Sweet life in Rome
We hoped Rome would be the best; we feared it would be the worst.
Rome is fascinating. I wanted to see the ruins from the empire we've learned so much about: from seventh grade social studies to Gladiator. I wanted to drink espresso in bustling cafes on the Via Veneto like Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita. I wanted wine, carbonara, cacio e pepe, and square pizza slices. I wanted to learn what happened to Rome between its sacking by the German gothic hordes in the 400 and 500s and its founding as the capital of united Italy in the 1870s (a silent period, apparently, in our textbooks). How can this ancient city function as a modern capital of one of the wealthiest countries in the world? I have travelled so many places but not yet ever to Rome, though Christine had visited before.
But we've heard about the lines at the tourist sights. If tourism is crushing these European cities, then the Eternal City must be amongst the most crushed. Are there even any truly Roman people living in the historic city center anymore, or is it all just a tourist theme park?
There are certainly a lot of tourists in Rome. In the axis containing the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, and the Vatican, and the perpendicular axis from the Vatican to the Colosseum, they are travelling in giant flocks. We booked an early admission to the Vatican Museums, showing up at 7:50am, and we still waited in a long line; our apologies to the suckers still waiting in line after we were done in the museums. We were fast in the museums because we used so much of Bob's patience with the line waiting. We saw the Sistine Chapel, which really is just kind of a back room, at the end of the museum corridors, with high ceilings and empty of ornamentation, other than paintings so rich the characters seem to be shooting from the surface in three dimensions.
But Rome is not empty of Romans yet. The Roman and tourist hordes coexist, although in a few neighborhoods the tourists are winning the battle. Around town, we ate at a few restaurants that we had carefully selected beforehand. We also happened into some restaurants that looked inviting, where the staff always spoke excellent English (tourists welcome!). We ate pasta. At one carefully selected pizzeria, Pizza Bonci, we had perhaps the best pizza we have ever had in our short lives. The dough was airy, chewy, and crisp; the toppings were generous, fresh, and in some cases innovative (one pizza with white fish on top). I regret it now, but I was grumpy at Pizza Bonci because they wouldn't let us use the restroom; Bob dirtied his drawers, so I had to change his diaper on the sidewalk, and some neighboring shop denizen implored me to do so elsewhere.
Bobby, growing into his full-on toddler phase, flirting with the terrible twos, at 20 months, seems increasingly hard to manage. I think we started the week with too much confidence in how we can manage our Europe-travelling toddler; as time went on, we got better at letting him dictate our schedule, rather than us dictating his, which wasn't going well. I made a bad choice one night when I ordered a five course tasting menu and asked the staff to bring us the dishes fast; they didn't, and the meal seemed much longer than the watch said, as several meltdowns during the courses ensued. Several times I got Bob to take two naps during a day in the Ergo Baby. But the best days are the ones when we gave him enough time to play in the parks. Bob insisted often on walking down the streets himself. This wasn't so bad. At first we were worried about the chaos, but he often wanted to walk while holding our hands; this helps to keep him focused on moving forward while also keeping him from the travel trajectories of large and fast moving bodies. He knows he can never cross a street without holding our hands and looking "left, right, left" before crossing.
Mostly because I was in search of a very specific craft beer bar, we ventured across the Tiber to the bohemian neighborhood of Trastevere, which is popular with Rome's celebrities as well as moneyed hipsters. The neighborhood is famous for its narrow cobbled lanes and old buildings. We heard much boisterous English being spoken, but also younger Italians out on sidewalk cafes. The beer we found was very good and worth the trek, even though I had to rock Bob to sleep for 45 minutes. (This particular time, he wanted to take a second nap in the Ergo Baby but needed much extra convincing. After that workout, that beer was so good, let me tell you.)
I love how the new coexists with the old in Rome in a classically chaotic Italian order. Walking along a busy street, it detours because there are ruins in the way. Walking by driveways, if the doors are open, you can peer into courtyards, bedecked with suitably grand chandeliers and columns and maybe an Alfa Romeo. The Rome Museum told fascinating stories about how the evolution of the city since the Roman Empire has continued to revere its past. For instance, during the 1700s and 1800s, Rome's (and Italy's) ruins were fashionable, so rich northern Europeans would tour in an effort to become cultured like the ancients. Once Rome became the Italian capitol, the leaders sought to unearth all the lost ruins, the Colosseum was cleaned up, and embankments along the Tiber were built in order to help control the floods. The Rome Museum was nearly empty, even while the Piazza Navona outside was overflowing with phone-wielding selfie addicts. Does this tell us something about this wave of tourists?
