Rome

An hour and a bit

Just over an hour on the train. That’s it. A hundred and twenty-two miles — London to Nottingham — in less time than it takes to watch a film on my laptop. Still nuts to me.

Which meant packing a lot of looking into not very long, because this is my first journey back north and the scenery changes again. Naples didn’t have much in the way of mountains — listen to me, not much in the way of mountains, like I’m some sort of expert now. But it had more than Rome does. Heading north it all flattens out and settles down.

Seven hills. After the Alps, the seven hills don’t quite cut the mustard.

And then Termini, which is big. Big the way a capital city’s station ought to be. I stood there trying to work out how many people must come through those doors in a day — tourists, Romans, commuters, all of it — and gave up. Easy to navigate though. Plenty of signs, all pointing the way out. And then out through them, back into the heat, and into the heart of another Italian city.

Four floors, and a lift

The route from Termini to the hotel had been sitting on my phone for months. This one had always been a bit of a mystery: it’s behind a big set of doors with nothing obvious outside, and every time I tried Street View I got the front of a random building with no clue there was a hotel in it.

So I follow the blue line, and fifteen minutes later I’m stood outside that exact random building — and there, finally, is the sign. Hotel Donna Francesca.

Then I made the mistake that cost me more energy than anything else that day. Inside, facing me, are stairs. So I take the stairs. With the rucksack on. At midday. In August.

The hotel is on the fourth floor. I know that now.

By the time I reach the door I’m in no condition to introduce myself to anybody, and I’ve never been so grateful for a buzzer. The lady on reception takes one look at me, watches me fail to string a sentence together, and works out exactly what’s happened — because behind me, on the ground floor, a hundred and eighty degrees from where I started climbing, there is a lift. Hidden behind a pillar as I walked in.

Four floors, a rucksack, and the answer was three metres away the whole time.

Anyway. She runs me through breakfast — there’s no breakfast room here, they bring it up to you — and I get into the room knowing I can’t settle, because it’s one o’clock and I’ve a ticket for the Galleria Borghese at half three.

A summer sprinkle

Half an hour on foot, through a park, and a chance to get the lay of the land. That was the plan.

The weather had other ideas. A few fat drops on a back street, and me with the brand-new umbrella sitting in the hotel and no coat, because it had been hot and sunny all week so why on earth would I be carrying one?

I duck into a doorway with a few other people. The drops stop. Fine. Summer sprinkle. Off we go. Then the thunder starts, and I’m heading up a hill past a restaurant with big umbrellas over its outside tables. Reader, I decided it was lunchtime.

A beer, and cacio e pepe — cheese and pepper, which is the whole recipe and the whole point. Rome is famous for it and this was as good a moment as any. The rain came down properly about ninety seconds after I sat down, and I have rarely been so pleased with my own timing: under cover, still outside, watching it happen.

It was fresher afterwards. Storm gone, meal finished, and back up the hill through Porta Pinciana — a gate in the Aurelian Walls, seventeen hundred years old, cars going through it like it’s a roundabout. And then the park, which goes quiet the way city parks everywhere seem to. People pedalling those four-person cart things down the tracks. And the Galleria Borghese sitting there in the distance.

The guide that wasn’t

I’d paid for a package with a guide, to get a better understanding of the art and the building. What I actually got was a rep outside handing me a QR code and wishing me a nice visit.

Not what I’d expected. And thank the stars I had earbuds with me, or my audio guide would have been the audio guide for everybody in the room. Lesson for Rome: check carefully what you’re actually buying from a tour company.

The building itself is like the Musei Reali in Turin — so full of art, sculpture and frescoes that even with the guide in my ears it’s overwhelming. Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, with the fingers turning into leaves. The Rape of Proserpina, where the stone gives under his hand. Canova’s Paolina Borghese. The Caravaggios. Raphael’s Deposition. Titian.

You get two hours. Two hours goes very, very fast.

Scouting the famous bits

Back through the park afterwards, and then I spent the evening walking round the greatest hits — not really to see them, more to scope them out for later.

The Trevi Fountain is packed. Absolutely rammed. I came away with exactly one good photo. Past the church of Santa Maria di Loreto, where I somehow got as good a shot as half the Instagram crowd were working for. And then the Vittoriano.

Which is astonishing. A massive — and I mean massive — white building on top of an enormous flight of steps, with the eternal flames burning at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

I hadn’t planned on going in. But the evening was still young enough, and I knew the best views in Rome were at the top of it, so I bought a ticket. Round the outside first, then the queue for the lift — which is glass, so if you don’t like heights, close your eyes.

