Rome, if you want to... — Living With My Mistakes

Rome is a gorgeous, aggressive, heart attack of a city. Liberally laced with ancient history and breathtaking beauty, turn any given corner in Rome and you'll likely find yourself faced with a stunning work of art – whether classical, modern, architectural or graffiti. Rome is a city you drink with your eyes.

The most famous of Rome's works of art, though, is difficult to enjoy, at best. (We'll get to that later...)

We spent three days in Rome, which let us taste the city long enough to know our way around, but was still a short enough stay that we'll happily visit again one day.

A special trip

We wanted to go and Do Something Special to celebrate both my birthday and our joint one year soberversary, and visiting Rome together seemed like it would check all our boxes. Those boxes being, in no particular order:

Plentiful culture

Lots available for free

Bucket list landmarks

Good for walking

Not too pricey

Great for photography (a new passion of mine, as you’ll see from the 200 or so photographs in this post. Keep scrolling…)

Planning for Rome

Rome isn't cheap – it's a capital city, after all, and a hub for major megabucks religion.

We watched about an hour of The Roman Guy's YouTube videos, and whenever they mentioned something interesting, marked it on Google Maps, creating a bespoke city plan to cross off as we explored. Neato!

It took hours to find the right hotel, but I simply cannot recommend our pick enough. The Hearth Hotel isn't posh, but it was reasonably priced, the room was clean, the location superb, and the staff friendly. We decided to purchase the Omnia Pass, sold at our hotel, which included admission to a couple of landmarks of our choice, entry to the Vatican Museums, and a bus tour.

All of which is ample for three days in Rome. It's a 'wind you up and watch you go' kind of city; you can start walking, and hours later you'll take a moment to breathe and realise you've seen wonders.

Bring your fighting words

Word to the wise: Rome is really aggressive – one of the most aggressive cities I've been to, and I lived in London for a number of years. There are swathes of people employed to constantly hassle tourists: they're very, very rude, and they need schooling in consent and personal space. These guys (and they were always guys) constantly get in your way, get in your face, and try to put things in your hands. They'll try to foist roses, selfie sticks (that I clearly do not need because I have a proper camera, you doughnut), or other random tat upon you. They don't want to take no for an answer. Be prepared.

If it's not guys hassling you with tat, it's guys stopping you on the street to ask if you've booked your tickets for the landmarks – to engage you in conversation to sell you something. The ticket touts and ne'er-do-wells around Rome (and around the Vatican especially) are really unpleasant. Bring your fighting words, and keep tight hold of your belongings.

Rome: Cheap as free

Don't be fooled by the hawkers: a lot of Rome can be enjoyed entirely gratis. Sure, you'll have to pay for entry to the Coliseum, Trajan's Market, and Vatican Museum (where the Sistine Chapel can be found), but there's plenty to enjoy without paying a cent.

You can get into all churches free, of course, which also includes Saint Peter's Basilica i.e. the big photogenic dome in Vatican City. Then there's the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, Campo di Fiori market, St. Angelo bridge, Mattei Palace square, all the other squares, the list goes on. If your interest is food and drink, or fashion, or architecture, then you can literally just mosey around and have a rocking good time.

Are you after Pope Rome, Julius Caesar Rome, or Roman Holiday Rome?

The Venn diagram of these three intersects strongly, so you can’t really go wrong by choosing an area of Rome and seeing what you find. Having said that, because Rome has such a compact and walkable city centre, its possible to be moments away from something wondrous, but miss it because it's quietly tucked away in a square. Google Maps was a godsend for Rome.

In the Italian capital, there's a real and visceral sense of layers of history on top of each other. You know that thing about how an old building in America may be 100 years old, and an old building in Europe will be 1,000 years old. Rome really ups the ante on that. This shit is really, really OLD.

Come away with me

You can pack a lot into three days… Let’s go!

Arrival night: we wandered a few streets away from our hotel to a delicious, low-key dinner at Jet Lag 64. (It has a really chill vibe – stop by if you're in the neighbourhood.)

Day 1: Walked around the walls of Vatican City (and got caught in the throng)...

Pope Rome: the weekly papal audience

Things to know about Rome: on Wednesday mornings the Pope holds an audience with the masses in the main square of the Vatican.

Or in other words: in the great browser window of Rome, on hump day, hot Popes in your area wanna chat.

When hot Popes wanna chat, they close a handful of roads and bring out army guys with massive guns to funnel the mind-boggling sea of pilgrims into slow queues. We knew about this event, but not which roads were closed, and on our first morning found ourselves swept into the slow, treacley crowd...escape from which took some time.

