E. M. Esq.

Rome is surrounded by mountains. This means that your ears pop on the train in. Which is odd.

Arriving in Rome is a shock after spending time in Venice. The noise from traffic (remember cars?) is loud and constant. Speaking of which: an awful lot of pedestrian crossings don’t have traffic lights at them, because that’s not how Italians roll. You’re expected to just face forward and step out into the stream of cars and mopeds, which will stop only if they can’t see a way to swerve around you. It’s actually a great feeling once you get over the initial misgivings.

I was going to say the city beats you over the head with history, but that’s not accurate… the history is there, but apart from the main landmarks it’s pretty nondescript. There are ruined buildings and ancient architecture everywhere, but often there’s no indication as to what the significance of it is – there might be a fence around some run-down walls to stop people, you know, nicking them, but that’s about it.

Having said that, the aforementioned main landmarks are spectacular. Of the really ancient sites, my favourite was the Parthenon – we had seen ruin after ruin after ruin so it really caught us off-guard to turn a corner and see this massive former temple in near-mint condition.

Looking at some of the ruins, particularly the pieces of the Colossus of Constantine, you really get a sense of how impressive ancient Rome was. And while the more intact sites (Parthenon, Trevi Fountain etc) are undoubtedly well worth seeing, it is disappointing that the really impressive stuff is going or gone.

For this reason I was glad that we waited until our last day to go to the Vatican, because the inside of St Peter’s Basilica is the single most awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever seen. Everyone should make it their business to see it.

Finally, I want to mention the Keats-Shelley Museum, which we found completely by accident. It’s located in the house where Keats died (near the Piazza di Spagna) and contains a huge collection of books from the Romantic period as well as letters, diaries, manuscripts and so on. My favourite thing was a book of Keat’s prose with Walt Whitman’s pencilled notes in the margins; it’s a strange thing, but seeing a person’s handwriting makes them seem much more real.