretted being there in the late winter since the wonderful outdoor cafes and so forth were off limits due to the weather. I thought perhaps going in spring would be best, but this was only two weeks later, still in late winter and everything was packed with people. It was nice and warm finally, maybe 70 degrees, but the huge tour groups everywhere was already making it feel like being in Disneyland or something. This was two weeks before Easter, so maybe this was just part of a pre-Easter rush, but it was hard to really appreciate and enjoy these places now that I was suddenly in a sea of other tourists.

I enjoyed seeing Ancient Rome, but I still had a headache and was now officially hungry. This incredible government building is on the other side of Ancient Rome, but the traffic on that side is like Times Square except there are no crosswalks. I found it incredible that a city with this many tourists could be organized (or disorganized) this way. Italy is supposed to be a crazy place in general, but I found it to be quite easy to handle until I got to Rome. You sort of have to just pick a time and then sprint across the street and so that’s what I did. I searched for a place to get a sandwich and a few blocks in I found a nice neighborhood bar.

Italy has these places called “Bars” just like Spain, but alcohol is not the main thing. You can get food or coffee or desserts there, but luckily you can also get beer or wine. I hadn’t had a beer since Spain so I kept that going and got a glass of house wine for €1 to calm my nerves, along with a small sandwich. I started feeling better, but it was obvious that Rome is a different animal than any other city I have visited on this trip. It's far more like London or Paris or New York or Berlin, but it lacks the planning of those cities. Whatever, Rome has some incredible sights that really can’t be missed so I was determined to make the best of it. My next stop was the Pantheon, a famous old church, just around the corner.

This was less impressive than I expected on the outside, but there were some really amazing sculptures on the inside. The neighborhood surrounding it contains some nice streets that are so thin there is very little motor traffic. I went to a famous gelato place a few blocks away that I read about in my book, but when I went inside there was a group of about 20 kids starting to order so I knew it would take forever before I would get served. I found another place and got a delicious cone. I must say the gelato in Italy lives up to the hype. I was about a mile and a half from my hotel at that point, but once again, walking was the most efficient way to get there. I’m still not sure exactly why walking through Rome is less pleasant than other Europeans cities, but it is. Soon I was back at my hotel. A while later I got some take out pizza from a place down the block and I stayed in that first night, hoping my headache wouldn’t return.

The next day was going to be my big sightseeing day. I had already hit about half the major sights on my list, but this was going to be the Vatican day. Vatican City is a tiny, self-contained country (sort of) within Rome, but across the river from most everything else. Fortunately, the museum is somewhat close to a metro stop on the same line as my hotel. It was about 11 a.m. when I went below ground, but something was wrong. I never figured out exactly what was going on, but evidently the entire subway system was broken or shut down temporarily for some reason. Between things like this and the constant transit strikes I think southern Europeans must never feel certain they will be able to get from one place to another exactly when they want.

Back above ground, the Vatican was pushed back until the next day since the Vatican Museum stops letting people in at 1 p.m. Plan B was a city bus tour and luckily they have a city-run one that is reasonably priced and supposedly quite good. I found the ticket booth in front of the train station and the line was huge. The subway being shut down probably added to the line, but I could see the city was just packed with tourists in a way that I hadn’t seen since Rio de Janeiro. Other bus tour companies were trying to poach people from the line by lying about their buses and the city-run ones, but I stayed the course and finally bought a ticket. It was €13 for a full city tour on a double-decker bus with all-day hop on hop off privileges.

I got in the long line for the actual bus and about 30 minutes later I was wedged into the small middle seat in the center of the back row on top. Actually the view was still great from there and I could probably see more than anyone else since I had a clear aisle in front of me and clear views on either side as well. It takes two hours to make it to all 11 stops on the tour, but it would only take about 40 minutes if not for all the gridlock. They provide headphones that plug in to a device next to each seat where you could select one of 6 languages for explanations of the sights. It was all well done, but the explanations rarely coincided with what we were seeing at the moment, probably because the traffic was so unpredictable. It was supposed to be a hop on hop off tour, but it was obvious that hopping off anywhere except the starting point would probably mean hopping back on and having to stand on the bottom because the top was always completely packed. I wanted to do the whole route anyway, so that was fine and two hours later I was done.