Once extricated, we took a route down to Castel Sant'Angelo...

Crossed the River Tiber at the St. Angelo bridge when the morning light was perfection.

Followed the river bank along….

Headed down through the winding alleys towards Piazza Navona (with a stop to buy pastry).

Then on to explore the Campo di Fiori market (and a rest stop to eat pastry).

Briefly checked in to the quiet and unassuming, but very beautiful Church of Saint Barbara.

Mooched via some quiet cobbled streets…

…to Piazza Beneditto Cairoli, a pretty park with plenty of places to rest.

Onwards to Largo di Torre Argentina for ruinous cat appreciation, or rather ruins and cat appreciation, as the site of this ancient temple is now a moggy sanctuary.

Continued our epic journey to Piazza Venezia, with a selfie rest on the fountainside of the building known as the 'wedding cake' itself...

...before winding our way towards Trajan's Column.

Sat on some quiet steps and had the best pizza of my young life so far. And I am veritably turtle-like in my veneration for the stuff.

Then to explore the incredible Trajan's Market.

Julius Caesar Rome: Trajan's Market.

A quiet, and criminally overlooked site steeped in history, Trajan's market is a complex of ruins that gives a genuine feeling of what it would have been like to live in ancient Rome. You can wander around the buildings and feel the spaces in a very visceral way. Since all everyone cares about in that part of town is the stuff around the the Coliseum, when we visited, at midday, there were about four other people there - no hyperbole. (Including a pensive young art student sketching the arches inside the museum. His stuff was good, too!)

The view from the top is quite stunning, and worth the price of admission alone. You can look out across the vista, and see 2,000 years of history stretching away into the distance. Incredible. Exploring Trajan's market was our favourite part of our entire visit.

Next, the main shopping street of Rome, and a final thrust up to take in the Quattro Fontani, where we called it a day and caught the latter part of the (entirely rubbish) bus tour past the Coliseum and back towards our hotel.

Rounded out the day with dinner at 200Gradi (amazing sandwiches and alcohol-free beer!) a carpet picnic of treats in the hotel, and episodes of The Invincible Shogun in Italian on the TV. That night I dreamed of my father, and told his ghost that I love him.

Day 2: Boarded the bus near our hotel to do the first half of the (entirely rubbish) bus tour and went straight to the Coliseum. (Did not pass go, did not collect £200.)

Julius Caesar Rome: The Coliseum

Yes, the Coliseum. A quite literally awesome feat of engineeering, and also a world-famous, historical wonder that's full of thousands of people taking selfies. Walk on past the ravening tourguides, enthusiastically covered in their own spittle, spouting gruesome tales of the bloodsports that occurred there for the entertainment of the masses, and you may find yourself feeling a great sadness. I certainly did.

To be sure, the Coliseum is a wonder to behold – for about half an hour. I feel like you don't get that much more value for visiting the inside than you can gain from the street outside, though. Maybe I'm biased: it's big, and very impressive, but the stories that the stones told made me feel sad, and hollow, and full of despair. It's the site of an ancient nation's drug, back when that wasn't just television, it was live murder and rape. The bricks are quite literally covered in stories, etched with the names of people desperate to leave their mark, including soldiers who were stationed there in times of war, when monuments were considered suitably defensible structures...

The walls spoke too much of sadness and loss for me. I wanted to leave pretty quickly, and felt much better once we were on our way elsewhere.

The masonry hints at the stories of other adventurers, desperate to leave their mark somewhere on the world…

Next we mosied down to the Arch of Constantine, then up past the Roman Forum and Campidoglio without stopping – because who wants to queue for hours, for ruins you can see just fine from the Coliseum? So much of Rome is off-limits, don't touch, look from a distance. Waiting in the blazing sun to see it only a smidgeon closer seemed churlish, and terrifically sub-optimal.

Instead we wound our way up to the Spanish Steps which were, understandably, absolutely mobbed with people due to the time of day...

Roman Holiday Rome: The Spanish Steps

Big, beautiful, iconic, absolutely heaving with people and thus, not worth photographing. I was too cumulatively tired from the last 24 hours to pick through the crowd to climb them, and not there at the right time for sunrise or sunset. Lovely though. Next time.

A side-quest to Sephora and McDonalds (such is the duality of man) then down through to the Trevi Fountain.

