The Italian Jaunt 2015 - Part 1

We flew into Rome Fumicino Airport on the Thursday afternoon. Never again will I make negative comments about the time it takes to collect baggage at Manchester Airport: after travelling when all you want to do is get out of the airport and into a shower and a cold beer, a three quarters of an hour wait for cases to appear is the last thing you need. In addition, we had decided that we should get the express train from the airport into Rome and travel two stops on the Metro to get to our hotel: cheap and convenient. Well, it might have been without the suitcases, the heat and the fact that, by the time we rached the platform of the Metro, the rush hour was in full swing. It was like Tokyo in terms of crushing onto the train! In fact, we passed on the first ‘available’ train that stopped as it was full when it arrived and, despite quite a few passengers getting off, remained full before even more people crammed onto it. As that train departed, we moved to the edge of the platform to give ourselves a chance of finding some space on the next one, a minute or so behind. When it arrived we somehow managed to squeeze our cases and ourselves (further encumbered by carry-on luggage and camera cases) into a carriage. And just when the train was definitely full, a few more people dived through the doors as they started to close, the sheer momentum of their arrival allowing them to somehow slip into non-existant spaces between bodies already overly-intimate in thier forced proximity. The beer that night was certainly well-earned.

Friday in Rome
As the hotel was only a short walk from the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Forum, we decided to use the Friday to explore these monuments. Rome is a place like nowhere else that I have been. London is pretty well-endowed when it comes to having an abundance of history: almost everywhere there are statues, imposing buildings, coats of arms, guardsmen and so forth. However, in the main, London’s tourist hot-spots actually date from the 18th and 19th centuries - Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and so forth. Of course there is the Tower of London with its roots in the Norman conquest, almost 1,000 years ago and, next to it, part of the roman wall that once encircled the city but, for the most part, London reflects the years of Empire and industrial might, a nation ruling a third of the world. Now, just think that some of Rome’s sights are similarly reflective of a glorious past where Rome ruled most of the known world and then consider that their heyday was more than a thousand years before the Norman invasion of Britain and it just makes some of the sights even more jaw-dropping in terms of how they have survived and how they are able to so vividly link us to that distant past (or is it so ‘distant'? - more later).

We arrive at the Colosseum and note that there is some scaffolding up on one side but we are now immune to this (wherever we plan to go, the local response seems to be to shroud that sight in scaffolding and hoardings. I think we should visit Ayers Rock next and see what they do about that!). The exterior is imposing in its height and one can imagine the sense of anticipation that would have been engendered in the approach to such a massive venue whan it was in its pomp. We survey the lines of people waiting to enter. Even the line with pre-booked tickets is enormous and the morning heat is already stifling. As I am about to go off to see if there is a way of booking online via the phone, we are approached by someone offering a guided tour of both the Colosseum and Palantine Hill. Coupled with the fact that it will mean that we get straight into the former, we consider the cost - double the official entrance only rate - to be worth it. It turns out to be very much worth it: the guides are knowledgable and entertaining and getting straight into the Colosseum (following a bit of bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing - hey, it’s Italy!) is definitely worthwhile. In fact the guide in the Colosseum offers some interesting parallels with the current day: gladiators did not fight gladiators (why kill highly-trained, well paid sporting superstars?) but, instead, fought criminals. The whole thing was about propoganda and control: a mix of state-sponsored ‘opium for the people’ as well as making a political point about stepping outside the rules and norms of Rome. Think of it as Big Brother crossed with the Old Bailey...possibly. He also noted that in the Roman Empire, for every Roman citizen, there were an average of five slaves. Consider that today, five-sixths of the world lives in poverty while the final sixth is rich and that the seemingly labour-free life of the Roman citizen - 180 days of leisure each year - is atcually no different to many of our own lives in terms of days that we don’t work. Suddenly ‘ancient’ Rome doea not feel that different to modern Western civilisation. Eventually, when we could face the curse of the selfie-sticks no longer (if you are not being pestered by the street sellers to buy one, you are being stabbed by one or having you way blocked by a group of people guring at an iPhone suspended six feet in the air) we exited the Colosseum and, after lunch (a bottle of beer and a bottle of water each), we headed for Palatine Hill.


Although there were some interesting things to view and stories to be told about the palaces built on the hill, the real moment of drama for me was when we reached a balcony and looked down onto the Forum below. There, in a relatively small space (a half mile from end-to-end?), was crammed so much surviving infrastucure from the glory of the Roman Empire that I found the experience of reaching that lip and looking down upon it to be similar to my first view of the Grand Canyon: no photo could ever do it justice, could capture the magnificance of what is laid out before you. Though what remains is incomplete, there is enough to convey the importance and grandeur of this spot that sat at the heart of the Empire. I have attached a couple of photos which merely give an idea of the sight.


Saturday
In the morning, we take a taxi from the hotel back to the airport to collect the hire car for our trip into Umbria and to pick up Elaine’s brother, Paul, and his partner Dawn who are staying with us in the villa we have arranged, three hours outside Rome. Bad news starts to filter through as we set off for the airport. Their flight has been delayed a little but things will soon be back on track. In fact, their flight which was due to land in Rome at 10:30-ish, actually lands nearer to 2:30 pm and then takes one-and-a-half hours to unload the baggage meaning that we don’t set off from Rome until four in the afternoon! Consequently, our arrival at the villa (originally communicated to the owners as being around three o’clock to allow for a spot of lunch and a supermarket shop on the way) actually happens at nearly 8 in the evening. We are all stressed, tired, hungry and thirsty. As beer is consumed and the decompression following Rome’s noise and action begins to kick in, we put together a simple meal and relax into our new surroundings.