ROME

We’re now back in our Cotswold cottage after a wonderful few days in Rome and Venice, and I’m writing this from my sickbed.
Not really! I’ve just got a strep throat, so let’s talk about enjoyable memories of the past few days.
Our journey, first to Rome, began last Thursday with a tedious train and bus ride, first to Oxford, then Milton Keynes (one of England’s more depressing places, along with Slough and Staines), and finally to Luton Airport, where we stayed in an airport hotel.
Up a little after five am and to the terminal to join our Ryanair flight to Rome. We had the right to carry two bags of 15kg weight. We had only one bag with 21kgs weight. Not allowed said the desk. You can’t pool luggage so take out some stuff and put them into another bag.
But we didn’t have another bag.
“Then it’ll cost you sixty pounds” says the desk.
So we brought another bag for 20 quid and checked in.
Three hours later we stepped into bright sunshine at Rome’s Ciampino Airport lining up for the transfer bus.
The bus took us as far as Roma Termini, the main rail station, where we stopped off at a cafe for a lunch of pasta and coffee. We could say things like “dooay pasta” and “dooay espresso”and “grazie”.
We had planned to get a taxi to our hotel where we were to meet our old friends from Port Douglas, Pam and John. Then in a mad attack of daring, I suggested we take the Metro underground.
And we did. It took a bit of tracking about to find the ticket place and to get the hang of the system, but half an hour later we found ourselves at the top end of the Via Veneto, at the posh end of Rome. Across the road we picked out the gates to the Villa Borghese, and on our right a long stretch of ancient Roman wall. We walked a few more blocks past lovely outdoor cafes and people drinking wine at white linen covered tables, then around into the Via Liguria and there was our hotel.
Our friends were out atlunch so once checked in, we showered and changed into lighter clothing, then took a stroll on the Via Veneto past very fashionable shops and hotels and more of those cafes.
At the piazza Barbarini we stopped at one of them and shared a bottle of chilled Frascati while watching the passing parade. All around us people were enjoying wine or coffee and chatting animatedly, the women looking cool and so smartly dressed, and the men too. The roads were busy with buses and cars and the ubiquitous motor scooters whizzing by in every direction.
After an hour we walked back around the surrounding streets window shopping and buying delicious ice cream. Then on to the hotel for a joyful reunion with Pam and John! They were about to begin a cruise around the Mediterranean and Rome was their starting point. That evening we enjoyed drinks in a busy little street cafe. It was very warm, and a tall beer was very welcome before dinner.
We found a modest restaurant, and had a simple but very Italian meal with more wine. As the twilight faded we strolled across the piazza near the famous Spanish Steps, being pursued by street sellers of flowers and souvenirs and all sorts of rubbish. And there was a lot of laughter all the way back to our hotel.
The next morning saw us up and breakfasting on fresh pastries and milky coffee. We had all agreed to join one of those open topped bus tours where you can get on and off at various stops. The bus took us by all the famous landmarks of this wonderful city; the Colisseum, the Tiber river, the Circus Maximus, The Castel SantÁngelo (once the Mausoleum of Hadrian), and of course, St Peter’s. ‘
Then we endured crowds of tourists (like us) to throw coins into the beautiful Trevi Fountain. The last time we had seen this lavish monument it was under repair, and dry. But today all the founts were cascading down the marble statuary.
We’d already stopped once for cold drinks at a cafe. Then we wandered on past beautiful churches, and ancient monuments, obelisks taken from Egypt by Roman invaders long ago.
When we felt like lunch we found another restaurant and chose a selection of pizza slices, tomato and creamy mushroom on crunchy hot pizza bread.
We came out on another piazza where we marvelled at the oldest intact ancient building in Rome, the Pantheon, so named because it was dedicated to ”all the gods”.
After the first temple was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in the second decade of the second century AD.
Outside the curving walls was a portico of sixteen monolithic columns of granite.
We stepped inside to stare upwards at a perfectly circular dome which seemed to tower far above us. And all of the building is just about the same as it was all those centuries ago. Gilt bronze and marble still adorn the walls.
Coming back outside again, the sunshine was almost blinding, and Rome 2008 came back into focus.
We took a mad taxi ride to the Capitoline Hill to see the ruins of the Domus Augustana, or house of Augustus, i.e. of the emperor. Walls and wells and cellars of those narrow Roman bricks still used today. And above them those beautiful pencil pine trees, and all looking back at the city below.
From there we walked through the sunken ruins of the Roman Fora, with their ancient columns and temples dedicated to Castor and Pollux and others. This is where Julius Caesar was said to have been murdered. The ancient Roman senate building still stands here too. We climbed a long flight of steps rising up to the level of modern Rome. We stopped to admire a huge monument to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, mounted on a magnificent bronze horse.
It was starting to get late so we descended to the Victor Emmanual monument, a somewhat flamboyant building of white marble with frills and curlicues and long flights of steps.
There, after a bit of a wait we picked up the bus again, and looked down on the crazy homeward bound traffic. Earlier we had braved this phenomenon having had to use a number of zebra crossings which were apparently invisible to the Roman drivers.
That evening we went out together one last time and enjoyed drinks followed by a pleasant meal in a nearby trattoria; antipasto ,prosciutto and melon, pasta with tomato and fish ,fresh fruit desserts and coffee.
At around eleven we headed back through the warm Roman evening to our hotel to make our reluctant farewells. Pam and John had one more day in Rome, but Barbara and I would be leaving for Venice in the morning.