How to get funny looks in Rome

How to guarantee strange looks from every person standing near you:

Take a flowery, china teacup, set it down on a 2000-year old ruin, and proceed to take a picture.

Then be prepared to explain yourself.

The choices for a Teacup Tale shot in Rome were endless. There were so many great sites.

I settled on two.

First, my SGTC teacup came to the Colosseum. Finished in 80AD, the Colosseum is still standing. Not completely, and not in the state it was enjoyed in all those years ago, but it's there.

We joined a walking tour to explore it early in the morning. As you can imagine, it gets quite busy, and at this time of year, pretty damn hot. We spent a while walking through the interior, before stepping outside into the seating areas. This was my photo op.



I've become used to setting up the teacup for pictures in random places (on top of mountains, in front of waterfalls, in small Italian villages), so I forget how odd it must look. This time I was reminded. My entire tour group, plus any others near by, just stared. I heard one couple behind me: "Where did she get that? She must have bought it with her. What for?" Then I had to tell the story of my teacup.

Then I had show people photos of the teacup, and I have more than 2000 pictures on my camera at the moment so that took some searching. Everyone loved the idea, which was nice.



The next day I took the teacup to Vatican City. Neither the Vatican Museums or the Sistine Chapel were good places, so I was thinking of St. Peter's Basilica. Then our guide read the rules: "No strange photographs". I didn't know whether photographing my teacup inside the Basilica was "strange" but I didn't want to find out. The Swiss Guard may be dressed like jesters, but I doubt they enjoy jokes.

So I settled for outside:



 

 

 

 

 

Four hours in the world's smallest country

What little knowledge I had of Rome before arriving can be credited to Dan Brown. And yes I know it’s fiction, but Angels and Demons was still educational. To build on that education we joined another tour. This was our third for this city, but Rome is worth getting to know properly. Well actually today, we're not exploring Rome. Or even Italy. We're off to Vatican City - a separate country. The world's smallest. It may only been 100 acres and have a population of about 800 people, but when the Pope is one of those 800 you've got a bit of clout.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get on a Walks of Italy tour of the Vatican, so this time we were with Dark Rome. We started in the Vatican Museums, 30-minutes before the general public is allowed in.





The collection of pieces in the Vatican Museums is incredible – both in volume and quality. Just as my mind was about to stop absorbing the information and my neck aching from staring at the ceilings we arrived at the Sistine Chapel.

Our guide, Marina, had spoken to us a lot at the beginning of the tour because there are plenty of “shhh” signs in the Chapel. If you miss the signs there are also plenty of guards willing to remind you off the rules. While we were inside there were three calls of “Quiet”. Photos are also banned and the guards were quick to jump on anyone trying to sneak them. It would have been easy to snap a few without being noticed, but I think it’s disrespectful to ignore directions like that.

Now the Sistine Chapel itself. In a word. Underwhelming. Yep, I said it. I just didn’t feel it. Perhaps it’s because I’m not religious so the paintings held little significance for me. Perhaps I was expecting too much. However, Marina pointed out a few little “jokes” Michelangelo hid in the work and I found them amusing.

After the letdown of the Sistine Chapel I wasn’t sure what to expect at St. Peter’s Basilica. We’d be warned of the strict dress codes (no bare shoulders or legs above the knee). Other rules Marina read from the official list included “no strange photos with the monuments”. I can only imagine….





The Basilica really was impressive. It’s huge! Again I was amazed at the detail. The Roman’s do not do anything by halves. Outside we saw two Swiss Guards in their official uniform. Michaelangelo may have been a lot of things, but fashion designer was not one of them.



If you don’t book a tour ahead of time there are plenty of people selling “skip the line” tickets and tours from the street. I can’t speak to their quality though. Marina was an art history major and rattled off information about the works like the alphabet, with some typical Italian theatrics thrown in during the storytelling.

For lunch I took a recommendation from Revealed Rome -  a great blog to check out if you're visiting the city - and went to Fa Bio. It's a tiny, hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop. In areas like this it's easy to fall into expensive and tasteless tourist traps. We got fresh-made sandwiches and some juice at a great price and enjoyed them in a nearby piazza.

