Day 65 Rome and ruins

In many parts of Europe and the UK we have been impressed to come across glimpses or reminders of the once great Roman Empire. To be in Rome is another thing altogether. Rome is a modern noisy bustling contemporary city but the shadow of its former glory haunts a visitor at every turn.

On a rainy and muggy day we visited the historic remains of the showpiece of the Roman Republic the Palentino and the Roman Forum. To walk around the significant remains of Rome’s glory days is a huge visual reminder that all empires rise and fall. To think that in it’s hey day Rome boasted a population of 2 million only to see this drop to 20,000 reminds us of that old phrase; “ how the mighty have fallen”. One can only imagine what that sort of population decline did for property values! We passed the ruins of a round monument, which in its day was considered the centre of Rome. As Rome was considered the centre of the world this round edifice was therefore considered to be the centre of the world. Now it is just a harmless humble ruin and again we are reminded that “One era’s peacock, is another era’s feather duster”.

Today the ruins seem overrun not just by tourists but by something we struggle with, the ubiquitous tour guide. Everywhere we go in Rome we are offered a guided tour and told not only will we be entertained and educated but we will not have to stand in line for three hours. We try to avoid these guides and find them and their groups often a little hard to stomach. However we have discovered a tactic that seems to work.

Sometimes we stand close to a monument or ruin that a guide is describing to a group. We stare innocently at the ruin taking in just about as much commentary as we can cope with and our feet can stand. Then we move on while the poor sheep-like groups wait for their shepherd guides to move them on- often holding their trademark extended portable umbrellas in the air. By which time we are at the next highlight and listening to the commentary of the guide in front – and after hearing their wisdom we move on to the next group. The young might call this ‘guide surfing’.

In the after noon we visited the impressive Trevi Fountain made especially famous by the movies Roman Holiday and La Dolce Vita. No amount of tactics could save us from the touristic crush that greeted us at the very beautiful fountain. We decided to return to the fountain at another time in the hope that we might get within 30 metres of it. After all you can’t visit the Trevi Fountain without throwing a coin over your left shoulder…it’s one of the reasons to come to Rome. Isn’t it?

Rome is not the simplest of cities to understand or engage with. We are glad we chose to stay here for 6 days and look forward to unlocking more of Rome’s glorious past and fascinating present.