These are difficult times, and few countries have been hit harder by The Virus than Italy. Right now, the news and commentary coming out of the country sounds like that track out of Carmina Burana.
To me, Italy is a place of beautiful memories. The apocalyptic visions shown in the media reflect a depressing view of what is happening now, but people shouldn’t think that Mediterranean Heaven has descended into the Inferno.
Things are bad now, for sure, but the Italy I remember is worth coming back to. If not, then what’s the point?
Introduction
Originally, the plan was to join in with some others and make an inspirational montage of some form. A short video, a show of support for Italians, particularly- considering what I do- the winemakers and the wine-related industry.
After a lot of thought, I decided that the best way I could contribute was to share my experiences and impressions of Italy. I hope to light that spark of interest and get people excited about visiting Italy, drinking Italian wines and eating Italian food the first chance they get. People need to remember how beautiful Italy really is under the suffocating doom and gloom.
What better way to do that than a travelogue?
So, here we are. I decided to drop my aversion to writing about my travels (it seemed indulgent before) and the editorial “we”. I’m going to give my impressions and memories of my visit, not a review. Fortunately, I was quite lucid, despite all the booze I was drinking.
Be forewarned: there will be some bad jokes, some historical fun facts and a a healthy dose of whimsy in this story.
Prologue: All Roads
It was the April of 2017 when I landed in Rome. As far as I knew, it would be a fairly bright- but cool- Spring. The Mediterranean summer is famously warm, torrid even, and since I get that pretty much anytime back home, it seemed like a welcome change.
Much planning had gone into the trip, which would start in Rome, but take a loop around the boot-shaped peninsula of Italy. More importantly, I had decided that the only companions I would bring along with me were my camera and a half-empty suitcase. Like a Pokemon master, I would use the former to capture memories and the latter to capture the wine I thought was worth bringing back home.
Before I even settled into my hotel, I saw the poster for a certain movie from 1953 on a stand in a random street corner.
A cursory look in the mirror confirmed that I was not Gregory Peck, and there was no Audrey Hepburn on my trip. Still, a movie about how an incognito Princess and a reporter went around Rome to experience life seemed poignant.
It was about noon when I got to the hotel, which was just around the corner from the Pantheon (more on that later), which put me pretty much at the centre of Rome. After the hotel generously allowed me to check in early, I decided that it was time to execute The Plan.
I’m Singaporean, and it’s true that many of us have overplan everything. I had a map saved on my phone that had all the interesting locations marked out, a walking route plotted, and a strict timetable at each stop. Now that I think about it , I might have all the toilet breaks marked out too.
Yikes.
The first item to cross of the list was a rather splendid fountain which I had exactly twenty minutes to walk to, ten to get a picture and then move on.
I’ll let you guess how well that worked out.
As it turned out, I was a little hasty in assuming I beat the school-vacation crowd. The Trevi Fountain isn’t a piece of ancient art, having been completed in 1762, but it’s venerable- and quite magnificent- in its own right. Perhaps a little too magnificent, judging by the throng of tourists (myself included) surrounding it.
It took a while, but eventually the crowd thinned out enough that I could actually get close enough to touch the water. Also, I could finally throw in my coin, since the fountain also doubled as one of the largest wishing wells in Italy. I’m not kidding, the fountain collects 3000 euros a day in tribute.
Attempting to get back on schedule, I took a rather brisk walk to the Spanish Steps, which was about three minutes away. Well, I thought that the Trevi Fountain was crowded…
The place was packed- so dense with people that I couldn’t see the actual Spanish Steps. At that point, I got pretty frustrated. Day One, Hour Two and I was already stuck with about a million other people on a staircase. In the sun. With no lunch.
I was huffing, puffing and ready to go nuclear when a little angel named Audrey Hepburn reminded me what the whole trip was really about. In Roman Holiday, her character was a cloistered princess who went around discovering Rome- in disguise, by herself. She could have brought her entire entourage, cleared the streets, and got all the pictures of an empty city she wanted.
But, she didn’t. She only had one day of freedom, but she wanted to enjoy life as a normal person would. To her, crowds were, in tech parlance, a feature, not a bug. A princess who just wanted to experience Roman life as it was. That to her, was a Roman Holiday.
I’m provably not a princess, but it was pretty clear what the lesson for me was.
Lo and behold, a new perspective.
