#collesseum

With our time in Italy slowly coming to an end, we mutually agreed it was time to put on the tourist hat and visit what may well be the tourist capital of the planet. After an epic six-countries-in-four-weeks trip in 2010, I decided that the binge-tourist lifestyle was not one I was well cut out for. As such, we have avoided organised tours and trips wherever we can for the past five years, choosing instead to enjoy a quieter, less rushed and more authentic travel itinerary. Rome however, is not a city which accommodates this form of travel.

As it turns out, the old saying - When in Rome, do as the Romans - actually has a caveat that reads: When in Rome, do as the Romans - Not as the fucking tourists.

On that high note, below is our itinerary for the short 36-hours we spent in Rome last week. It's possible to spend weeks in this magnificent city without ever seeing the same thing twice, but we had two days, one night and a very limited budget, and if you've followed this blog for a while, you know we'd never intended to end up in Europe in the first place. With all of that said, Alita and I had a wine and pizza fuelled blast on a sum total of €100 (AU$152.15) and it is possible to see all of the key areas of Rome in detail, in a super-short 36-hour stint.

Note: I'm aware that Rome, like the rest of Western Europe is no more expensive than my dear Australia, but I have come from six months in Asia where I had the time of my life for well under $4,000.

Day 01

We are staying in a small village approximately an hour from Rome, called Cottanello. We jump into the car at 7:30am and b-line for Poggio Mertato train station. This was the first time since we arrived in Italy three weeks ago that we had no choice but to jump in the deep end of the language pool. Shit. How do we ask for train tickets? Jakki dropped us off at the station with our our and the remainder of a €100 note my grandmother sent me as a birthday gift when the EU was formed in 1999. It was worth a lot more then than it was now. The bar Jakki had directed us to no longer sold tickets. We walked outside to see Jakki driving down the road and decide to try our hand organising tickets on the train. We boarded , found the conductor and explained (in the best Italian we could) we needed a ticket to Rome. He told us to sit and he'd get our tickets. He never came back with our tickets, he just smiled and shooed us away as we disembarked the in Rome. Rockstar.

Leaving the metro station, we made our way to our hotel, a short 20-minute walk down the road, dropped our bags in our €40 room, grabbed a map and hit the streets.

So here's the deal with Rome. If you're planning to visit, don't plan to take amazing photographs. Rome is perhaps the most magnificent and culturally rich city on earth. There is no question about that, but because of that very fact, it is crawling with tourists doing the binge-travel thing. As a photographer, this is a deal breaker. I can deal with bad light, bad weather, police officers, angry communists, and cantankerous grandparents, but fucking tourists are my nightmare.

That being said, there's a boatload to see, so suck it all in, and if you get the opportunity, beat a tourist with their own selfie stick - it's all part of the joy of Rome.

We headed straight for the 'centre' of the city - a short walk down the Via Nationale. Despite the relative newness of the Altare della Patria (Unknown Soldier Memorial) it is magnificent, and a killer place to start your journey around Rome. It's free to enter and each wing acts as a pedestal for two of my favourite statues in all of Rome. Just don't photograph your smoking hot wife on the steps of this building - the guards will lose their minds!

We continued onward toward the Collesseum - possibly the most photographed ruins in Rome. It's spectacular, and old as the rock it's built on, but save your cash and the line up and stand in awe from the outside. Apparently the remains would fit up to fifty-thousand spectators in that stadium to watch paople go to war with one another. Evidently tour operators think this was short-sighted, and cram in 100,000 people, at once, every-goddamn-day.

From there, we made our way through back streets to the tail end of the Roman Forum. Another beautifully confusing part of Romes tumultuous history. No one really knows where all the bits go, but it's cool to see how it may have looked some 2000 years ago.

