For the next week of my stay here in Italy, I will be living in Rome!

Of course, I am here to work, specifically at the Italian Space Agency (ASI) which is incredibly cool! However, during my downtime, I want to spend my time here exploring the once centre of all human civilisation.

I arrived in the evening on Saturday. Too late for me to spend any time in the city centre but easily enough time for me to get to my accomodation. This week I’ll be staying in an AirBnB just outside of town but close to where I’ll be working. It was a short journey on the Metro from the Termini station where my cross country arrived and soon enough I was arriving at the flat.

I’m staying with a woman called Simona. As I walked up the stairs of the building, I could hear distant music, Cyndi Lauper! Sure enough as I turned onto the final set of stairs to my floor I was blasted by ‘Girls just wanna have fun’. This was in excellent omen for the week ahead!

Simona is an excellent host, with excellent music taste. My room is perfect for what I’ll need it for with a comfortable bed and a wardrobe for my weeks worth of clothes. Even better news is that there’s a cat! After I got settled, and ordered a pizza, ‘Psycho’ the cat and I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who as the sun set over the Italian capital.

The next day was Sunday, and I had the whole day to myself. From Monday to Friday next week I’ll be busy at work with the professionals so I want to make sure I’m getting as much sightseeing done today as humanly possible. Simona was kind enough to get me a map and tell me the best places to go around the city. So after a short ride on the Metro I was in the centre and walking between the monuments. The first being an incredibly well known one…

The Colosseum

Built between 80 BCE and 80 CE, the Colosseum is the largest of its kind to have ever been built. It’s original purpose was for gladiator conquests and productions but now it stands as a historical monument to the long passed days of ancient Rome.

The Colossum is open to tourists but the queue is very long and it looked to be around €10 per person. As I have many different spots to hit today I didn’t want to spend too much time here.

That being said, walking around the outside, gazing up at the feat of architecture, it was hard to resist not spending a bit more time here. Surrounding the Colosseum are small signs describing the original functions of certain parts of the structure. No trip is complete without a bit of history!

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Continuing towards the centre, it struck me as to just how many tourists there were. Obviously this is a very popular city for tourists, definitely much more than Turin was that’s for certain. How I missed my old city, I would be back soon though! For now though, the amazing sights will have to do:

Altare della Patria

Translating to ‘Altar of the Fatherland’, this huge monument was built to celebrate the unification of Italy in the 1800s. The building celebrates the life of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy. Funnily enough they were actually born in Turin (everything reminds me of it) which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a region now reduced to an island to the west of Italy.

Victor Emmanuel II fought in many different wars in many fronts in the 19th century slowly gaining more and more land for Italy from the other countries and kingdoms surrounding it. Eventually though, in 1878, he died and despite my extensive research I can’t find how. What I do know however is where he is buried, and that’s my next stop!

The Pantheon

Built around the end of the first century CE, the pantheon was originally a sort of temple to the many gods of Roman mythology. These days it holds the bodies of a few famous people from Italian history such as kings and queens, whilst also functioning as a catholic church with masses every Sunday!

The pantheon is one of the most iconic buildings of Roman architecture, inspiring a great amount of similar buildings around the world including the Manchester central library back home in the UK. It is of course also a great attraction for tourists, myself included!

The floor of the Pantheon and the ceiling are round in shape, perfectly built so that a sphere of about 43 metres in diameter could fit within it touching the floor, walls, and ceiling at the same time.

The Tiber River

As with most cities around the world, Rome is built around a river, specifically the river Tiber. This river runs from the Apennines near Firenze and runs down through Rome to the west coast. Rome was founded around Tiber island found in the middle of the river, which now houses a hospital.

For my touring of the city I am crossing the river on the Ponte Umberto, an impressive bridge from which there is an excellent view I show you to the right.

The vatican is part of my touring today, but before I get there, there is another important destination for me to see.