It was at that point I decided to just do as the Romans do, and not worry too much about keeping to the schedule. On my own Roman Holiday, I would be Audrey Hepburn- not Gregory Peck. Farewell timetable, we hardly knew ye.
This little travelogue too, is about experiences, and not a thesis, or timeline. Why stick with a chronological order?
Not a Chronology: A City Eternal
I have a theory that Rome and for that matter, all the cities in Italy have such strong characters mainly because of their history and the traditions and culture built over the ages. Putting it mildly, Rome is an ancient city, and I doubt that any one person can change Rome; it’s far more likely that Rome changes you.
In the past, when I thought about Rome, two things came to mind. Togas and marble buildings. The first Imperator, Augustus, did say those famous words: I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble, after all.
So of course, I visited the ruins of the Roman Forum, the center of public life in Ancient Rome, and, remarkably, still standing in some parts.
For my part, I enjoyed immersing myself into the pool of history. True, the eponymous empire did not always have the city as its capital, and even then, it was sacked and burned more than once. Yet, the ancient, Kingdom-and-Empire part of Rome still stuck out of the ground like the bones of a majestic beast, plain for everyone to see.
To be honest, it felt a little overwhelming to set foot along the exact same streets that Caesar and Augustus once did, and more. Case in point: while walking through the ruins of the Roman Forum, our tour guide was all too happy to point out the exact spot where Caesar’s pyre was placed.
This was a man who lived (and died) two thousand years ago!
My mind flit back to Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. In this place, I didn’t have to close my eyes to imagine Mark Antony intoning those famous words, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”. In my mind’s eye, I saw a riot of colours and the shuffling of toga-clad men and women scrambling to hear Antony’s words, as Caesar lay on the pyre behind him.
Equally overwhelming was walking in the ruins of the ancient Colosseum, built by Nero (he of the fiddle) at ruinous cost. Apparently, in addition to the gladiator matches we’re all somewhat familiar with (are you not entertained?), mock naval battles were fought here.
The thing that really struck me was the resemblance Colosseum bore to modern stadiums, complete with public toilets, a basement “backstage” and VIP seating. Or perhaps, it’s more correct to say that the stadiums bear a resemblance to the Colosseum.
In fact, it felts almost surreal to have those ancient vestiges of a great civilization coexist with modern edifices. I took a picture of the Pantheon which I think says it best.
Located on one of the busiest streets in Rome, surrounded by peddlers, shops, traffic and an unending stream of tourists and locals alike. Built in 125 A.D, it is today a Catholic church and still has the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. Roman concrete, of course.
That seamless integration of ancient structure with modern life- the casual way that people seem to walk into these millenia-old monuments.
That’s something incredibly hard to understand for someone whose country doesn’t have any standing structure older than a couple hundred years.
The Vaguely Defined Middle
Still, for all of Rome’s ancient wonders, Rome didn’t earn its moniker of the Eternal City just because it was the capital of an empire two millenia ago, but also because it survived the entire time in between then and now.
The ancient wonders give way to soaring cathedrals as the Emperors gave way to the Popes. There’s plenty of time between the (first) sack of Rome to the 20th century, and the Dark, Middle, Renaissance and Industrial eras are each the subject of entire shelves of books. I’m going to leave the eras vaguely defined; I don’t pretend to be a historian.
What is undeniable is that Rome’s middle history is closely linked with that of the papacy. The Holy See held territory in Italy and was a temporal power in its own right, though its power waxed and waned. This legacy remains etched in the very bedrock of Rome- and in the Vatican City.
Though I am the last thing from religious, there’s no denying the call of adventure- and seeing history for oneself is an adventure. How could one possibly neglect The Church while in Rome?
It was early morning when I set off for the seat of the Catholic Church, and I fully intended to make my way there on foot. One might be able to see the sights, but can’t exactly use the rest of the senses if one sits in a taxi the entire time.
Vatican City itself in an enclave within Rome, being an independent state completely surrounded by another. That piece of history is rather more modern- the form it takes now was largely formalised by- surprise, surprise- Mussolini in 1929.
In any case, one can still see the hundreds of churches within Rome proper, and a rather large castle within the city itself. Castel Sant’Angelo was originally the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and was built in the late 130s AD.
We won’t find much of the original Roman tombs at the Castel, though. Over the centuries, its original purpose changed from burial ground, to prison, residence and stronghold of the Popes. Back when they needed strongholds, at least. Politics was a messy business back in the “middle” ages, and invasions, assassins and uprisings were a fact of life.
