Primo Giorno

After a little negotiation and the loss of one nomad, Tim, Rome was selected as the destination for old friends Paul, Neil and moi to head in October. The three of us had been friends since the 1970s and as reunions go we’d set the bar high by a sojourn to Malaga in 2023. The Italian capital ticked all the boxes for culture, cuisine, was warm in October and walkable. Inevitably I had to rise at Stupid O’Clock to attend Leeds Bradford Airport for the Jet2 flight. Sampling Yorkshire cuisine for the last time in four days I feasted on a Greggs bacon sandwich before boarding.

As a bloke with too much to say I was soon attempting to pass the two hours and 50 minutes by talking with my neighbouring passenger. She was looking around Rome with her partner before starting a cruise for a week or so from the coastal port near the city. I’m interested in people’s lives and her aubergine spiky hair sat on top of a retired Primary School music teacher. She was now spending time in more leisurely pursuits; this included playing and teaching steel drums. A long discussion ensued about the chord structures they played and how the hell you kept the lid of an oil drum in tune. Anyone earwigging this conversation would have probably found themselves shortly drifting into an unconscious state. Anyway, not the most obvious musical pursuit for someone who lived between Leeds and Wakefield.

At Fiumicino I eventually tracked down Paul, who’d flown in earlier from London, and we took a taxi to the city. The last time I caught a taxi in Rome was 1987. My honeymoon. My lasting memory was being ripped off by the driver. In fairness it was something like 40,000 Lira and it was easy when man handling a half inch wad of notes to accidentally chuck in an extra 10,000. Comfortingly there was a fixed fee of €55 and so the potential for malarky was reduced. On arrival in the centre, we were in need of hydration.

Hydration proved essential as the apartment lay at the top of 66 steps and we perched over a narrow street at a great height. Anna had taken over the search and booking after the three of us, earlier in the year, had drawn a blank on finding an affordable apartment with three bedrooms.

Checking in took 40 minutes. Andrea let us in and then began extracting further money. I had known this was coming. Sadly, our team bursar, Neil wasn’t arriving until later and the administration fell to me whilst Paul took photos and had hysterics as we progressed onto the next payment.

In short there was a cleaning fee of just over £96 (yes, I know daylight robbery), a damage deposit of €150 and a city tax of €6 per person per day. All this required bringing up website links and the tapping in of credit card details that serially failed until the umpteenth attempt.

With Andrea considerably richer and gone we decided to procure some groceries and get another drink!

Grocery shopping needed to be thorough as living at the top of 66 steps would have had Sherpa Tenzing and Sir Edmund Hillary drawing lots to see who was popping out to get the milk. Eventually Neil arrived after being delayed by the scene of a car crash on his way. His appearance initiated the tricky allocation of rooms. Two were large with double beds and the third was adequate but more accurately described as a hutch. I’d found a random number generator on the web and we decided that the lowest number would be the loser. It was a best of five competition. (Sadly) Neil was eliminated early on leaving Paul and myself to ‘fight it out’. I’m pleased to report a happy ending with Paul securing the hutch.

Dinner was around the corner where Paul set about a steak so inadequately cooked that a good vet would have had the cow running around in no time. Neil ate the first of his several pizzas on his brief stay in Italy and my dish was so remarkable I’ve completely forgotten what it was. Sleep didn’t follow quickly as the town was buzzing and the narrow street amplified the revelling crowds below through our windows. Paul’s hutch was insulated by an internal wall and was no doubt looking at the inside of his eyelids shortly after his head hit the pillow.

Secondo Giorno

Fortified by our breakfast we ventured into the rain to find the Pantheon. This is a former temple and is a remarkable structure. It seemed the site had a few incarnations before it appeared in its current form in AD 125. The engineering blew me away as the symmetry and design given it antiquity were exceptional. Paul quickly identified the real achievement: with a nine metre round aperture in the self-supported roof the light inside the building was just about adequate on its own. Latterly it had a Christian adaptation but the scale and magnificence showed the ambition and confidence of the Romans millennia ago.

If we’d thought, foolishly, that visiting Rome in October would be a time of year when tourism may have abated we were oh so wrong. The city was heaving and there were a mix of Far Eastern tourists, usually wandering around with their face lit brightly by their phones as they photographed literally everything, burly Americans finding it hard to navigate the hoards due to their bulk whilst attempting to follow their tour leader who was babbling into a microphone about the finer points of the Roman Empire and South Americans who, I suspect, were here for the religious significance. And some of the Brits were struggling to cope with the concept that falling rain made you wet.

