By All Means, Rome
- Sep 8, 2017
- 11 min read
Two Truths about Rome:
It’s kinda grody and covered in graffiti and trash
I love it anyway and no-one can stop me
It’s also super overcrowded with tourists and people trying to sell stuff to tourists, but whatever. I was there to live my Audrey Hepburn Roman Holiday dream and nothing was going to stand in my way. The over crowdedness was not fun though. On our way to our Airbnb we were on a tram chock-full of people, and as our stop approached, we had to start making our way through the masses. I started doing this as the tram was moving, and then it came to a halt while I was still moving, with the result that I was launched into a seething mass of people face first. Hardly conducive to the Audrey Hepburn Old Hollywood Effortlessly Enchanting vibe I was going for. I am dealing with it the best way I can which is purging it from my psyche by putting on the internet for the world to see. Exorcise the demons, you know. The other important note from day 1 is that there were advertisements for the Smurfs movie all over the metro, and “The Smurfs” in Italian is “I Puffi”. Do with that information what you will.
Since Rome was the only place we went where I had specific things that I absolutely had to do (I was going to recreate every scene in Roman Holiday or die trying) I somehow ended up in charge of navigating and getting us around, which meant that none of us knew what the heck we were doing or where we were going. I 100% only found the Roman Forum by listening to my heart, but hey, whatever works. We then wandered the forum cluelessly but not without enjoyment, because it is incredibly fascinating. We were searching for the arch Audrey is asleep on when Gregory Peck finds her. Did we find it? No. Did Gregory Peck show up? No. Know what did happen? A bird pooped on me. That’s real life for ya, kids. The movies promise you a handsome journalist, reality hands you a white dollop of feces on your skirt.
My next very important Roman Holiday goal was a trip to the Trevi Fountain and also GETTING ALL MY HAIR CUT OFF. I get excited all over again just thinking about it. The Trevi Fountain is SO pretty, but was swarming with the gosh-darn inescapable tourists. I was so vexed. How dare they be there? Didn’t they know it was my turn to be in Rome? I’m also kicking myself because I forget to throw coins in the fountain, because the story goes that if you throw one in it means you’ll return to Rome, and judging by my current financial situation, mystical fountain powers are the only thing with much chance of getting me back there.
Anyway, on to the hair salon, where, fortunately, the guy spoke English. I showed him the picture of the haircut I wanted, and he was like, “That short? Are you sure?” which is just like what the hairstylist dude in the movie says to Audrey, so good on you, my noble hair-cutting friend. I continued to keep things canonical by telling him “it’s just what I wanted” while admired the finished product. This trip was the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done and I regret nothing. My hair looked awesome, which it gosh-darn better have done, because the haircut cost me 66 FREAKIN’ EURO. LIKE WHAT EVEN. But hey, when in Rome (ahahaha look at what I did there, so fitting).
We had to find lunch then, which was a struggle. We finally found a place we could afford, which served us terrible pizza, but it kept us alive, which was the best we could hope for. Julia Roberts and her un-buttonable jeans are full of lies.
My next Roman Holiday stop was the Spanish steps where Audrey eats her gelato. Again, reality check. First of all, there is a scene in the movie where this guy tries to sell her flowers. Guess what? A guy tried to sell me flowers. She told him she didn’t have any money. I told him I didn’t have any money. He gave her one flower, saying it was a gift. He gave me one flower, saying it was a gift. My heart leapt! This really was just like Roman Holiday. I thanked him profusely and started to walk away, then he started trailing behind me asking for money. I should have known. Anyway, I was like, “oh no, you told me it was a gift, if I can’t have it for free you’ll have to take it back.” This was supposed to be his cue to let me have it for free, but instead he took it back. But really it worked out for the best, because I got the however delusional momentary thrill of thinking I was getting a free flower from a kind salesman, but without the hassle of having to actually carrying a flower around all day, so ha-ha mister, I defeated you after all.
