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.
