Will Around the World

We arrived in Rome at midday, after a 1-1/2 hour flight. First we went to the district around the main train station, which burst at the seams with budget accomodations, and we found a modestly priced hotel room. As in Barcelona, the tourists staying there were mostly Americans, both groups of students and families.

Arch of Constantine. Background: Colosseum

The first stop on our Roman tour was the Forum. The Forum is a large recessed area with ancient ruins. It was hard for me to visualize what this place once looked like, but Tim, who is very familiar with the history and literature of that bygone era, got a much bigger thrill.

Forum	House of the Vestal Virgins
Brad Pitt fans who heard Ocean's Twelve was shooting in Italy	Highest concentration of Roman ruins in the world

After walking through the Forum, we decided to visit the Palatine, a hill just above that contains ruins of the emperor Augustus's house, among other archaeological sites. Here is where we first ran afoul of the Italian tourist industry. The Palatine, and just about every other tourist attraction in the country, offers student discounts to citizens of European Union nations, but not Americans. This really got under our skin. First, the student discount was significant: up to 50% off, as I recall. Moreover, this policy seemed not only anti-American, but also un-American. After all, foreign tourists in Washington can visit the Smithsonian for free! In any case, the Palatine was relaxing. It resembled a park with ruins lying about, and compared to the Forum, it was uncrowded and serene.

The third major sight in this area is the Colosseum. Originally, Tim and I weren't keen on visiting it, but since our ticket to the Palatine included admission to the Colosseum, we decided to get our money's worth. The stadium's interior didn't do it for me. I thought that it revealed too much the structure's age. I was more impressed by the outside, which looks sounder. It's a miracle that the Colosseum, which sits right next to a busy road, hasn't crumbled from exhaust fumes. The most vivid memory I have of my visit was when a trio of burly Ukrainian men (their warm-up suits said UKRAINE) shoved a camera into a passerby's hands and ordered him (in Russian) to take their picture. Then, for a solo shot, one of them jumped up on a stone column, struck a gladiator pose and growled like a bear. And I thought American tourists got a bad rap!

Waiting for Russell Crowe to appear

No Russell yet

After the Colosseum, we wandered around the Italian capital. We've all heard the expression "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" — well, it's especially true on the streets. Wherever we went, a relentless flow of automobiles and scooters, or motorini, zoomed by. On our first attempts to cross streets, we had to wait minutes for an opening. Frustrated, we watched the Romans do it. Make eye contact with the driver and step onto the street, and they will slow down or else drive away with a red stain on their grill.

Most of the streets in Rome are narrow alleys, cramped with shops and apartments. It was fun to walk down them and pop our heads around the corner. In one instance, we did just this and found the Pantheon! The Pantheon is truly a marvel. You can't get a sense of how high and massive the dome is until you stand underneath it. What makes it more incredible is that it was built in the first century!

Pantheon

Honey, the roof's leaking again

Raphael's Tomb

Then we took a short walk to the Piazza Navona, a large bustling plaza. On that day, Piazza Navona was graced by the presence of a group of twenty beautiful women. They turned out to be contestants in the Miss Italia 2004 pageant. It wasn't clear to me what this particular event was — there were the contestants, who were all dressed in skimpy outfits, an equal number of security and staff, and a man dressed in a tuxedo, who I suppose was the M.C. At one point the tuxedo man presented half of the women with roses, while the rest were paraded out of the square (losers, I assumed). Oddly enough, I didn't see a single television camera. I guessed this was a preliminary event, perhaps a pre-screening of contestants for the real pageant.

Beauty pageant or Hooters promo?

This spectacle attracted a healthy number of tourists. After we had had enough, we walked out of the plaza, and on our way out we spotted a human statue — one of those street performers that cover themselves cap-a-pie with metallic paint and stay locked in one pose until someone gives them change. This one was not working at the moment; instead he was sitting against the wall, poking at something on the ground with his tophat. The poor guy had been upstaged!

For dinner, we went to a nearby restaurant, and afterward, we went to another square called Piazza Campo de Fiori. There we had a beer at a trendy bar named Le Teste Matte. Most of the patrons were locals, talking and smoking cigarettes on the terrace.

With few exceptions, Romans are impeccably dressed. The fashion is definitely sexier than in Paris or Barcelona, but not in a revealing way. Designer labels are huge — Romans aren't afraid to sport a shirt emblazoned with a D&G or Armani logo. Women sport a deep tan. They can pull off the entire look because they are, bar none, thin as a rail. Everyone is fixated on looking good, even museum guards and train conductors! I wondered how people could afford to keep up with all this. I supposed the cost of living is relatively low, making clothes an affordable luxury.

La bella figura

After we were done, we crossed the Tiber River into the neighborhood known as Trastevere. We enjoyed the nighttime view of the city from the other side for a while, and then we took a bus back to our hotel.

Tiber River. Background: St. Peter's Basilica

# posted by billklee @ 14:50