By Simon Warburton
Main image of the Pantheon courtesy randomwinner from Pixabay.
Here’s a pretty basic question for the holiday season – what destination most floats your boat?
Many spring to mind for me: Corsica, Madeira, Seattle (admittedly mainly for its fantastic aviation museum), Barra (where else has a beach runway?) Moscow (yes, really) and the beautiful city of Worcester in West England with its stunning cathedral and medieval streets.
But in the end, I plumped for a place I’ve only visited twice.
Rome.
The eternal city seduced me the moment I set foot in it six years ago, with its triple whammy of ancient, Renaissance, and relatively recent fascist history. The latter they’re clearly not too keen on talking about, but ancient Rome wasn’t exactly a picnic either if you were out of favour with the powers that be.
It’s a city you can easily walk and it’s a rare thing to be able to say getting lost is a joy, as around every corner lies yet another astonishing architectural gem. A stunning 16th century church here, a pile of 2,000-year-old (and relatively intact) ruins there and what’s that hiding in plain sight? Modernist structures emanating from Italy’s dark flirtation with Mussolini lurking in the background, all jostling cheek by jowl in one of the most vibrant cities on earth.
Spring – and by that, I mean even early March – is a brilliant time to visit. While those in Northern Europe are still shivering and scraping ice off windscreens – the Roman sun is starting to warm the cobbles of this wonderful city as it roars back to life after the winter.
Raucous backdrop
I’ve lived in Paris where they like to think themselves as the world guardians of cuisine, but I’ve never eaten better than in Italy and Rome in particular.
The food doesn’t have the fussy detail of the French capital – it’s far simpler, but to my mind anyway, far tastier and delivered to the raucous backdrop of Romans talking, arguing, shouting and just being, well, Roman.
The myriad attractions are obvious – there’s no point going through what everyone knows – but for me it’s the simple pleasure of stumbling across yet another glorious – or inglorious – piece of history or a tiny taverna down a miniscule side street.
One small anecdote sums up Rome for me. I found myself one balmy June evening in front of the magnificent and remarkably intact Pantheon, with its near-2,000 years of history glowering across the square.
Just to the side of it a busker with an electric guitar and small amp set up shop. So far, so normal, as a light drizzle started to fall.
He started playing Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, not singing, just playing the music. Around 15 people including myself stopped to listen, entranced by the purity of the sound.
I know that song pretty well, but this busker’s rendition was indisputably his own, making passers by halt in their tracks.
Nowhere quite like Rome – St Peter’s Square: Image courtesy heiteu from Pixabay.
In a flat opposite, an old lady dressed entirely in black stood at her open, large window, stock still, taking in the scene from her Roman eyrie.
OK, it could be a pretty universal experience and there’s no point in busking in a faceless suburb, but it was the collision of the Pantheon as the guitarist’s stage, the misty rain, the warm evening, the interpretation of the song. And it was Rome.
The hustle, bustle, noise and smells, the ancient, modern, dark and light, I’m intoxicated by it all.
Rome reverberates to the pulse of history – I haven’t even scratched the surface of it and I’m impatient to go back.
