WOAH THE TRAFFIC OMFG. Although what really gets me is the *parking*. We had an airport transfer arranged, although it would have actually been easier to get the train from Rome airport to Roma Termini – the main railway station of Rome and literally 1 block from our hotel. But, eh, it’s paid for, off we go. There followed about 2 hours of the most mind-boggling driving, as our driver took us along a range of rinki-dink backstreets (don’t they have freeways and main roads? Does he have a litany of sneaky shortcuts?), where we were
- wowed by the Roman habit of parking cars with (maybe) 10cm gaps between them,
- amazed by the ability of cars to just drive full-time into any gap, trusting in everyone *else* to arrange themselves around the interloper,
- shocked by the complete lack of attention paid to the sticking-to-your-side-of-the-road-you-dickhead part of driving,
- thrilled by the completely reckless scooter drivers who seem to have acquired an invulnerability superpower when they collected their scooter from the dealer,
- mystified by a complete lack if bicycles. Did not see a single one
- horrified, terrified but also incredibly impressed by our driver’s ability to squeeze our bus through gaps you wouldn’t think a bus could fit through, literally millimetres-wide gaps, yup, powers straight through them. It was a truly virtuoso performance
We were the second-last to be dropped off, and spent 2 hours cruising (hooning, really) the back-streets of inner-city Rome, which, surprisingly, is completely stuffed full of Very Impressive Old Stuff. Oh and the Victor Emmanuel is IMMENSE. I had no idea how truly vast it is, having seen a lot of photos of it since primary school. You get the impression that’s it’s big, but not how most of a hill is taken up by it
Rome has very very little advertising. It’s great. I am complete infuriated by how advertising has slowly invaded the visual landscape, as if these monsters have a *right* to colonise my field of view. Rome has a few billboards here and there (not many at all), names and logos on premises, that’s it. I love it, it totally changes how a street looks and I’d argue is far more calming and a lot less exhausting.
Rome reminds me a lot of Melbourne, it’s an extremely multicultural city, and just like Melbourne has a shitload of Italians everywhere. Hardly any Indians or Asians, which I was surprised by. It’s like Preston but with vast, vast, vast, truly mind-boggling numbers of blocks of flats. The enormous density of this ancient human hive warps my head just thinking about it.
There seems to be many clumps of guys just …. hanging out … around the station. After having it endlessly impressed on me how SUPER-DODGY Europe is I wasn’t overly concerned, but it certainly made the place feel seedy. We sat outside at a ristorante and had pizza (have discovered prosecution, yum) and were constantly pestered by guys walking up to us, leaning over the fence and trying to sell us shit. Not shit as in “non-specific items” but shit as in junk. Africans and (one) Arab. I’m assuming these are refugees/immigrants with no other source of income. Not sure what the protocol for telling people to piss off is in a foreign country.
It feels a bit grimy and unkempt compared to Melbourne. Lots of footpaths with weeds (tall weeds!) growing out of them. Also – many streets with no footpaths.
Did I mention the scooters? There’s hordes of them, *everywhere*, I saw quite a few streets where the entire (very narrow) street is completely lined on both sides with scooters. Which of course our bus driver entered absolutely flat-out
STREET BUSKING IS COOL but not very lucrative. As we approached an intersection I saw a guy doing this juggling… thingy with 6 luminous hoops. Very impressive. He was standing at the line for a red light, so super-visible to all vehicles pulling up to stop. But then the lights changed so everyone drives off. He got money from two people. Cha-ching! Still, it beats the shit out of English tourist junkies washing your car windscreen for you
I’ve now been awake for 47 hours. Time to crash.
More later….
from above