On our trip's scheduled last morning, our flight was delayed so we went cafe hopping around our street, the Via Merulana, eating pastries and drinking espressos (called just "café" in Italian). Arriving to the airport with plenty of time to board our heavily delayed flight, we were denied boarding because of an airline rule that you must check bags and print your boarding pass by the time of the originally scheduled flight. So, despite the delay it caused, the airline had wanted us to come to the airport and then just hang out for three extra hours. Bunch of dicks. Using my deep store of United miles, we were able to get a flight back to London the next day (Bob's 26th flight). We stayed the night in a hotel back in Rome in an old palazzo and had a final meal at the central food market. Even though I missed a client meeting back in London, I am glad we had those extra 24 hours in Rome, though finding out we couldn't board our flight and then scrambling to get a replacement (our stupid budget airline, EasyJet, was of course no help in getting us back to London) was stressful, exacerbated by our impatient little travel companion, all the while stuck in the airport's busy entry foyer.
Ups and downs of the trip notwithstanding, overall I wasn't as put off by the tourist herds as I feared. As parents of toddler, we didn't exactly party with the second-rate aristocrats of La Dolce Vita's Rome, but I enjoyed glimpsing the life from one of my favorite movies. I would love to spend a few years in Rome working professionally, and maybe in several years we will get the opportunity. Life is sweet in Rome.
Rome is fascinating. I wanted to see the ruins from the empire we've learned so much about: from seventh grade social studies to Gladiator. I wanted to drink espresso in bustling cafes on the Via Veneto like Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita. I wanted wine, carbonara, cacio e pepe, and square pizza slices. I wanted to learn what happened to Rome between its sacking by the German gothic hordes in the 400 and 500s and its founding as the capital of united Italy in the 1870s (a silent period, apparently, in our textbooks). How can this ancient city function as a modern capital of one of the wealthiest countries in the world? I have travelled so many places but not yet ever to Rome, though Christine had visited before.
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| Rome in 1960, as presented by Federico Fellini and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anouk Aimée in La Dolce Vita. Watching the film as a young man in college, I was struck by how cool Rome looked; rewatching it when I'm older, I realize the movie isn't just about Marcello's struggle between a life of parties and a life as a serious writer, but is also an exploration of Rome's and Italy's transitioning to modernity. |
But we've heard about the lines at the tourist sights. If tourism is crushing these European cities, then the Eternal City must be amongst the most crushed. Are there even any truly Roman people living in the historic city center anymore, or is it all just a tourist theme park?
There are certainly a lot of tourists in Rome. In the axis containing the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, and the Vatican, and the perpendicular axis from the Vatican to the Colosseum, they are travelling in giant flocks. We booked an early admission to the Vatican Museums, showing up at 7:50am, and we still waited in a long line; our apologies to the suckers still waiting in line after we were done in the museums. We were fast in the museums because we used so much of Bob's patience with the line waiting. We saw the Sistine Chapel, which really is just kind of a back room, at the end of the museum corridors, with high ceilings and empty of ornamentation, other than paintings so rich the characters seem to be shooting from the surface in three dimensions.
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| in the Vatican Museums |
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| Endless line to the Vatican Museums, after we'd already had the pleasure of a similar line and the museum itself. |
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| Our crazy tour guide at St. Peter's Square. In the distance you can see a very long line snaking around for the poor saps trying to get into St. Peter's Basilica. Lines to go the museums and the basilica are separate. We didn't bother with getting into the basilica, having more than enough already of long Vatican lines for that day. |
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| A very long line to get into the Pantheon. Christine, Bobby, and I walked up near to the front door and were able to see into the building. While this was originally built as a Roman temple, it has for most of its life been a Christian church. We have been to a lot of European churches so felt we could skip visiting the interior of this one, especially since we were able to glance inside without waiting in line. The Pantheon impresses me because while most Roman Empire edifices are in some state of ruin, the Pantheon remains standing, even if looking a bit time worn in places. |
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| In front of the Pantheon's front door, Bob asleep in the Ergo Baby. |
But Rome is not empty of Romans yet. The Roman and tourist hordes coexist, although in a few neighborhoods the tourists are winning the battle. Around town, we ate at a few restaurants that we had carefully selected beforehand. We also happened into some restaurants that looked inviting, where the staff always spoke excellent English (tourists welcome!). We ate pasta. At one carefully selected pizzeria, Pizza Bonci, we had perhaps the best pizza we have ever had in our short lives. The dough was airy, chewy, and crisp; the toppings were generous, fresh, and in some cases innovative (one pizza with white fish on top). I regret it now, but I was grumpy at Pizza Bonci because they wouldn't let us use the restroom; Bob dirtied his drawers, so I had to change his diaper on the sidewalk, and some neighboring shop denizen implored me to do so elsewhere.