Castel Sant’Angelo

Built in the mid 2nd century, this castle is actually a mausoleum, housing the bodies of numerous Roman emporers since the time of Hadrian. It sits on the north bank of the river Tiber close to the entrance to the Vatican. So close in fact that the Popes over the years have often tried to take it over and incorporate it into the Vatican land.

The name translates to English as ‘Castle of the Holy Angel’, so called because of the statue of the archangel Michael seen on top of the castle. Legend has it that the archangel Michael appeared atop the mausoleum after a great plague and was seen to be shieving a sword marking the end of the death. As such the castle was named after them in their honour.

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I continued along the north bank towards the vatican. The crowds were becoming more dense, the people more excited. It was at this point I remembered what was happening today, something I think I will remember for the rest of my life…

The Inauguration of Pope Leo XIV

I made it past security with ease and passed into the Holy city. It fascinates me that this is a country of it’s own, that for the hour I spent there I was technically not in Italy but somewhere else.

I’ve seen many a picture of the architecture of the Vatican, but I can’t say they do the place justice. Surrounding St Peter’s square are more columns than I have ever seen before in a single place.

Conveniently I managed to arrive at the Vatican after the mass but before all of the ‘festivities’ had ended. I slowly strolled around the area gazing at all of the statues surrounding me. It’s one of those times where I thought to myself. How many others have stood where I stood, how many others have looked along the colonaddes and though on the history of this place.

In the centre of St Peter’s square is a large obelisk adorned with heiroglyphics. This obelisk is hundreds of years old, there are drawings from the 14th century of people surrounding it, and now it was just me. Fascinating I think, that we spend so much time looking at the events of history whilst we live through our own. As I gazed upon the obelisk, I recieved a message from a friend. Apparently, I was visible on the current ongoing livestream of the Vatican.

I brought up the stream myself, and sure enough there I was. In the middle distance you could see my hair, my shirt, my pants. The inauguration was happening in the building before me and here I was stood. Visible around the world just by chance. Sadly, I did not manage to get any screenshot of the footage, but once more I will never forget this. I can already imagine the amount of times I will bring this up to people I meet.

I continued on my tour of the Italian capital. I followed the river North for a while, before crossing over and meandering around the north of the city. I stopped into a shop and grabbed some lunch, before perching myself by a fountain and admiring the many statues surrounding me.

There was one more place on my list, possibly the most touristy location in the history of touristy locations. There is quite possibly no other thing like it in the entire world that people know more than this one. You know it, you love it, it’s the…

Fontana di Trevi

Translating as Trevi Fountain (fascinating I know), the Fontana di Trevi is named after the district of Rome in which it resides, Trevi!

This area was the busiest place I had been to all day, and a surprisingly large amount of them were Americans. As such, I didn’t really want to stay around too long. I admired the statues, took my pictures, but mostly felt annoyed by how impossibly crowded this area was.

It’s a strange comparison to make between Rome and Turin. Both are incredible Italian cities, both have their history and their culture; but Rome has been overtaken so much by tourism that it sort of loses a lot of that specialness that other places have. Of course it was amazing to see all the places I saw today; monuments that have thousands of years of history. However, at least to me, that’s all Rome has to offer: touristry, and the worst part is that by visiting it myself, I became part of the problem!

It’s not often I leave somewhere with a negative opinion, and I wouldnt say my trip to Rome was bad, but for all the places I travel I want to be able to spend a large amount of time there. I managed to get around all of the main attractions of Rome, despite how busy it was everywhere, in four hours. I didn’t leave any of the places thinking I didn’t do anything, and I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go back. It is now somewhere I have been and I think that is all it will be.

Perhaps this is a negative note to leave this post on? For someone like me who loves all culture and life on Earth, it felt strange to go somewhere with such history and leave it feeling almost defeated. To any Romans reading please know that I loved the city and the locals that I met, but the millions of people obnoxiously posing in front of everything…

I have to return to Rome soon, so perhaps my return trip will be better? Until then, I return to my one true love… Turin!

Ciao for now,

Cassie