Italy is known for its food. So much so that in all the travel I have done, and all the places I have visited, there is not one which does not (claim to) serve Italian food. And if I am being honest (again, despite the Paleo gods) it's probably the best food on earth. I shit you not. BUT Italy is also known for its sneakiness: for one, as with most tourist hot-spots, you'll pay three to four times the price for a coffee in Rome than you will in villages, but you'll also pay for absolutely everything else. It's not uncommon to read a price if €10 for a meal and end up paying €20 because you sat down at a table to eat it. That being said, there are a lot of smaller shops selling paninis and pizza by the slice for €3-4 so if you shop around, you can score a great Italian meal super cheap (comparatively).

After a short lunch of paninis, prosciutto and peroni, we headed back to our hotel for a much needed siesta. When we woke, we slammed a huge punett of strawberries and mascarpone we'd purchased for €3 before we came back, and headed out again.

The itinerary for the afternoon (5pm to 10pm) was Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps and finally, The Pantheon - all on foot. By this point, Alita's feet were blistered and bruised, so we started off slowly. It never fails to amaze me how much discomfort she can deal with when it comes to travel (or shopping). If I'm honest, I probably hyped up Trevi and the Spanish Steps a little too much - the fountain was covered in scaffolding and glass, and tourists nonetheless. When I was first in Rome thirteen years ago, I discovered the Pantheon purely chance as I stumbled past with a young priest my grandparents had introduced me to in an effort to get me into the catholic groove, on the way back to my hotel at 4am. It wasn't as I remembered, but then I didn't remember a lot.

The pantheon is, without competition, the most magnificent building in all of Rome. It's dark and simple, and powerful. Try visiting this building and not be moved in some way. It's properly epic.

We ate a simple but delicious dinner at a small restaurant on the piazza in front of a small, beautifully lit church behind the Pantheon and then hit one of the 1000-odd gelato bars in Rome. I don't remember the name and it doesn't matter - chances are it was just as good as the place on the next block. Either way, that gelato was just as epic as the Pantheon. On our slow walk home, we came across a quaint, modest little church, and with a little cohesion, I convinced Alita that we should go inside and have a look, comforting her by saying 'the worst that can happen is they kick us out or damn us to hell'. Evidently this was enticing enough to lure her inside with me.

I'd been to Rome before - I knew what opulence to expect inside such a humble building, Alita did not. I spent the next twenty minutes watching Alita. Her expression, the light and wonder in her eyes. I felt like I'd just taken her on the best first date ever.

Once we made it back to the hotel and had a few glasses of a wine I'd bought for €1.13 - because YOLO baby - we slept like the dead, and luckily, because we were up at 6:30 the next morning.

 Day 02 

After a tremendous included breakfast of coffee, croissants, Italian cured ham and salamis, and blood-orange juice, we jumped onto the subway for and made our way to St. Peter's Cathedral. This was ultimately the only thing I felt I needed to show Alita. When I was in Rome as a teenager, this was the one experience that really resonated inside me. Back then, I didn't know what it was I felt. This time I did.

We stood in line for nearly 90 minutes (a relatively short wait given its not unusual to wait in line for three to four hours) before we made it through the epic black brass doors and into the Cathedral. I'm not catholic, and I am a far-fucking-cry from religious, but there is something epic about this place. Regardless of your persuasions or your beliefs, I don't believe it's possible to spend time inside a place like this and not leave with an overwhelming sense of intense connectedness.

By this point, we'd effectively seen all of the attractions of Rome, so it was time to get our local on. With another cup of gelato in hand, we made our way south across the river, through the Jewish Ghetto where La Dolce Vita (Life is Beautiful) was filmed in 1997, and onward to Trastevere, possibly the funkiest, artistic, most brilliant little suburb in Rome - with more rowdy locals, and far, far fewer tourists. We explored, ate porchetta, drank beer on the sidewalk, sucked in the culture and atmosphere, and wandered through narrow cobblestone streets which had been there since the beginning of the Roman Empire. 

We ended our day with a coffee in front of a tram stop in Trastevere before picking up the gear we'd left at our hotel and and heading to the subway and back to Cottanello.