It was strange flying Valencia to Rome, landing FCO. For a decade this was where I touched down returning from distant missions back to the city where parties and friends who had become family waited. Landing in FCO stirred that long lost frisson of excitement -Rome. The airport has expanded in the interim decades but still it was buzzing with the vibrancy of excited travellers arriving at their destination even if it was half past midnight.
If you are against the sundial and only have twelve hours in Rome, then 2am- 2pm is perhaps not the best choice of hours but at least it meant that the road into Rome was clear as we blatted in Roman-taxi-stylie.
Hotels in Rome have become fiercely expensive and knowing we were getting the frecciabianca or express train to Pisa from Termini the next day, I had found us a cheap little place near Termini. The taxi driver shuddered when we gave the address, telling us how dangerous Termini was at night with desperate immigrants, gypsies, drug addicts and homeless milling around. I didn’t need to be reminded – once I lived in the vast echo of the piano nobile of a palazzo in nearby Santa Maria Maggiore. I left there when my front door was axed down by robbers. But in fact our hotel Suite Deal, just a short distance from the dangerous rolling boil of poverty and lawlessness around Termini, was elegant and clean. Check in was highly technical – but it worked! A huge carved door wide enough for a carriage, high enough for a bus, gave way to a corridor of leafy pots. GS took the old cranky old liftshaft up- I love their character but they are more ornamental than safe, I took the flights of marble stairs instead. Minutes later we were in our room: wide bed with cool white bed linen, tea and coffee, double glazed windows blocking out any noise, mossy proof drape and aircon.. It was 2am but the room was stifling hot, and the furniture holding the warmth of a hot September day. We flicked on the aircon which moved rather than cooled the air, and crashed asleep.
At 8am I stirred, and realising that we were in Rome, pinged out of bed, flung open the huge windows and listened to the sights and sounds of beloved Rome; squabbling sparrows and swoops of green parrot flocks, cars and vespas, and the bells opposite. The air was fresh, the sun already warm, the shadows playing in the green, white and terracotta. ROME!
GS blinked and groaned. It got worse when he realised there was no milk for the tea. It took forever to winkle him out of bed. I wanted to have breakfast facing the fontana delle Naiadi, just out of sight, but one of my favourite fountains.
Having taken forever to get out of bed GS asked the pretty receptionist if we could leave our luggage, and was there a coffee bar nearby. She recommended a Sicilian one on one of the back streets. Luckily, we couldn’t find it.
Instead in the brilliance and the buzz of a Roman September morning, we went for a coffee facing the fontana as cars and vespas tore past, just about missing pedestrians in Rome’s equivalent of the l’arch di triumphe. This fountain sprays the waters of the ancient Roman Aqua Pia. I love the naughtiness of it, it is for me the most sensual of the Roman fountains, the most seductive. Let the tourists jostle at Trevi, I’ll kept the playful waters of the Aqua Pia. This is one of the things I love most about Rome- the fountains. Still water, playing water, dolphins, swans, naiads, turtles, water the source of life, I love them all. If Rome were not called Roma – Amor, love in reverse, it would have to be named Life or Sun or Water. It is the place of eternal love, eternal youth.
In the busy cafe we had our usual cafe lattes and cornetti, warm from the oven, and GS has a freshly squeezed orange which came to the exhorbitant price of 20 euros, but it was worth every cent to be there in Rome, watching the traffic, the buzz, the light on water on a fountain overlooked by Imperial Roman ruins. This for me, is Rome. It’s in the art, the churches, the museums, the cobbles that hold its ghosts, its past. But it is, more than anything, in the blue skies, in the noise of a cafe, in the aroma of warm pastries and smokey coffee, its in the shouted greetings, the kisses hello, and the smell and sound of 2 stroke and emergency cars. Whenever people ask me what to do in Rome I say the same – grab a coffee/aperol in street side cafe and watch the world go by.
I so love this city, this Citta Eternal. I don’t have any tattoos but it I did it would be SPQR inscribed across my heart. Beloved Rome.
We popped into the externally discreet Basilica of St Mary of the Angels and martyrs. A creation of Michaelangelo, the church is carved out of the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian.
Vast, with intimate spots, it was a taster for what the museum next door would offer.
So then, I decided to do a collage of Roman statue tummies.
GS said to stop as it looked as if I was trying to photograph their bits.
The rest of the museum was brilliant too – wells which were found with old spells, headstones commemorating lives long lost, old burial tombs moved for safety, mosaics, baths. We could have spent the whole day there but time was ticking, the sun crossing the dark blue sky.
The writing was on the wall. We were feeling like the skeleton above and it was time to find lunch.
The streets were bleaching hot. We scuttled from shadow to shadow. Finally we found a little niche where we had posh Italian pasta served with amuse bouche in dainty portions. There is a time and place, me, I just wanted to head plant into a hearty plate of clam pasta with chilli or failing that a Roman Carbonara.
Then we had to drag our suitcases to Termini in the baking heat, feeling sorry for the banks of tourists queuing up for taxis in the full sun.
The boards don’t clickety-clack like they used to in the old days, but even so it was exciting to stand before a train board with destinations – Napoli, Firenze, Venezia!
Then we were in the cool calm of the air-conditioned train, hurtling up the coast. It was stunning. People were out sailing, swimming, having wedding photos taken on rocks, fields full of rolled bails of hay and horses baking in the sun, and even near Monte Argentario lake after lake of flamencos obliviously to the train blatting past.
Then finally after weeks emotional and physical rollercoaster the train drew into Pisa station and we knew it would only be minutes before we would be in the garden listening to fountains, collared doves and the distance crowing of a cockerel.
Beloved Italy, as always, love, healing and sanctuary.
Home at last.