The fortress is the brutal exception as far as structures go. While sharing a certain majesty with it, the structures within Vatican City are beautiful, even to this layman’s eyes.
Despite my early-bird tendencies, I was not quite early enough, and leading into Vatican City and St Peter’s Basilica were winding queues stretching literally as far as the eye could see. Most queues end at the door, but these end at the exit, when one chooses to leave the Basilica.
After about forty-five minutes, I recall muttering something to the effect of “when in Rome…” before remembering, quite suddenly, that I wasn’t. Channeling my inner Audrey Hepburn, I looked on the bright side- if you’re not moving, you get to enjoy seeing the sights for longer.
Singapore is a relatively young country, and churches back home are mostly light on decor, at least as far as I know. So, I was not completely prepared for this:
I’ve read that the Vatican did a splendid job of getting Renaissance Italy’s best artists, sculptors and masons to lend their talents to the decoration of the Basilica and its surrounds. It’s hard to fathom what that means- I certainly didn’t have any inkling before I took my first step into St Peter’s.
The splendour of the basilica is hard to capture, whether in words, pictures or video. There’s a feeling of immensity and awe that grips hard and doesn’t let go- whether one is of Christian denomination or not. High ceilings, gilded and covered with murals. Every inch is covered with marvelous art- carved, painted or laid down in deliberate, exacting labour.
It’s almost vulgar to write about it in such colloquial terms. Each work tells a story, and there are enough stories here to fill a library.
Memorably, there’s a certain piece of art within the Sistine Chapel that pretty much everyone has seen- it’s the one by Michaelangelo where God and Adam touch fingers. In life, its scale is much larger and grander than any picture can capture. Sadly, photography was prohibited within the Pope’s own chapel, and despite temptations to the contrary, my shutter finger stayed firmly within my pocket.
I found that this actually increased my appreciation of the art- since I wasn’t busy taking pictures, my mind was free to simply enjoy it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t do much for you, dear reader.
As consolation, I offer this:
While the Catholic Church left a large impact on Rome, the city was also one of the centers of the Renaissance. That movement revived some of the ancient traditions and religious symbols, albeit with a modern (for the time) influence.
Thanks to that long heritage, as well as some of the more modern events, Rome’s buildings are an eclectic mash of different eras. Marble statues, concrete buildings, brick, cobblestones and paved roads. I’ve never been to a city that blends so many eras together- before or since.
That, I think, adds a great deal to its charm.
The Kings, the Senate and the Emperors ruled here long before the Popes and the politicians did, and in the modern era, they stand tall and proud, taking their rightful place in sharing the city’s history.
Over the Tiber
Rome isn’t just about the cobblestones and statues of the historic centre, though. The city was built on seven hills and around the Tiber River, and small clusters sprung up throughout the years with vibes and characters of their own.
The “cool” neighbourhood when I visited was Trastevere, which got its name from Latin words for “across the Tiber”. It’s a working-class district which also plays host to young Romans and tourists alike.
Trastevere is where I think “modern” culture has seeped in the strongest, perhaps due to the nature of its patrons. I didn’t see many marble statues, glittering fountains and soaring cathedrals, and the homes were more modest in stature. Instead, what I found was street art on the walls, a cafe every ten meters or so, shops selling trinkets and even a small bazaar.
Not to mention fashion models.
When I was there during lunchtime, the crowds were just as fierce as in Central Rome. One would be foolish to think that one can just walk into any restaurant there during peak hour, as I learnt to my disappointment.
During the off-hours, Trastevere slowed down and took on a relaxed feel. There was plenty of time for me to visit the craft breweries right after wolfing down the Penne Arrabbiata, which is exactly what I did. The craft beer was of good quality; the Romans, looking beyond the traditional wine and aperitivo, craved cold beers straight from the tap. In the scorching afternoon heat, there is nothing better.
Even if one is somewhat reluctant to indulge in beer right after lunch, one would surely be susceptible to the siren call of one of Trastevere’s many cafes. Even if they also sell Fernet Branca.
Since I had had a beer earlier (five minutes earlier, that is), what I was really looking for at that time was some Espresso. Espresso, by the way, is always the correct choice if you’re looking for caffeine in Italy. If you’re wondering, I ordered the Americano.