Rome's colossal spectacle - sans Russell Crowe

Another hot summer’s day in Rome and another day marvelling at the city’s architectural feats. Is it possible there's too much to see here? After a bit of emailing, we’d found a spot on another Walks of Italy tour – this time an early morning visit to the Colosseum. In an attempt to beat the heat and crowds, our tour started at 8.30am. Once the gates to the 2000-year old icon opened, we were in.

I knew very little about this place before the tour - basically what I had seen in the shorts of Gladiator. Although after learning only a fraction of the building’s history from our guide, Jos, I could see its appeal to Hollywood. An initial one hundred days of games, exotic animals, duels to the death, slaves fighting for freedom and 55,000 Romans enjoying the fun. Would anything else on earth have been such a spectacle? It’s no surprise the Colosseum’s popularity lasted centuries.



Although there were a number of other tour groups in the Colosseum at the same time, it was not remotely crowded. Again being in a small group (this time there were nine of us) helped. We spent about an hour in the Colosseum before moving to Palatine Hill – where Rome began. The rest of the three-hour tour was spent on Palatine Hill and through the Roman Forum. Whenever I travel in Europe I’m always amazed at how old everything is. An Australian’s idea of an historic event is when cricketer David Boon drank 52 tinnies (beers) on a flight from Sydney to London. That was 1989. One of Australia's most prominant historic attractions is Port Arthur - the penal colony in Tasmania. That was settled in 1830. The Colesseum was finished in 80AD. We really are a baby of a country. 

But in Rome, the current city is built on top of another city…which is built on top of another city. The history here is amazing - and you can still see it. The Romans live on it and in it. You don’t need pictures of what it looked like thousands of years ago….just visit the right places and you can see for yourself.





While the Colosseum is impressive in size, without Jos it would have just been a well-kept pile of ruins. This was our second tour with Walks of Italy and both have been great fun. Jos, from Holland, moved to Italy for one year...that was nearly three years ago. He started leading tours in the Vatican before branching out. He was a great guide - very funny and not afraid to let his personality show, whether it was sharing opinions or his own theories of why things happened the way they did. A special shout out to the girls who handled our bookings. We booked our Tuesday Twilight City Stroll tour only hours beforehand by email and our Thursday tour on Wednesday afternoon. Everything was organised super quickly.

At the end of the tour we headed to Travestere, a trendy area across the river for a quick walk before returning to Campo de' Fiori for the Euro 2012 6pm game. Italy was playing Croatia and we wanted to enjoy it with people who could understand the commentary. Every café and bar was showing the game and by 6pm you were lucky to get a seat, but we arrived early and scored prime viewing. The game was a draw, despite the encouragement from the Italian fans.

When in Rome...try to stay alive on the roads

[caption id="attachment_2132" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="A rare calm street in Rome."][/caption]

I don’t know where the saying came from, but it’s a good thing the world didn’t take it to heart. If we all did as the Romans do, well, we’d need really good health insurance. The driving here is insane. Not as bad as I’ve seen in China or Vietnam, but it’s still a gong show.

There are as many road lanes as can fit across the road. No lines. No rules.

Crosswalks are there for decoration and traffic lights might as well be Christmas lights.

Park where you can fit. Triple parking is OK.

Merge when you want. Others will make space when you leave them with no option.

And nobody does road rage quite like the Italians. They are an animated bunch.

There's a reason Rome's roads are filled with the adorable three-wheeled Piaggio Ape trucks and ity-bity Mercedes Smart cars - they fit anywhere.

I saw all this excitement when we boarded a hop-on/hop-off bus. After a few days with a lot of walking, we needed to rest a bit. Plus it’s nice to see everything a little higher up.