From here we dodged the raindrops and headed to the magnificent Victor Emmanual II monument. Vic was the first king of the united Italy and was a relatively recent installation; only completed in 1935. After visiting the church behind the monument, we saw where the Forum and Colosseum were before heading across the Tiber for a Vatican tour.

As we approached the meeting point Neil received a call to say it was cancelled! There wasn’t sufficient capacity in the attraction to cater for all the tourists. It wouldn’t ‘dismantle’ our visit with disappointment but there were lots of foreign Catholic worshipping tourists who I’m sure had come to Rome as a literal pilgrimage. This confirmed how busy Rome was as a tourist destination. No matter, we absorbed the blow and pacified Neil with more pizza.

After this fine dining we were still bemused by the cancellation and visited a local ticket booking agency to confirm this was true. The Indian proprietor confirmed ‘absolutely’. He also said Rome was inexplicably busy! He recommended we wander down to St Peter’s Square and join a queue. In the continuing rain we did as he recommended. Neil was now wearing a pullover that absorbed the rain perfectly. Here we looked at the queue and spent 15 minutes trying to find the end of it and then spent 90 minutes in it. The visit to St Peter’s Basilica was worth the wait.

It’s a remarkable structure and the marble, gold leaf and paintings are sumptuous and it must be the ‘Disneyland’ of cathedrals. Around every corner there’s a new amazing sculpture or painting. Sadly, a trip up the cupola wasn’t possible due to a service taking place.

So, as we wandered back we had a beer and Paul reviewed his restaurant options. John, a well-travelled friend of Paul’s, had given him a list and we hoped, without an earlier booking on this Saturday night, we’d be lucky.

We were fortunate and bowled up to Hostaria Farnese. This wasn’t before confirming that Paul’s multi-tasking skills needed working on. He can either talk or navigate, but not both! We were heading in the wrong direction initially. On arrival, after photos, we had three delicious courses and a fine bottle of wine. I had a tomato and mozzarella salad followed by some roast pork and finished with some pistachio ice cream. We were asked to part with about €190. On discovering that Neil had forgotten to pack his Marigolds we had no option other than to cough up.

Giorno Tre

The sun appeared. Neil chose shorts but Paul still wore his fleece. This definitively proves that when they were youths the climate was warmer in Lancashire compared to Yorkshire with lasting effects. The objective was to get to the Colosseum early and avoid the crowds; we failed. However, we got a ticket, for free, to enter the Colosseum at 1pm. In the meanwhile, we had entry into the Forum. Frankly folks we wondered around for a little while watching all the Far Eastern tourists taking copious photos usually with themselves in the foreground. The area is a confetti of various ruins that span many centuries but mostly excavated in the 19^th. After showing willing as to the project I proposed abandoning and getting a coffee that was carried unanimously.

Traffic in Rome was predictably hectic and made no easier but quite appealing when about 100 Fiat 500’s drove past. Paul shot the video (sound on).

The Colosseum did not disappoint. It’s a spectacular structure. It was my second visit and fortunately little had changed (!) as regards the building although the volume of tourists had exploded. Poor Anna languishing in York with her broken ankle did get to share the views as I had a video call with her.

The Nomads separated (when within) and we met up an hour later to head for the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps but not before a drink.

On finding a table we got talking to a couple from Essex who were taking time out with a break. Whilst I’m rabbiting to the good burghers of Rayleigh I was being drawn. I was handed a caricature out of the blue by someone who just happened to fancy doing a sketch! Funnily enough I was not impressed by the likeness but Paul and Neil laughed heartily at the uncanny resemblance.

The Trevi Fountain is a wonderful monument built in the 18^th Century at the behest of a Pope. Famously you should throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, no doubt for luck. Given the crowds who prevented close access to the water you’d more than likely make someone lose an eye if you did this. The total number of coins thrown total over €1 million every year and go to charity. The sceptic in me wonders if it’s a ‘one for you and one for me’ arrangement with the collectors. Fighting our way past the fountain we found the Spanish Steps.

After reflecting on our future mountaineering when we returned to the apartment we spurned the opportunity to ascend the 135 steps to the church at the top. Despite the name arising from the Spanish embassy at the bottom of the steps the money and design were French and it was completed in the 18^th Century.

Our last supper was at another of John’s picks at Trattoria Palese. With a pullover on you could happily dine outside and we did and exchanged bants with a cheeky Macedonian waiter. Close to our apartment was an Irish pub. I couldn’t resist a Guinness as our final drink. The next day we all had different flight times and I was the first off. All three of us suffered delays with Paul not departing until the evening. So that was a wrap for 2024. Who knows where the nomads might reconvene next?