This tour really emphasized that Rome is enormous and it has beautiful classical architecture spread out over many square miles. The 500th fanciest building in Rome would probably be the #1 fanciest building in Omaha, Nebraska if it were moved there brick by brick. I walked around a bit more, but went back to my hotel for a rest since I was planning on seeing some of Rome by night this night.

A couple hours later I started on a walking tour through some good “strolling neighborhoods” that Rick Steves describes in his book. I had to take the metro a couple stations out, but once there I began to find the side of Rome that I had been missing. One thing that every single European city seems to have is a neighborhood centered around a pedestrian street. It’s strange to learn that this trend only began in the late 1960s in Rotterdam, of all places, because it seems like this sort of thing would have been naturally occurring for centuries. I guess horse and buggy and bicycle traffic was the nuisance previously, but in the last 40 years European streets have officially closed off entire streets to anything except pedestrians. Rome has almost none of this, but this neighborhood I was in actually does have a section of a main street with no cars and a few nice side streets with little or no traffic. If more of Rome were like this, it would be much less stressful, but I suppose they feel it’s too late.

I strolled around past the Spanish Steps and to the Trevi Fountain, which is an unbelievably ornate fountain that is impressive during the day and even better at night. I stopped into a couple of those Bar places and got a couple glasses of wine and some snacks and really had a change of heart about Rome. It’s definitely stressful, but if you know where to go and what to avoid it’s definitely a livable place or at least a tolerable place.

The next day I made the trip out to the Vatican Museum. I had considered skipping the museum and just seeing St. Peter’s Basilica, but it’s not like I had anything better to do so I shelled out the €12 and got in the huge line for the museum. The line moved quickly, but it was deceiving since that turned out just to be the security line. Once inside there were quite a few lines from which to choose to buy a ticket and they actually moved quickly, but the place was packed inside. The problem seemed to be the normal tourist crowds were augmented by huge crowds of field-tripping school kids.

Once inside it was a nightmare. The museum itself is really amazing, but it’s smartly organized into a one-way trip through the exhibitions and I was in a sea of people every second. A few times I decided to stop and wait for some groups to pass, but there were other groups on their heels. Other times I tried to make my way around groups to get some daylight, but it was only a few seconds before I would encounter another group. The guides for these groups had all the kids gather around a statue or tapestry before beginning the explanation and this meant many places were completely impassable for the traffic this caused.

Still, I was able to get a good look at things as I tried to tune out the crowds the best I could. It’s mostly tapestries, frescoes and sculptures until you get to a temporary display of modern Catholic paintings that was (thankfully) off the normal route of the kids. Finally I was in the Sistine Chapel, which marks the end of the museum route. They didn’t confiscate cameras before going in, but there was a no-flash-photography rule just like every other place like this. That didn’t stop the kids from photographing the ceiling of the chapel. There was a guard yelling at people as he went through the crowd and telling people to stop, but after he was just a few feet passed it was flash, flash, flash again. I decided to get one in even though I normally strongly abide by this rule.

After the Sistine you can take a semi-private exit straight into courtyard adjacent to St. Peter’s. I took that exit and was out of the museum and into the cathedral. This truly was an impressive place. It’s gigantic and obviously very ornate inside. I checked out all the main attractions that my book recommended and walked out into the famous square where the pope speaks. There were thousand of plastic chairs there already as this was just a few days before Palm Sunday. Instead of the subway I walked all the way back to my hotel, about 40 minutes probably.

That evening I went to a large pizza place near my hotel. I kind of wanted to go to the historic neighborhood across the river, but the metro doesn’t go there and the city layout is so awkward that I realized it would take at least 30 minutes to walk there, along traffic-clogged streets the whole time. The pizza at this place was great anyway so I was satisfied. The next day I would be flying to Athens, but I had already decided to go straight to the Aegina Island for a while before tackling Athens, which I suspected to be smaller, but similar to Rome in many ways.

Without a doubt, Rome has some sights and history that should not be missed. There are pleasant pockets mixed in, but overall the craziness that surrounds them makes it really hard to relax. You can’t go to Italy and skip Rome, but I now agree with Rick Steves in that you should see those sights in maybe two days tops and move on. I was very happy I came, but definitely looking forward to leaving and moving on to someplace calm.

The next morning I packed up and walked to the train station where I hopped the airport express train. I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare for my flight on Aegean Airlines to Athens. The flight left right on time and I was out of Italy.