Rome on the run

Going to Rome for a week is like going on a pub crawl for an hour; the more you try to achieve, the less you can enjoy the experience…

Going to Rome for a week is like going on a pub crawl for an hour; the more you try to achieve, the less you can enjoy the experience. But a week it had to be; a reality based on the availability of cheap flights.

Preparations were all very rushed. I realised that when I found myself trying to learn Italian on the flight to Rome. During the couple of hours, I did learn how to count to "due", and reckoned that, since there was just the two of us, we might be all right. I need not have bothered. There is enough Tourist English everywhere to get what you require. However, I did find the uttering of a few, jaw wrenching Italian phrases did no harm at all.

Romans seem to have a streak of compassion, and they felt sorry for us. We had two guide books. The reliable, if staid, Michelin, and the much more street-wise Let's Go guide. I do not know if the latter is actually intended for the over-50s - horrible phrase that - but it is a smashing guide, and full of reliable information. It even told us how to organise the Bus/Metro system from the wilds of Ciampino Airport.

The hotel room was basic but clean; air-conditioned, with a good shower. We arrived in time to go out and enjoy the first of our Roman evenings; delightful, warm September hours, sitting outside, enjoying the food, and litres (that's metric for gallons) of the local wine. This vino seems watery enough until you try to stand up. Each morning over breakfast, the day's sightseeing was more or less planned, and we were away.

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Ann is a fierce walker - she has herself trained for it. She sets a terrifying pace, and her pumping arms have a lethal back-swing action, if you happen to get too close. It has been a source of irritation over the years, and I was happy by day three in Rome to notice that she had begun to slow down, presumably due to the heat, and the hills. Rome, they say, was built on seven hills. I would like to ask for a recount. There must be 70 of them. We did buy weekly Bus/Metro passes, which are great value, but there still was an awful lot of foot-slogging. And it was worth every weary step of it; a city full of endless surprises.

I did not expect to be so impressed by St Peter's Square. After all, for me "Ubi et Orbi" has been falling on deaf ears for a long time. But that piazza is magnificent. It is larger and friendlier than I had imagined. The colonnades stretching down from the Basilica open up to welcome and embrace the traveller. In spite of its vastness, that space still seems to acknowledge your presence in it. I did not expect that.

From the square, we were drawn with the crowds into the Basilica; a never ending stream of humanity moving into the shade, under the watchful eyes of the Dress Police. Now there is a job for you! Standing on the steps of St Peter's keeping a sharp eye out for bare legs, and when they approach, saying to them, "No, Sinorina". The gesture of refusal and disapproval these gentlemen make says a lot. It is a single, negative gesture of drawing their hands across their knees.

Such cynical chuckles disappeared amid the wonders of inside the Basilica. There is so much to see, to experience.

Days later, in the Vatican Museum, the cynical stuffing was finally knocked out of me. It is an astonishing place, not just one gallery, but a whole series of interconnecting museums. Image after image pours out at you, exciting, shattering, hurting. I would have been happy to spend the week in the Collection of Modern Art. We knew we were only scratching the surface, when after three and a half hours, with heads and legs numb with tiredness, we got to the Sistine Chapel. It still leapt out at us, or rather, it leapt down on us. The guide books says you should bring a hand mirror, to avoid having to look up at the ceiling, but that would defeat the purpose. There is only one way to view it, head back, drop-jawed.

There are antidotes to all this truth and beauty. The following day, in the Piazza Dei Fiori, we came across the monument to Giordano Bruno. The Michelin guide says he was "a monk who was burned for heresy". The Lets Go guide says "Bruno sizzled at the stake here in 1600, for arguing that the Universe has no centre at all". Take your pick.

We spent another day in the Roman Forum. The ruins are located in a deep valley, around which modern Rome swirls and motor-scooters on. Down below it, we wandered from house to temple to side-street, expecting at any moment to bump into Julius Caesar, or at least Charlton Heston. Perhaps most impressive, is to look at the layers of humanity from the earliest times, right up to the living late-20th-century. We occupy a very narrow strip.

Of all the ruins, I found the Colosseum the most disturbing. The policy of providing "bread and circuses" is still a very viable one. For me, there was something eerie about those rows and layers of seats. Like an empty theatre before a show, they waited in anticipation - of what?

It is said that when the Colosseum falls, Rome and the world will fall. It could happen. One evening on the television there was news of an earthquake not so far away, in Assisi. Apart from the loss of life, irreparable damage was caused to more antiquities. How long can they last? Should we all help to try to preserve all of them? Would it really matter if there were fewer of them? Lying on the bed, it was a question my aching legs asked, and my head was too tired to answer. I just stared at the television.

We saw the Italian equivalent of Charlie Bird emoting directo from the site of the earthquake. There were pictures of the actual event happening; video cameras suddenly beginning to shake. All my videos look like that.

The videos do not matter. Pictures and photographs, even of the highest quality, are poor recorders of that great city of Rome. The guide books say you cannot avoid getting lost in the city, but even when we did, we still arrived at another wonder; another piazza; another palazzo. Largely, we did manage to find our way.

There is no point in trying not to look like a tourist; even the pickpockets carry maps and guide books. The tourist is warned about these geezers, although the only slight rip-offs we suffered were in a couple of sidewalk cafes. With so many great trattoria, cafes and bars, these places can be avoided. They are unmistakably tourist traps, but when your legs and spirits are wilting, they lie in wait for you.

Late in the week, we were happily crossing off all the places we were not going to see; tiredness and sensory overload producing a high level of agreement. These wonderful sights will have to wait for another trip. I notice that many of the places offer free admission for EU citizens over 60. It might be tempting to wait until then, but would our legs and heads be able for it? Anyway, I don't want to wait that long.

Sipping a gin and tonic on the plane home, and thinking of all those places, I remarked to Ann that, although it may have only been a week, a week is a long time in palazzi. I thought it was rather good. But she had dozed off, and I don't blame her.