A Roman Holiday

The day I traveled to Rome dawned overcast, but cleared slightly as I awaited the train in Camucia. I met a couple from England who were just completing a two week visit and I shared a small cabin in the 2nd class train car with them to Rome, a 2 ¼ hour trip past green hills, sheep-filled pastures, stunning hill towns, and through a series of ear-popping tunnels. The trip passed quickly, engaged as I was in conversation with the friendly couple, and before I knew it we were at the Rome Tiburtina stop, which was the English couple’s transfer point for the train to the airport. An Italian man quickly took one of their vacated seats and chatted with me in basic Italian until we arrived at the main train terminal in Rome, Termini.

Termini is an enormous station with several levels and more than 40 platforms and I had arranged to meet Barbara and Carol’s train about an hour after my arrival. In the event we missed each other at the platform, our alternate plan of action was to meet at the café’ across from the bookstore at the exit to the terminal. I headed off to explore the station and found it took me 10 minutes to locate the bathrooms! I then located the café’, browsed the bookstore, and went to check the arrivals board for my friends’ train where I encountered a problem. The arrivals board clearly lists incoming trains, time due, and actual arrival time; however the section which identifies the arriving track was blank. I checked the printed schedule which suggested that the train from Perugia was due at track 2, however I know the Italian way of doing things, so walked ½ mile down to track 2 to find an outgoing train to Ancona already occupying the track and not due to depart for quite some time. I trudged back to the café’ and saw another arrivals schedule which stated the Perugia train would arrive on track 1, so I dragged my carryon 8 minutes back to track 1, but when I didn’t see my friends, I fell back on Plan B, and crawled back to the café’ where I found them about 10 minutes later.

We headed out of the main exit on Piazza Cinquecento and began the walk to my hotel located about 600 meters from the station. The going was difficult considering the weight and inmaneuverability of Carol and Barbara’s luggage and the fact that we had to traverse up and down curbs, in and out of seemingly illegally parked cars, and around pedestrians who were determined not to give way. Also, the frequent consultations of the map served to slow us down. Eventually we found my hotel, Hotel Patria, whose lobby was lit with alien green florescent lighting which gave our complexions a sickly cast as though we’d just emerged, eyes blinking, from 10 years spent in a cave. I checked in and we encountered problem number two when we boarded a taxi for Piazza Rondanini where my friends were staying in a small apartment. Apparently a school strike and demonstration was in progress, so the taxi could only get us to within about a half mile of the apartment. We unloaded the “body bag” and I took some of the load including a heavy backpack whose straps were adjusted to fit Barbara’s narrow frame. I could get it on, but it kept my shoulders at such an extreme outward angle that I couldn’t get my hands within 6 inches of meeting. Our taxi driver gave us directions and we headed off, loaded down like camels in the Serengeti, toward banks of police vehicles and nattily dressed carabinieri (police) with their knife-pleated trousers and jaunty berets. We quickly became distracted, gaping as we were at the gorgeous hunks of manhood strutting and preening in front of us, which necessitated stops every 10 seconds to consult the map, a laminated number which Barbara whirled around with increasing fervor like a ninja in a poorly dubbed martial arts film. Some news cameras scanned us as we stood, vulnerably exposed, in the no man’s land between hordes of brick-wielding throngs of demonstrators and the tear gas carrying carabinieri, safely enscounced behind their Plexiglas shields. Okay, it wasn’t really that dramatic, but we definitely felt that we were where we shouldn’t be and that all eyes were upon us. Eventually we did locate the apartment and a suspicious character named Marco, who gave us all the heebie-jeebies, let us in and turned over the key.

The setting sun found us drinking wine and cappuccino at a small bar in the piazza, after which we walked to Piazza Rotunda, site of the Pantheon, a 2000 year old structure looming menacingly from behind a large fountain. The piazza was ringed with ristoranti, all of whom had sharply dressed receptionists trying to lure us with promises of a fantastic dining experience. It was early and we weren’t yet hungry so we walked past enormous columns into the Pantheon itself, which has been converted into a Catholic church. We wandered around the interior of the structure amazed by the gigantic dome and the engineering brilliance of the ancient Romans.

After taking pictures it was off to view Piazza Navona and its magnificent fountains and then an aborted attempt to find Campo de Fiori. Somehow we got off track and found ourselves in uncharted territory. After getting directions from some other tourists, we stopped for dinner at a pizzeria. I ordered pizza and consumed every last morsel, while my companions tried two different pasta dishes. As we sat at our outside table, listening to heavy traffic and whiffing the scent of eau de benzina (gasoline), there was an ominous rumbling from overhead. “Pioggia”, declared the waiter, and sure enough, we just had time to pay for our meal and jump into a taxi when the skies opened and rain poured down. The taxi stopped near Piazza Rondanini, where Barbara and Carol jumped out and ran for their apartment, before continuing on to my hotel. There was a curious churning and gurgling in my now full stomach as the taxi bounced frenetically over cobbles and rough pavement and whirled around traffic circles at breakneck speed, with quick stops and head snapping accelerations. “She’s gonna blow”, I kept thinking to myself as I prayed we’d reach my hotel in time to avoid certain embarrassment, which we did. I crawled in bed, exhausted from all the walking, but excited about the adventure sure to follow the next day.