“All roads lead to Rome”. The Stranglers song was on high repeat in my head this morning as we boarded the 11.08 fast train from Florence, which whisked us through the lovely rolling green countryside, dotted with beautifully mellow stone buildings and towns, to the eternal city. It is early summer here, the first cuts of hay are being baled and the red poppies are riotous everywhere. If I could have changed one thing about our tour of Italy, I would have loved to have had more time to spend in the country. Hopefully we will be able to make up for that a little in France and England.
We reached Rome around lunchtime. I am beginning to recognise a pattern in this travelling. With changing cities every two to three days, there is always a sense of disorientation and alienation when you first roll into a new city. Travelling by train, I always notice the grime, the graffiti, the dirty and teeming outer suburbs first. There are always an initial few hours of ‘why didn’t we just stay longer in the last city - I liked it there’. The first walk around is usually a bit daunting as everything is totally unfamiliar. After a njght, though, when we set off for our second days look around, things start to look familiar, and the hotel/apartment starts to feel like home. By then we have generally worked out how the public transport system works, and where we want to go. And of course, on the third day it is all wonderful and it is time to move on and start the cycle again!
Anyway, our first afternoon in Rome. We are meeting my cousin Laurence here tomorrow to join his tour of the city, so I checked up on what he is going to show us, and we set off to see some of the things that he will not be covering. First stop the Spanish steps. Hmm, heaps and heaps of tourists sitting on a big flight of white steps. Perhaps I am missing something, but I’m afraid I was a little underwhelmed. We walked up to the Medici Palace on top of the hill behind (these Medicis really did get everywhere!), and then into the large gardens, and spent a couple of hours enjoying just lying about on the grass, seeing trees everywhere and coming across fountains, statues and ponds at every turn. Very pleasant. Home through the bustling city, and an early night.
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| Italian trains - fast (250 km/h), on time and very very good. |
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| Naiad fountain, Piazza di Reppublica - Rome is full of beautiful statues and sculptures at every turn. |
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| Spanish Steps |
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| Lots of horses giving tourists rides in little carriages around Rome ... |
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| ... but we prefer the plastic variety that goes round and round in circles |
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| Rome is also well supplied with public drinking fountains, with very good water, and always highly sculptural |
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| Another drinking fountain |
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