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| Rome |
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One of the worlds most beautiful and romantic cities, marked by millenias of culture and history. World architecture from classical, renaissance, baroque and modern times. The city of Cesar’s, “la dolce vita”, art, Christianity, churches and museums. A city so rich and full of culture that one keeps coming back for more.
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| Key areas |
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The old Rome – within the Auralian walls - is where all the sights are, and where restaurants and shops are most expensive. This is also where all the tourist’s are and where the traffic is the most dense and life threatening.
Public transport mainly consists of busses and only two metro lines, which is completely inadequate to a metropolis of approx. 4 million people. The result is that one should find accommodation in the centre or close to a metro line.
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Must do’s while in Rome
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1. Take the metro to Colosseo station and walk the stunning tour to Piazza Venezia past all those antique and renaissance remains of great architecture and beautiful pine trees – this is the essence of Rome.
2. Go to the Pantheon – the world’s only virtually intact classical Roman building (build 128 ad) and marvel at what Roman architecture could accomplish.
3. Have a coffee on Piazza Navona (check the price first) and enjoy the perfect proportions of the square and Bernini’s stunning sculptural fountain.
4. Pass the Trevi fountain at night and enjoy the scenic illumination of the sumptuous baroque façade, lit up by the moving reflexes of the water.
5. The church of Saint Peter and the Vatican is an amazing must. The shear size and wealth of the church is beyond belief, and makes one realize where all the church donations went back then.
6. A quiet walk through the old Jewish ghetto continuing over Ponte Sisto through Trastevere, is a delightful insight into the intimate maze of the old popular city centre. |
| Worst of Rome |
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1. The traffic which is incredibly noisy and polluting, but unfortunately also a part of the Italian love of speed and chaos.
2. The lack of fast public transport, which forces one to walk (or cycle) and enjoy the city by foot.
3. The Italian temperament and love of drama, which can either be quite insulting or rather entertaining, depending on your mood.
4. Punctuality is not a Roman virtue. Expect your bus or train to leave slightly before or very much after it’s departure time.
5. The taxi drivers, who only knows one rate when driving for tourists, and that s the night rate (double as expensive).
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| From Ciampino airport |
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The airport is situated close to the city, but is not well connected with fast reliable means of transport. The infamous Roman rush hour traffic can become a real time killer if going at the wrong time.
You can buy a flat rate taxi voucher which will bring you anywhere inside the Auralian walls.
There is a direct airport bus to/from Termini central station. It cost me 11€ for a return ticket to/from Termini.
There is also a bus service from the airport to the nearest station. From where there are frequent trains to Termini.
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| Brief history |
A city with such a rich long history is almost impossible to capture in brief. But here comes the highlights:
The cities most important period were - as everyone knows – during the time of classical Rome from around 300 BC to approx. 400 AD. Rome was architecturally one of the antique wonders of the world and the empire peaked in 117 AD when the city surpassed 1 million inhabitants. This immense antique city can also be sensed nowadays with the remains of the Auralian walls that once protected the city.
For almost a thousand years, Rome was the most politically important, richest and largest city in the Western world. It remained so also after the Empire started to decline and was split by emperor Constantine in 313 AD, but ultimately Constantine (now Istanbul) took over as the dominating western empire until the Ottomans took over.
After the Sack of Rome (410) by Alaric I and the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 Rome alternated between Byzantine rule and plundering by Germanic barbarians. Its population declined to a mere 20,000 during the Early Middle Ages, reducing the sprawling city to groups of inhabited buildings interspersed among large areas of ruins and vegetation. With the rise of early Christianity, the Bishop of Rome gained religious as well as political importance, eventually becoming known as the Pope and establishing Rome as the centre of the Catholic Church
Apart from brief periods as an independent city during the Middle Ages, Rome kept its status of Papal capital and "holy city" for centuries, even when the Pope briefly relocated to Avignon (1309-1337). While no longer politically powerful, as tragically shown by the brutal sack of 1527 the city flourished as a hub of cultural and artistic acitivity during the Renaissance, thanks to the maecenatism of the nepotist Papal court. Population rose again and reached 100,000 during the 17th century, but Rome ultimately lagged behind the rest of the European capitals over the subsequent centuries, being largely busy in the Counter-Reformation process.
Rome grew momentously after the war, as one of the driving forces behind the "Italian economic miracle" of post-war reconstruction and modernisation. It became a fashionable city in the 1950s and early 1960s, the years of "la Dolce Vita".
After that, population started to slowly decline due to decrease in the quality of life, especially because of the continuously jammed traffic and the worsening pollution. |
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