There is an old Italian saying: Rome is not enough a life. It means “For Rome, one life is not enough.”
True enough. The Eternal City has enough interest for several lifetimes. Layer after layer of history has been read with monuments. You stumble across ancient ruins and find Renaissance and Baroque splendors around every corner.
But the Romans themselves don’t pay much attention to them: they are too busy being Romans. This is a performing art that requires training from the cradle.
Stroll through the streets and you will find yourself in the instant theater, a theater with a remarkable atmosphere and populated by born artists.
The first essential is to have style, no matter what your station in life. Even street sweepers have style.
As for the passers-by, they all seem to have come out of a fashion advertisement. Their hairstyles are impeccable, their clothes immaculately tailored, their manners nonchalantly groomed, their perfume dreamy. And that’s just the men!
The women, brimming with self-confidence, mix sensuality with sophisticated elegance, even when crossing the street, a true adventure in Rome. They swing right into the rushing, swirling traffic. Which miraculously swings around them, or stops with a screech to examine a particularly attractive woman.
Meanwhile, the Romans indulge in one of their favorite pastimes, talking. To each other, to themselves, but especially to their mobile phones. If you are not armed with one of those contraptions, you are but dust under the wheels of an emperor’s chariot.
It is an invention made by the Romans, which allowed them to discuss opinions or protest their love 24 hours a day.
One thing in particular had changed between my first visit to the city, as a penniless hitchhiker, and my second: the number of fellow tourists. My nostalgic dreams did not include joining long lines to museums or being pushed down sidewalks by groups of tourists, all blindly following flag-bearing leaders.
Armies of tourists had taken over the Vatican, swiftly marching past Etruscan sarcophagi, Greek sculptures and countless other masterpieces to reach the Sistine Chapel.
Lavishly restored, Michelangelo’s frescoes blaze with color. But it’s hard to appreciate art when you’re shoulder to shoulder with several thousand onlookers.
Announcements in five languages asked us to silence our voices and refrain from taking flash photos. Nobody paid the slightest attention.
However, Rome has enough wonders to make you forget the crowds.
My wife and I entered the Pantheon. Is it possible that those foot-thick bronze doors have been opening and closing for 2000 years?
We put our hands in the Bocca della Veritá (the mouth of truth), like Audrey Hepburn in roman holidaysand they were relieved to come to no harm, for they say that this stone carving of a river god amputates the limbs of those of foul conscience.
We went up the Spanish Steps and walked along Via Veneto, remembering the days when this was the center of La Dolce Vita.
green the mischief It was performed at the Teatro dell’Opera. The theater was packed with an audience as enthusiastic as only a Roman audience can be. At the end we joined in the ecstatic cries of “Bravo! Bravo!”
Arrivederci, Rome! We’ll be back.