And the views are stunning. Rome going off in every direction, looking exactly the way you imagine rooftop Rome should. One way, the Palazzo Venezia tower and the Pantheon. The other, the Colosseum and the Forum.

Inside there are exhibits — old coins, art, and a cope, a piviale: the big semicircular cloak clergy wear for processions, fastened at the chest with a clasp.

Then down towards the Colosseum, though not all the way, because that’s tomorrow’s job. But you get the scale of it coming along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and the scale is the thing.

Back to the hotel to change, then out again for lasagne and a glass of red at Feel Good. Then an early night. I want to be at that fountain before the crowds are.

Conditions — hot, then a thunderstorm mid-afternoon, then fresher. The umbrella spent the day in the hotel, where it was no use to anybody.

Over the river

Then a decision: walk to the Vatican, or try the metro. An hour on foot would get me there around ten. The metro was five minutes’ walk to Repubblica, ten or fifteen minutes across the city, and a short walk at the other end.

The metro won, and it was good. Clean, cheap — a day pass for €8.50 — and fast. The only stretch above ground is where it crosses the Tiber, a flash of river and daylight, and then you’re back underground and out at Ottaviano, a short walk from the Vatican.

A coffee at Caffè Vaticano, near the museum entrance, watching the tour guides round up their groups. At ten I joined the queue. It was hot already, and I was very glad of the water bottle.

The Vatican

My slot was half ten. I’d picked that time back in June so I could do the fountain on the way — and I’m glad I did it in that order, even if the fountain didn’t cooperate.

The Vatican is extraordinary. Room after room of it: the Egyptian galleries, which after Turin felt like meeting a friend’s relations; the long corridor of tapestries; and then the Gallery of Maps — forty painted maps of Italy running down both walls under a gilded ceiling. A whole country laid out region by region. The same country I’ve spent the last week crossing by train.

I’d known this one was an audio guide, at least. Its battery died before the end, but by then I was happy just to take in the spectacle.

The Sistine Chapel was a different matter. So full that I didn’t stay — I simply walked through. There are no photos allowed in there anyway, but it was the crush that moved me on. Overwhelming, and not in the way it’s meant to be.

A light lunch in the museum café, coffee and a hot sandwich, and at about half one I was out, walking past everyone still queuing to buy tickets to get in. Buy yours early. It makes the whole thing far easier.

The Colosseum, from outside

Back on the metro and down to the Colosseum. The plan was to buy a ticket when I got there and go in. There were none left.

So I made do with the outside. It’s big. And after nearly two thousand years, it could honestly do with a bit of TLC. So many people there too.

Circus Maximus

From there I walked down the Via di San Gregorio, past a surviving stretch of old aqueduct, to the Circus Maximus. I wanted to see where the chariot races had been.

And this was where, like the street in Pompeii a few days ago, I stopped and wondered.

I know there are ruins at one end. But the rest of it made me sad. It’s just a long patch of scrub. In almost any other city you’d assume it was a building site waiting to happen. This was a stadium that held perhaps 150,000 people — a bigger crowd than any stadium on earth could hold today. And there was nobody there. Walking across the baked ground, I was the only person in the entire circus.

Every famous place in Rome was heaving all day. The one place built for the biggest crowds of all was the only one that was empty.

The Spanish Steps

Back on the metro to the Spanish Steps, which were heaving too. The baroque fountain at the bottom — a half-sunk marble boat — nearly vanished under the number of people trying to cool off in it, and some of them, for some reason, drinking it.

It turns out they know something. That fountain is fed by the same ancient aqueduct as the Trevi, and the water is drinkable. So the day began at one fountain and ended at another, both running on the same water.

A cold beer at Don Nino, in the shade, watching everyone. It was an exorbitant price for a drink and worth every cent. Then up the steps to the Piazza della Trinità dei Monti for more views across the rooftops.

Looking back on it

After all that it was time to rest my feet. The metro back, an hour in the room, and then out again.

Dinner at Target, a short walk from the hotel. Steak, local vegetables and a few glasses of Merlot — exactly right. It was quiet at eight o’clock, which I’d expected, and I’ve come to like that: there’s something nice about taking a table for one a little earlier than everyone else.

The heat was manageable. I think I’m getting used to it. The food all day had been tourist food, eaten on the move, and the evening made up for all of it.

A slow walk round the block afterwards, then back to the hotel to get ready for Milan.

Conditions — hot, but manageable now. Crowds: everywhere except the one place built for them.