Walking the Streets of Rome

 You Don't Need a Tour Guide

The great city of Rome is a vast and complex maze of streets woven through a oh so many world-renowned landmarks and structures. At best current guess Rome is around two and a half thousand years old. This makes it one of the oldest continually inhabited urban centres in the whole of Europe. As the city grew and changed over the centuries new replaced old, but remarkably much of the old remained by being built over, into and around.

Ponte Sant Angelo

Walk around Rome with your guide map and you will wend your way from one famous point to the next. However what is truly fascinating about Rome is the multitude of other structures and ruins - clearly historical - which you will see as well. More often than not, these will be unmentioned on your map - there are simply too many to give detail about each and every one.  On the skyline domes, towers and palaces emerge above surrounding buildings.  Occasionally you will come across a fenced off area and an archaeological dig. The recovery of Rome’s history is an ongoing task which continues on with no possible end date in site.

The one constant in the ever-growing city of Rome is the beautiful River Tiber which arcs its way through the city carving it into its parts. On the West bank is the Vatican City and the huge and imposing Castel de Sant'Angelo. Once a magnificent mausoleum  - a tomb for the emperor Hadrian and his family, -  it has since been a castle, a fort, a prison, and now a museum.

Castel Sant'Angelo

The vibrant and historic Trastevere district is also on the west of the river, and it is to the Trastevere that Romans and visitors alike go to eat, to drink and to play. The cafes and bars of the Trastevere spill out onto the cobbled streets and hum with life into the night. On the east of the Tiber is the Colosseum, and the Roman Forum -  the heart of the original city.

There are many bridges to choose from to cross the Tiber, - some of great age in themselves. The ancient arched stone bridges Ponte Sant'Angelo and Ponte Milvio have provided access across the Tiber for close to a millennium surviving erosion, floods, wars, and  invaders. Yet still they stand.

pippy.mccurdy@gmail.com
www.unusualstays.com ( A New Zealand Blog of unique places to stay)

Rome For Travellers

Are You a Tourist or a Traveller?

The vast city of Rome, wrapped in a cloak of antiquity and shaped around the renowned river Tiber, is a city which throbs with people. On trains, busses, cars, and planes, the daily influx pours into Rome. Rome is a hub and an axis for the whole of Italy. Centrally placed in the country, international visitors arrive in Rome whether their destination is the north to Tuscany and on to the lakes and the mountains, or whether they head south to the famed Amalfi Coast and the azure seas of the Mediterranean.

The Roman Forum

But it is not just tourists and workers who pour into Rome; - it is native Italians also. Italians come to Rome to see for themselves the history and the culture of this ancient city. For not only is Rome a hub, Rome is also a destination in itself - perhaps one of the most famous tourist destinations on earth.  The magnificent structures of the past, so well preserved, so well known, draw tourists and travelers from every country of the world, and from the far corners of Italy,  - all coming to experience the city of Rome and its famous and historic structures.

Castel Sant Angelo

 The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps - all so well known, so familiar from tv, from movies, from computer - from Wikipedia… This is a city of history where around every corner and on every horizon there is another towering dome, another ancient church, a two thousand year old wall, a colonnade of crumbling columns as tall as a four storey building.

Galleria Alberto Sordi

Everywhere tourists pour over small maps, peer at cell phone screens, follow flag waving tour guides. But this  microcosm of antiquity in the centre of Rome is so concentrated that a  map is scarcely necessary. Every corner, every street and every piazza holds another ancient edifice to experience and admire.

Ponte Sant Angelo

If the tourist hubbub is not for you, turn off from the main pathways and take a side street. There will always be something new to discover. Or stop for a while at a street-walk cafe and take the time to people-watch over a glass of wine or a bite to eat. Breathe in the air of Rome. Become one with Rome. Fall in love with Rome - as so many others have done before and will do again.

pippy.mccurdy@gmail.com
www.unusualstays.com ( A New Zealand Blog of unique places to stay)