So anyway, there we were, Spanish Steps located, now it was time to obtain some gelato. Unfortunately, this was not really the gelatish part of town, more the “many noble shops” part of town, with lots of stores selling designer clothes and not many selling food of any kind. We did at last find a gelateria, where you could get gelato for 4 euro a scoop. Not cheap, but not tear-your-hair-out-and-weep expensive, so we went for it. I got mine in a cone for the sake of authenticity, and Josie and Harrison did the same, for personal reasons I guess. Anyway, I get to the cash register and my total is somehow now 9 euros, because turns out, what we couldn’t tell from the signs written entirely in Italian was that a cone cost you an extra 5 euro. I mean what the heck. Do they really hate tourists that much, that they’re willing to play such twisted mind games with them? Whatever, it’s not like I had a choice. Audrey Hepburn had eaten gelato on the Spanish Steps, and I’ll be darned if I wasn’t going to as well.
The following day I had yet another important stop on my Roman Holiday tour, and Josie and Harrison, being brave, loyal and true companions, willingly trudged along with me to the Mouth of Truth. It’s actually just an ancient Roman storm drain that looks like a face with an open mouth, but they’ve put it on display and the legend is that if you stick your hand in the mouth and you’re a liar it’ll bite your hand off. More importantly, there is a whole scene in Roman Holiday with them sticking their hands in it. Naturally, nowadays you have to wait in line for a photo-op, and they won’t let you get your hand bitten off because you aren’t even allowed to touch, but I was still very pleased with my visit. It’s right outside a church, so we looked around in there for a bit, and the church had a gift shop with some good Roman Holiday merch, so I got some postcards.
I really wanted to go to the Vatican and see the Sistine chapel, but Josie and Harrison “didn’t want to pay 16 euro to see a ceiling” (not A ceiling, you guys, it’s THE ceiling, I mean come on) so they dropped me off in the line outside the Vatican (yes, they are my parents) and went to spend the afternoon exploring. I felt like a total boss navigating the Vatican by myself, even though it’s incredibly easy because all the signs are printed in both Italian and English. When at last I found my way into the Sistine Chapel I almost cried. It’s just so amazing to see something you’ve only ever seen in art books and on travel programs, right there in real life. They say no pictures, but despite the fact that a few people were sneaking photos and I love rule breaking (catacomb skull toucher here) I actually didn’t take any. It was just this really cool solo experience and I kind of wanted to keep it sacred to myself. Also, you can pull up like 6 million pics of it on Google images anytime you want, so you don’t really need me adding to the horde. But seriously, it was so amazing, and quite frankly, rather spiritual, which probably explains why I was crying a little.
After I exited the chapel and the museum area, I spent some time walking around the gardens, which were very pretty and abounding with fountains and hedges. There were lots of tour groups going around, so I found a group of English speakers –American tourists with an unbelievably extra American tour guide (the stereotype about us being loud and over the top? She was doing her best to enforce it. But whatever, you could tell she enjoyed talking about art history, and I’m glad she’s living her best life). I sat on a bench near them and eavesdropped on their tour, and got a bunch of Sistine/Vatican fun facts for free.
Side Quest: Pompeii
On day 4, we took a day trip to Pompeii, because that was Josie’s dream, and lort knows that after taking me all over Rome like a patient mother and taking pictures of me in front of important movie-scene landmarks (never mind that they are also ancient artifacts) she deserved a treat. And let me tell you, Pompeii is so freaking cool. I mean really. You know in The Magician’s Nephew when they go to that dying world with the old, tired sun and it’s all ruinous and reading that part of the book makes you feel weird and creeped out but in a good way? Pompeii made me feel like I’d found that world. And, as is only appropriate, the background music of the day began with the song “Pompeii” by Bastille, and then continued with every other song on the album, because Bastille is life, and also, the album as a whole is weirdly really good for wandering the ruins of an ancient city.
Besides its labyrinthine streets perfect for exploring and it’s gory volcanic history (I saw a corpse preserved in volcanic ash. It was upsetting but also totally wicked) my favorite thing about Pompeii was that some artist had come through in the 90’s and made a bunch of sculptures to be placed in various parts of the city, and it was modern art that actually added to the atmosphere instead of ruining everything! They were these giant bronze people/gods/goddesses/I can’t remember and they were so cool and haunting like where is that artist he needs to know he’s restored my faith in humanity.
