Short Travel Guide to Rome

I visited Rome for the first time this week.

I am writing to you from my hotel hall. It’s hot, but the buildings are old, thick walls, so fresh.

The sun comes through the window, streets are an invitation to long walks.

Rome, the eternal city? Cliché or truth?

I came to Rome with many preconceived ideas, the comments of friends who said Rome was either beautiful, romantic, charming or sometimes tiring, a city of crowds and where there are endless queues to see the monuments.

Then there were the movies, the humour of Woody Allen’s “To Rome with Love” and Dolce Vita, one city in black and white, so stylish…

Monuments; Rome is a monument, a big one, every corner and alley, there is always a little story to live and to tell.

Rome has about 2500 years of history and developed slowly. Rome is not to be seen in a day or in a week, because there is always something more to see.

Maybe that’s why the legend arose in tossing a coin in the Trevi Fountain; everyone wants to come back one day to Rome.

I found out that the movie “Three Coins in the Fountain” from 1954 featured the legend: “He who threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, would return to Rome one day.  (The coin must be thrown with the right hand over the left shoulder or is the other way around? I didn’t threw the coin, the fountain was under reconstruction and no water inside…and the cues, still were huge! Beautiful though….)

Today, it is estimated that about 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain each day … this money is used to feed the poor, I was told, although many try to steel it.

Then there’s the style, the fashion, the Italian accent “che bello” and the “Vespas”.

The calendars of the Vatican priests (lovely idea!), hats and sun glasses that everyone insist on using and are on sale at every corner.

What about food … Mama Mia.

Just a walk around the market, Campo di Fiori, to taste a thousand and one flavours of Italy, from the Parmigiano cheese with craft beers, olives of Calabria, the Prosciutto, the Limon cello, the Prosecco, the Supli, the pasta and pizza al taglio, and of course Gelato, yes, with endless queues at the door, especially after dinner!

If I liked Rome?…

Italy is for me one of my favourite countries so far in Europe. The history, the climate, the food, the people and the lifestyle, la dolce vita.

Surprisingly or not, Italians are one of the people with less incidence of cancer, how to explain?

(This was the response of an Italian guide and the secret to living happily :))

“In the morning a coffee and a cornetto (croissant with chocolate produces endorphins), then walk a lot on foot or by bicycle (exercise) for lunch one “ensalatona”, then snack an ice cream (lots of Calcium) and drink plenty of water from the fountains. In the evening get together, talk  loud in the streets, drink wine, eat pasta, pizza or caponata, laugh and shout a lot because the worse stress is the repressed one, “Va benne?”

Ciau Amici!