Roman Holiday Rome: The Trevi Fountain

Go on, surrender to gentle myth and toss in a wishing coin. We did – pelted from about 30 feet, over the heads of the horde. I saw the splash! The city council clears out those coins for charity, so we were helping a good cause, as well as weaving practical magic. Having said that, three coins seemed excessive (I already have true love), and there was no way we were going to do it backwards over our shoulders for fear of taking out someone's eye...

Off we went to see the grandeur of the Pantheon.

Julius Caesar Rome: The Pantheon

A building so huge, and so striking inside that it is quite literally awe-inspiring. Go. If you can, go. (And go early, to beat the crowds.)

A short stop at Mattei Palace to stare wide-eyed at a gem of a square hidden in silent backstreets. You just turn a corner and there it is…

Across the river by tram to take in the all-too-stunning Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere.

Before limping gingerly through Trastevere to the Old Bridge Gelateria (the pistachio gelato is why I am fat) and back to the hotel. Dinner at the AngryPig (porchetta, another good reason I am fat) and I fell in love with how the Italians cook brocolli.

Roman Holiday Rome: The Food

A passionate people, the Italians have some very specific ideas about How Things Should Be Done – and this comes through in the food. Even the simplest thing is exquisite. There are no words for how good some of the vittles were.(We went back to the place near Trajan's column the next day for more of that holy pizza, y'know?) Eat everything. Come home thicker round the middle. Laugh about it and have great sex regardless because pleasure is what bodies are for. Regret nothing.

Day 3: We explored Saint Peter's Basilica in the early morn, while the rest of the city was still asleep.

Pope Rome: Vatican City and Saint Peter's Basilica

There are a whole lot of people in the world for whom Rome is a holy place. I'm not one of them, but more power to them. Not that the Catholic Church needs more power, but you get my meaning.

It's weird though, as someone for whom the magic of God doesn't mean organised religion, to go to a place where the interplay between money and religion is so gratuitously visible. The churches are just...wallpapered with priceless art. It's disquieting to see all that money just sitting there, hoarded, for folk like me to come and gawp at. Pretty, and sort of understandable but, all the same, unsettling.

I feel I more innately understand the difference between the Protestant Church and the Catholic Church now that I've been to Rome. There's a reason that the words 'Protestant' and 'work ethic' go together, likewise 'Catholic' and 'guilt'. After seeing Rome, I'll forever spell it as 'Catholic gilt' in my head...

Next, a stroll all the way along the River Tiber (to find another Sephora and stumble upon more fantastic pizza), then a hurried return for our appointed slot to enter the Vatican Museums.

You're not allowed entry unless you book a slot, in person or online, and the only one available was midday. The worst possible slot. And so...we rode the wave of disinterested, box-ticking tourists to the Sistine Chapel, one of Rome's most famous offerings, and one of the hardest to enjoy.

Pope Rome: The South Bank Show music plays

The Vatican Museums are a bossrush of non-interactive, nomadic, shoulder-to-shoulder queues. You'll traipse through chambers and corridors brimming with art you can't get close to (because of the crowds), or look at properly (because of the crowds), until you're finally vomited out into the Sistine Chapel – or the Art Barn, as we now call it.

In the Art Barn, you stand like sardines in a can with other explorers, while aggressive men with megaphones shout at you to be silent, and bark that photos are not allowed, in a constant crescendoing stream of righteous admonishment.

It's hard to appreciate the art on the ceiling with guys bellowing at everyone constantly, and without a set of binoculars (if youre a speccy type like me) you can't see much of it, because DAMN that ceiling is high. It's an incredible achievement though, the chapel itself is enormous – an Art Barn painted in masterpieces.

I found myself thinking it'd take a good week to roller the whole room in emulsion, let alone paint it with such incredible, intricate, intertwined artworks. Little wonder it took years. We didn't stay long for further reflection though, because there's only so much being screamed at that one can take.

Side thought: Michaelangelo was clearly a very good artist, however, I'm not sure I'm willing to accept he was a party dude... Rome has made me question so many blind truths, like Cappuccino after 11.

*Of course I took a thoroughly sacriligious and blurry photograph. Because that's what rebels do. We rebel.*

Finally, home on a plane – to thoroughly ruinous cat appreciation.

Three days in Rome

We packed a lot of breathless wonder into three short days, and didn't even touch huge areas of the city's history and heritage. (Borgias, who?) That's for next time I guess, after all, we threw coins into the fountain.

We've woven the practical magic. It's simply meant to be.

Go to Rome.

Love always,

Fay

xXx