We spent like 8 hours just wandering around the city, that’s how cool it is. I climbed on a ruined building and stole a piece off a house, so all in all a successful day. Pompeii also has its own coliseum, which was very cool (for this attraction, I recommend a momentary hiatus from Bastille and a switch to the song Glory and Gore by Lorde. You can enter the coliseum to it and pretend you’re a fearless gladiator, all while remaining the normal tourist to those watching. Or throw caution to the winds and go charging in with a giant sword and get your friends to release a bear for you to fight. Live your personal dream.
Back to the Main Quest
Back again in Rome, for our 5th and final day. We still needed to see the coliseum, and fortunately we found a ticketing office that was giving people admission to the coliseum, the Paletine and the Roman Forum, all as a bundle deal for a really good price. We did the coliseum first, and it was very cool, although very much tourist-ized. There were museumy placardy things with info about the coliseum on them, and one of them talked about how in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s before mass tourism was a thing, all these artsy bohemian types would just wander the overgrown coliseum in the moonlight and write beautiful poetry as a result. A much more appealing prospect, but I’ll take what I can get. It’s also kind of weird for me being there, because so many early Christians died there for what they believed in, and here’s all these people brandishing their selfie sticks and doing cutesy jumping pics. I don’t know, I just feel like it’s kind of the same deal as visiting a concentration camp, there needs to be more reverence for what went on, even if it was a long time ago. But this is coming from the girl who was ready to fight a bear the day before in a different coliseum, so what do I know. They do have a cross set up as a memorial, which was very touching and made me cry again. By the way, the only acceptable background music for the coliseum is “Now We Are Free” from the Gladiator soundtrack. Will also make tears spring to the old seeing-balls.
The Paletine is the palace of an ancient emperor, and it is up on a hill that provides splendid views of the city. There’s also the remains of a garden that I am 100% convinced is the Sacred Grove from Twilight Princess and you cannot argue me out of that opinion. Anyway, all the different buildings were very cool and ruinous and historical, but my favorite part was when we came to the edge of the hill on the far side of the palace, and there before us was the view of Rome that made me fall in love with the city once and for all. Overcrowded and dirty it may be, but I’ll be darned if it’s not the most beautiful mess I’ve ever seen.
The final leg of our tickets took us to the Roman Forum, the outskirts of which we had wandered on day 1, but now we got to actually go down into it. It’s the bit where all the temples and such used to be.
Now, thanks to my dad, who had gone through the entire Roman Holiday movie and, using his own knowledge from when he went to Rome during his archaeologist days, identified all the locations for me so that I could visit them, I knew that the arch that’s in the background when Greg Peck finds her passed out on a wall was somewhere in the Forum. I had spent the entire week mistaking various arches for this one and making Josie take my picture in front of them, only to discover via re-watching the movie on YouTube that they were not the correct arch. By day 5 I had all but given up hope, when, across the Forum I spotted it –THIS was the arch, no question- so, ever patient, ever true, Josie walked with me all the way across the forum, where we discovered that while this was indeed the correct arch, it was also the first arch we had thought was the correct one and had later dismissed. Anyway, I got my pic, pretending to be asleep on the wall, and let me tell you that it’s a good thing Gregory Peck found her when he did because what you can’t see in the movie is that on the other side of the wall is a major drop-off, so Audrey would’ve come a frightful cropper were it not for him.
That night, after nearly a week of near starvation, we decided to throw caution to the winds and treat ourselves to dinner at a nice restaurant. There was one just a short walk from our Airbnb, so at long last, I got to feast upon delicious pasta, and the prophecy of Julia Roberts was fulfilled. We were then going to go to the Castle San Angelo, my final Roman Holiday stop, because that’s where they go dancing and Audrey smashes a guitar over someone’s head and jumps in the river, both of which were activities I was hoping for an opportunity to do. But alas, it was not to be, for the metro was already closed for the night. So, to this day, my quest remains incomplete, which just means my future husband has to take me to Rome and also he is 100% expected to jump in the river with me. Just making that clear now. Anyway, since that plan was squelched, we walked to a gelato place around the corner from our apartment and got one final gelato for our final night in Italy.
And so, that was Rome, and despite the bird poo, the abysmal pizza and the fact that Gregory Peck was nowhere to be seen, “I shall treasure my visit here in memory, as long as I live.” (You’re darn right that’s a quote from the movie, how could I not put it in?)
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