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| Pizza Bonci. If I was grumpy before this pizza, I was much less grumpy after eating the pizza. |
Bobby, growing into his full-on toddler phase, flirting with the terrible twos, at 20 months, seems increasingly hard to manage. I think we started the week with too much confidence in how we can manage our Europe-travelling toddler; as time went on, we got better at letting him dictate our schedule, rather than us dictating his, which wasn't going well. I made a bad choice one night when I ordered a five course tasting menu and asked the staff to bring us the dishes fast; they didn't, and the meal seemed much longer than the watch said, as several meltdowns during the courses ensued. Several times I got Bob to take two naps during a day in the Ergo Baby. But the best days are the ones when we gave him enough time to play in the parks. Bob insisted often on walking down the streets himself. This wasn't so bad. At first we were worried about the chaos, but he often wanted to walk while holding our hands; this helps to keep him focused on moving forward while also keeping him from the travel trajectories of large and fast moving bodies. He knows he can never cross a street without holding our hands and looking "left, right, left" before crossing.
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| Bob with a plate of lasagna, his toys strewn nearby. Lasagna wasn't on many menus, but this particular, tourist-friendly restaurant had it on the kids menu, so we got it for Bob. We normally would never order for Bob from the children's menu because we all want to share our food together, but lasagna from a Roman children's menu sure beats chicken nuggets (or whatever else resides on children's menus) elsewhere! |
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| Having some espresso and pastries at Regoli, nearby our apartment in Esquilino. Many Roman pastries seemed to use white cream with lemon. Esquilino was a nice place to stay: it wasn't super close to the main tourist sights, but the neighborhood felt far enough off the beaten path that we saw some of Rome that is not fully conquered by tourists. |
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| Rome, like Barcelona, has these public faucets on sidewalks around town. They were convenient for stocking up on drinking water, and, like here, washing off sugar and cream from a sloppy pastry breakfast. |
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| Safely walking the Roman streets hand in hand with Dad. |
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| Eagerly watching the Rome metro pull into the station. We crisscrossed Rome by metro, bus, tram, and Uber. |
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| Indulging his fascination with transport machines, we bought Bobby his first Italian language book. We also bought Bobby a little toy Lamborghini and Ferrari. |
Mostly because I was in search of a very specific craft beer bar, we ventured across the Tiber to the bohemian neighborhood of Trastevere, which is popular with Rome's celebrities as well as moneyed hipsters. The neighborhood is famous for its narrow cobbled lanes and old buildings. We heard much boisterous English being spoken, but also younger Italians out on sidewalk cafes. The beer we found was very good and worth the trek, even though I had to rock Bob to sleep for 45 minutes. (This particular time, he wanted to take a second nap in the Ergo Baby but needed much extra convincing. After that workout, that beer was so good, let me tell you.)
I love how the new coexists with the old in Rome in a classically chaotic Italian order. Walking along a busy street, it detours because there are ruins in the way. Walking by driveways, if the doors are open, you can peer into courtyards, bedecked with suitably grand chandeliers and columns and maybe an Alfa Romeo. The Rome Museum told fascinating stories about how the evolution of the city since the Roman Empire has continued to revere its past. For instance, during the 1700s and 1800s, Rome's (and Italy's) ruins were fashionable, so rich northern Europeans would tour in an effort to become cultured like the ancients. Once Rome became the Italian capitol, the leaders sought to unearth all the lost ruins, the Colosseum was cleaned up, and embankments along the Tiber were built in order to help control the floods. The Rome Museum was nearly empty, even while the Piazza Navona outside was overflowing with phone-wielding selfie addicts. Does this tell us something about this wave of tourists?
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| The Colosseum was always of particular fascination in our schoolbooks. I am glad I finally got to see it in person! It is truly incredible the Roman engineers were able to construct this edifice and manage it back in those very, very old days. |
On our trip's scheduled last morning, our flight was delayed so we went cafe hopping around our street, the Via Merulana, eating pastries and drinking espressos (called just "café" in Italian). Arriving to the airport with plenty of time to board our heavily delayed flight, we were denied boarding because of an airline rule that you must check bags and print your boarding pass by the time of the originally scheduled flight. So, despite the delay it caused, the airline had wanted us to come to the airport and then just hang out for three extra hours. Bunch of dicks. Using my deep store of United miles, we were able to get a flight back to London the next day (Bob's 26th flight). We stayed the night in a hotel back in Rome in an old palazzo and had a final meal at the central food market. Even though I missed a client meeting back in London, I am glad we had those extra 24 hours in Rome, though finding out we couldn't board our flight and then scrambling to get a replacement (our stupid budget airline, EasyJet, was of course no help in getting us back to London) was stressful, exacerbated by our impatient little travel companion, all the while stuck in the airport's busy entry foyer.
Ups and downs of the trip notwithstanding, overall I wasn't as put off by the tourist herds as I feared. As parents of toddler, we didn't exactly party with the second-rate aristocrats of La Dolce Vita's Rome, but I enjoyed glimpsing the life from one of my favorite movies. I would love to spend a few years in Rome working professionally, and maybe in several years we will get the opportunity. Life is sweet in Rome.
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