Rome of the Romans and those who came after them

The Hotel Delle Province offers a breakfast, included in the room rate (which is redicolsly low at £42 per night!!), on the top floor of the hotel. This is in a small covered area and a larger roof garden. We got up and showered before heading for breakfast at 7.00. It was a nice breakfast of ham, cheese, fruit and if you wanted cereal and pastries. There was orange juice and a coffee machine. It was a perfect way to start the day. Having breakfasted we left the hotel at 7.30 a.m. eager to get to see the sites of ancient Rome before the crowds started getting to much.

We again walked to the metro station and caught line B towards the town centre. This time we stayed on beyond Termini and exited at the station called Collesio. There are no guess for what faced us as we exited the station – the Coliseum (as Drew remarked, this one is a bit bigger than the cinema of the same name in Aberdare). Even after 15 centuries of ruin and dilapidation it is a stunning site. Next to the Coliseum was the Arch of Constantine and above that the Palatine Hill, for so long the centre of Rome’s government. From there we walked up to the Circus Maximus, which is overgrown, but still gives a good impression of its ‘Ben Hir’ days.

Though Rome is 31 degrees C, 8 degrees less than Florence on its hottest day, the heat seems more stifling and oppressive. Perhaps it is the traffic fumes, perhaps it is the humidity. But whatever it is we certainly lost a lot of fluid as we walked, meaning regular stops for coffee and water were a necessity, but there are almost as many cafes in Rome as there are churches, so that is saying something. We stopped for coffee on the hill down from the Circus Maximus and from there came to Santa Maria in Cosmedin, where legend has it there is a stone called the Mouth of Truth which eats the hand of liars. Even by 9.00 a.m. crowds were queuing to see the stone, so we moved on.

Everywhere you turn in Rome there is either an ancient monument or a church (both ancient and modern) sometimes there is a combination of ancient remains with a Church built in to them (as exampled on the right, those are roman columns holding up the church) fascinating.

We walked past the Teatro di Marcello and on to the Capitoline Hill this provided excellent views of the old Roman Forum and the many buildings of ancient Rome built in that area, spectacular. Down from there and around the corner you come to the astounding memorial to Italy’s foundation in the Monumentto Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of a united Italy. This white marbled monument is exceptional, I wonder how they keep it to clean.

From the monument we crossed the road and came to the area which was the Market of Rome in Trajan’s days. This too is a remarkable insight into the long standing human need for trade and commerce. Walking on we continued to pass ancient, renaissance and modern Roman buildings. One that caught my eye in particular was the Church of the 12Apostles. In going inside, this huge renaissance Church has an entrance into a down stairs area where the Apostles Philip and James are reputed to be buried.

We had another coffee and water and then came to the Fontana de Trevi. In many ways this amazing water feature evokes Rome in the mind of many. We didn’t throw any money into the fountain ( there is a tradition that if you do so you will return to Rome in the future), largely because it would have hit one of the many people standing in the water.

Opposite the fountain is the Church of St. Vincent. While this Church is pretty in its own right it is most memorable for me, as it has a sign on the outside which provides a quality check on its standards as a quality tourist attraction (see the photo). Having taught the marketing of travel and tourism in my early days at Glamorgan, it was interesting to see a quality framework being applied to a Church. In this case it did well on perceived value, but was weak on Communication. 

From there we walked up to the area called Barbarani which had another lovely fountain, the Triton, and caught a bus back to Termini and onto the metro to Bologna.

Hot and drained we got back to our own part of town in time (12.15 p.m.) to go to a little restaurant, with air-conditioning, called the Ristorante LaCalabrisella. Drew opted for Prosciutto e Melon having enjoyed it so much when he had it in Florence. This was a generous helping of prosciutto with very juicy melon accompanying it. I opted for the Antipasti Calabrese, as this is a Calabrian restaurant it seemed right to try it. Of all the antipasti I have tried this had the best mix of meat and cheese, including a, gorgonzola like, blue cheese and hard cold sausage similar to that on Spanish starters.

As we were having a light lunch we opted to have starter and pasta, for the pasta course Drew had Fettuccine funghi freschi which had a rich flavour based on the plentiful mushrooms, the mushrooms and the pasta were both certainly fresh. I opted for Ravioli di cernia alla pescatori which was well textured with the ravioli stuffed with fish, there was also octopus in the sauce which was a beautifully strong tomato sauce, which was coating the Ravioli – lovely.

We got back to the hotel at 1.30 p.m., 6 hours after we had left it, and sat in the cool of the air conditioning, naming and uploading photos to flickr and writing a blog post.

Rome may be draining due to the heat and the sticky clammy air, but there is so much exceptional stuff to see it is worth every minute of it.