Liisa and I, after succesfully completing our first semester (she goes to sciences po as well), decided we deserved a short vacation someplace unkown to both - and Rome it was. Thank god for internet booking and Ryanair; 75e flights, 60e hostel. Travelling is just so much more possible, especially for students.
Well, don't thank Ryanair all that much. We woke up at five a.m. on saturday morning, to get the metro, to get the bus, to get to the Ryanair airport (1,5hrs!!). There were two boarding gates, side by side, one for Rome and the other for Lisbon. Now, Ryanair doesnt have seating places- its free game - so people were all lined up in amorphous mobs waiting to get in. We knew that we were going to Italy, when at the last minute, they changed the gates and the two crowds started running to the other gate with their luggage, and from somewhere in the crowd, a loud yell was enounced: ”BASTARDI!!!”.
As our plane was landing to ciampino airport, it suddenly, steeply, pulled up. The runway was fogged up. We waited half an hour and tried again. Liisa said she could already see the buildings when we pulled up. Then we tried the other airport at Rome. Finally, they took us to the other side of Italy, to what must be its ugliest coastal town Pescara. From pescara, we got a bus to the airport in Rome (mind you, not to rome itself – we had to take another bus for that). As a frenchman eloquently put it, when we got lost on the way to the airport, and came back to the same crossroad: ”they need multiple approaches in this country”.
Well, needless to say, we were quite tired, and when we got to our shitty hostel (’enjoy hostels’), Saturday had been pretty much travelled for us.
Rome was unbelievable, maybe even absurd. We thought hard, and came to the conclusion that there is probably no other city in the world, with a span of some 3000 years of civilization (Roman empire, the vatican and the papacy later, and then Italy as a nation). And unlike many cities, old monuments or even ruins have been left to stand. You can stand at the piazza di venezia and be surrounded by an eclectic, epoch-littered view. Pieces of old aqueducts, old houses, churches, national monuments.. all around the city. And after you visit the vatican, and the vatican museum (take an audiotour, tagging along other people’s guides is embarrassing), or fontana di trevi, passing an ancient church will seem trivial, and the things-to-see-list becomes absurd. Luckily, on the first day we had Liisa’s friends, Salvatore and Giulia (who is a professor, and has studied roman history), who kindly helped make all the ancient stuff a lot more understandable.
One of the thoughts that struck me most, was thinking of Rome in view of our present civilization, which we easily consider the peek of human history and progress. Yet comparing occidental society over the last century to the thousand years of peace of the Pax Romana, seems quite ridiculous.
Truly an amazing, beautiful, colorful and personal city. I think i have found another city where i want to live at some stage in my life.
And the food.. Pasta amatriciana and artichokes, buffets. We ate at least once a day at a restaurant, guzzling down crispy white wine. White wine seemed appropriate, since it was close to 20 degrees, even in february.
Its good to be back too. Seeing all of Rome in 6 days was no easy task. And if you know how much i like walking, and how fast i am at it.. I think i will spend the rest of my vacations by being lazy.
Take care!
And it goes without saying that we saw tapirs as well.