Just kidding. I ordered booze. Me being me, I’m sure you saw this coming.
In my defense, it is true that I ordered an Americano, which is the drink on the left. Cousin to the Negroni, the Americano is a fairly standard aperitivo; cool, bitter and refreshing. The addition of soda turns it into a nice panacea to the dry, unyielding afternoon heat.
The grappa, on the right, was however, a little bit of whimsy on my part. A country that produces as much wine as Italy does always finds ways to use the residues of winemaking. Grappa is spirit made from the pomace- seeds, pulp, stems, and skins of the spent grape.
Quality of grappa varies wildly, however. Sometimes you get some real gems with rich, layered flavours, and sometimes you get firewater. That’s part of the excitement, of course.
Food and Feeling
Trastevere isn’t the only part of Rome which feels surprisingly rustic. I found a little bit of that tradition on my plate every day.
The Romans have a favourite dish and I’m told that it is, was, and probably will always be Carbonara. It’s an old shepherd’s dish- meant to be hearty, easily and cheaply made, and tasty. Coincidentally, it is also my favourite pasta dish of all time.
Now, the Roman version of the Carbonara- some would say the original version- is quite different from what we get back here in the tropics. For starters, there is no cream whatsoever in it- only a ripe Italian cheese. We can argue about whether that cheese should be Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano, but it is cheese.
There’s also hearty amounts of egg yolk, and a special Roman cut of pork called Guanciale- a cured pork jowl. Pepper and salt are the remaining ingredients.
Five ingredients for the sauce, plus the pasta itself. Pretty simple, right?
Well, I had Carbonara at least once a day for my entire stay in Rome, and no two looked or tasted exactly the same. I attribute it to the creative streak in Italians. Paradoxically, it is both reverent and irreverent at the same time.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into a plate of pasta. Who knows?
Aside from pasta, another little culture shock awaited me.
You see, wine is indulgence in Singapore. It is expensive, often costing more than the food itself. There is a lack of everyday table wine, since the import fees and taxes would make up almost all of the cost, defeating the purpose anyway. What’s left are usually mid-to-high shelf wines. One simply can’t afford to open a bottle of vino at every meal back home.
We are also restricted by supply (less so recently, thanks to the efforts of Italian folks and organisations like Gambero Rosso). One can get most of the big wines- the Chiantis, the Amarones, the Brunellos etc. fairly easily. Regional wines- that’s a different story. Part of the mission of travelling to Italy was to savour the uncommon, regional wines of Italy. On a daily basis. Or more.
What I didn’t know at that point was Lazio is primarily a white wine region, with a sprinkling of reds. So, to my regret, I recall only having a “Super Lazio” for lunch – that is, wine made from a blend of international (Cab, Merlot,etc) and regional grape varietals (Sangiovese, perhaps) grown in the Lazio region to which Rome belongs.
It’s not just what people drink in Rome, but how they drink it- and where.
Rome isn’t exactly known as a city with sprawling boulevards and wide streets. The legacy of literal thousands of years of civilization includes some rather old, narrow lanes. You would think that they were populated solely by Romans and the odd tourist on foot.
You’d be wrong. The concept of a pavement is alien to some of these roads, so you also have bicycles, scooters and the occasional car.
Unbelievably, restaurants simply plonk down tables and chairs on these roads. Even more unbelievably, people (including myself) actually sit down and have drinks on some of these lanes.
I admit, it was both scary and liberating at the same time. As an introvert, I like having space around me.
At that moment, however, sitting next to an endless stream of people, I, a stranger to those lands, finally felt that I was starting to blend in. No more touristy sights to see, no places to go, but a glass of wine in my hand and a desire to just let life go on as it would.
Arrivederci
And then, just like that, it was time to go. Audrey Hepburn had just a day, and I had but four. The first stop of my grand Italian adventure had yielded beautiful memories, which I now share with you.
Thinking back now, Rome was where I began to see a different perspective.
In Rome, every step can be an adventure. Feeling its pulse, taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells. Admire its beautiful streets and marble monuments; the flow of its people and the chatter of humanity. History melds together with life there. An eclectic, beautiful painting.
After a while, you begin feel Rome as much as you see it, smell it, and hear it. It’s an unforgettable experience; perhaps that’s the true reason why it’s called the Eternal City.
I was, and am, grateful for the opportunity.
Next destination: Sorrento.
