Roman Holiday

 There are still lots of motorbikes in Rome. Sadly, no Gregory Peck.

Rome is fantastic because everywhere you look there are amazing things to be seen. On a bus through the city we pass Trajan’s Forum, Nero’s Palace – and then get off at the Coliseum (no big deal). We go into San Clemente, a church that is built on another church, built on an ancient house. The city is built on top of everything that came before it, but it incorporates the history and ancient sites into modern life too. Even though most of our day was spent driving, we still manage to hit quite a few sites because of the nature of the city. After the Coliseum and San Clemente, we walked by the Spanish Steps (and the house where Keats died right next to them), and later wandered through Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori, which were crowded with people enjoying the warm evening. After dinner we got tartuffo from Tre Scalini in Piazza Navona, which is famous for the decadent dessert.

I like how each piazza has its own style – Navona, with ubiquitous artists and people clustered around the famous fountains; Campo dei Fiori, with cafes and the open-air market, and one nameless one that we walked through that had stalls of print and booksellers – wonderful old maps and books that I had to be called away from, despite the fact that they were in as-yet-incomprehensible Italian (“But it’s Vasari’s Lives of the Artists from 1859!”). You can’t do Rome in a day. But, having been here before, we certainly had a good go at it.