Rome isn’t a big city. It’s an achievement they packed so many things in this place. There are a lot of people here, but it’s not far from one side to the other. Our apartment is across the Tiber River. It’s beyond the metro network so to save catching a bus then a tram to the nearest metro, we taxi there at a cost of about eight euro. It’s not that expensive given there are three of us and we’re saving a bucket load by staying outside the main area. We could taxi everywhere and it would still be less than staying in a similar apartment in the city centre.

We joined City Sightseeing Rome for our bus ride – we’d gone with the same company in Pisa and if you keep your ticket from one city you get a discount at another. The bus route went by some sights we’d already seen, but gave us our first look at the Colosseum and the Vatican. We’ll visit both later in the week.

After doing a lap around, we got off near the Trevi Fountain and went in search of the coffee place our guide had taken us past yesterday. We couldn’t remember exactly where it was but from my photos we worked out it was after the ruins and before a small fountain where we filled up our water bottles. We retraced our steps from the day before and found it. Glad to know we were paying attention on our tour. I ordered a latte and Mum, a cappuccino. Unfortunately, neither were the best we’ve ever had.



I left Mum and Dad in a museum and pottered around some back streets for nearly an hour. Each street looked dead until I walked down it. There were lots of shops, some not much bigger than a decent size bathroom. Motorcycle repair shops, curtain stores, book shops, galleries, artist workshops, boutiques. It was really nice just strolling around and watching everyone go about their business.

I met the folks again and we spent the evening partaking in my favourite activity. We got a table in Campo de' Fiori, ordered a drink and watched the world go by. People watching is fascinating almost anywhere, but here it was truly entertaining. There were a few street performers and a couple of interesting encounters between them. A cabaret duo got annoyed when a musical trio got to close, a jewellery vendor was worried about the bubbles one act was blowing in his direction….and so it went on.

[caption id="attachment_2134" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="The local vendors were resourceful when watering the flowers"][/caption]



[caption id="attachment_2136" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Piaggio Ape trucks are so cute. I want one!"][/caption]

A walking introduction to Rome

Turn any corner in Rome and you come across something impressive – either for its beauty or simply the fact it was constructed hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. Very few man-made sights earn a “wow” from me, but this city is overloaded with incredible things to see: churches, monuments, buildings, fountains.

With so much to take in over the next few days, we opted to start our time in Rome with a tour. Walks of Italy was recommended by a travel blog I like so we made a last-minute booking to join the Twilight City Stroll on Tuesday night.

We met Flaminia, our lovely curly-haired guide, at the top of the Spanish Steps. The tour started at 5.30pm, which was the perfect time. It’s just so hot for me during the day. Over the following two and a half hours Flaminia shared Rome with us. We visited a few of the “must-sees” including the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, the Fountain of the Four Rivers and Piazza Navona.

The Trevi Fountain is incredible and bloody huge! The detail and scale of the work is as impressive as the crowd around it. It’s a place you want to keep an eye on your belongings. But it was the Pantheon that had me a little awestruck. It’s just so well preserved for its age and to think people had the knowledge and skills to design and build something like that all those years ago. I still can’t find an umbrella that lasts.

On top of these iconic attractions, Flaminia showed us a few lesser-known sites as we walked from place to place. To be honest, it was these that made the tour for me. We’d walk past a fairly plain building and Flaminia would lead us into a side door. There we’d find a beautiful church, a quiet courtyard or a Bernini statue that few know about. Things I’d never suspect were hidden there.

I’m usually a fairly content independent tourist. Load me up with a map and a guide and I’ll happily take myself around a city and teach myself as I go. But in Rome there’s just too much. Flaminia has a degree in history and art restoration, and when she’s not leading tour groups she’s restoring paintings.  She talks about Rapha (Raphael) and Michelangelo with such familiarity, you'd think she knew them personally. She’s that passionate about what she showed us.

Our tour only had five people, which was really great. Walks of Italy has a limit of 12, so it’s never going to get too crowded. Plus on this tour we got free gelato (the store had the most amazing selection I’ve ever seen) and the scoop on the city’s best coffee place (it’s Sant'Eustachio il Caffe).

[caption id="attachment_2123" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="One thing we learnt: fountain water is OK for drinking."][/caption]