a sense of smallness

It’s our last full day in Italy. Time seems to have sped up a little. You know how it does that sometimes when you eventually slow down?

We’ve been taking advantage of the fact that we’re staying in my sister’s apartment: no need to be out at 10am so the hostel rooms can be cleaned; being able to leave all your stuff sprawled across the floor when you go to brush your teeth; comfy sofa’s to sit on and quiet spaces where you can sit and do your own thing without anyone feeling the need to come and chat to you.

I’ve always loved Rome. It’s less intimidating and more vinbrantly alive than London. You’ve got these huge magnificent buildings which are just part of the fabric of the city. Every corner you turn, it feels like history is holding out a hand to you, should you choose to take it. Yesterday we parked in a fairly ordinary looking cobbled car park, only to emerge like the tiny humble people of Lilliput into the vast marble facade of Campidoglio. I’m sure if you live here for a bit you loose that sense of your own smallness. Maybe it all just sinks into the background and becomes part of the backdrop to your life, but as a visitor you can’t help but feel a bit special, courtesy of the open invite.

We had to visit the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill (birth place of Rome), of course, and dutifully did so on our first day here, Emma reciting a few choice lines from Gladiator. Which, of course, added a little extra gravitas to our visit. We were surprised by the open floor at the centre of the concrete circle. You can see right down into the cavities underneath where the Gladiators fought lions and bears, and each other.

Grim fact: they used to mop up the spilt blood from the healthy fighters and, in the belief that strong blood would help the ailing, fed it (sand n all I’m presuming) to those suffering with epilepsy. Nice. Something else I’d not realised before was how much of a melting pot of different cultures and nationalities Rome was. People came from far and wide. The city had a master plan, never forcing it’s conquested: it was touted as an honour and a privilege to become Roman. What a marketing tactic!

Naturally, we took in the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and Pantheon. Then, last night we walked. As we enter the Jewish Quarter an older lady with lined lips and a scarf around her head strikes up ‘O Sole Mio’ on the accordion. Just around the corner a black and white cat with it’s tail wrapped around it’s nose keeps the seat of a Vespa nice and cosy. A few circuits later and we stride on (Sarah complaining that we walk too fast…clearly Rome has slowed her down), across the bridge to Travestere. Sarah follows her nose ad we track down the best ‘suppli’ in Rome and oh my god, suppli (from here) is amazing! Better than anything deep fried should strictly be.

You bite into the crumbling surface of hot breadcrumbs the size of a small fist, and the tomato-soaked rice melts into your mouth. Chunks of meat punctuate each mouthful and then you find the oozing mozzarella centre and the whole gently bound together thing falls apart in your hand, forcing you to greedily hoover up every lost morsel in a manner reminiscent of a starving truffle pig. You can’t help it though. It’s just sooo good! Whoever came up with this should be given some kind of Nobel Peace Prize. It could halt wars. Even world-conquering Roman ones.

Our plans for a proper sit-down meal are abandoned as we decide on a chicken and rosemary fried potatoes (and another suppli to share, just for good measure), washed down with coca cola, instead. Probably our best meal yet in Italy. And only 20 euros for all three hungry truffle pigs.

Later, our first attempt at a bottle of vino rosso in a bar just off Piazza del Scala backfires. Which is probably a good thing; after the excitement of the suppli, my head might have just popped off into the atmosphere. Froth at the edges of a glass of red wine is not good, and is definitely not normal, whatever your waiter says. And, you know, if you’re paying like twenty euros for a bottle of Montepulciano, you might expect the waiter to explain that the bottle he’s opening is not your first choice:

“Will this one do, instead?”

But this doesn’t happen. Because we’re in Italy. So instead customer service dictates that he is grudging at our suggestion that this is not the bottle requested and ‘explains’ that this sort of (replacement) red wine is normally a bit fizzy. Fizz and froth? Not the same. So we leave. And Sarah can never return. It’s okay though as she knows other, nice, wine bars back across the bridge near Piazza Navona. The one we end up sat in, Sarah tells us, during the day has old men pulled up to the bar playing draughts. At night though, she informs us, it’s full (“look”) of middle aged single people.

I don’t feel so out of place. Which is a slight worry. The bar staff are cool though (the men are wearing hats and the girl has that ‘don’t care what you think’ air about her) so I think it’s maybe okay to be nearing middle-age singledom. Maybe. And hey, even the curly hand-writing on the blackboard is beautiful. So it has to be alright.

The day before there was an utter downpour from the skies as we searched for the Jeans Shop near Campo di Fiore. Big fat raindrops on full-speed suicide missions towards the lopsided paving slabs. We took cover under the awning of a pannini place and ended up seduced by the smells of mozzarella and proscuitto into sharing one. I swear the rain made my half taste better. I didn’t find the jeans I wanted but have bought Italian underwear (one of my RULES for Rome) and some replacement rubber seals for my Bialetti Moca Express Coffee Pot thingy. Happy days.

So we’ve got rain-soaked but it hasn’t made us any less boyant. Shopping, suppli and Barry White is a good mix it seems (Sarah’s boyfriend Mauro has left his music-filled memory stick at our disposal). Our soundtrack to Rome has also been populated by plenty of Newton Faulkner, a bit of Paulo Nutini to break it up and Alanis Morisette for old times sake. All of which incidentally, are a leap better than the soundtrack which has been running in Emma’s head, on and off, off and on, throughout this trip. The specifics of which she is now refusing to remember, for fear of them returning. ‘Agadoo’ (?!?), the Sound of Music (she knew the entire soundtrack off by heart as a kid; and will hate that I’ve just revealed that), and random un-cheery hymns. Not really what you want rattling around your head as you pad your way around the northern half of Italy.

I know all sorts of things about my flame haired friend today, that I didn’t know two weeks ago. And vice versa. We’ve done (and talked about) a lot in a fortnight. It feels more like a month, but in a good way. (Hopefully she’ll agree).

Talking about music and random mixes, our ear drums were decibel’ed out by an exceedingly enthusiastic DJ (how old do I sound?!) on Friday night at ‘Lost and Found’: an art/warehouse space where one of Sarah’s photography friends was exhibiting as part of the launch of bottega_n2 (‘workshop’: the second edition of a photography publication, their group – Gruppo Sorrise Roma Onlus – leave out at swanky bars, like a sort of coffee-table magazine). It’s one of those places that you’d never be ‘edgy’ enough to be invited to in London, but by virtue of being foreigners we just about got away with it here. And we danced like silly buggers. Which was great fun among lots of arty types who were effortlessly cool or had perfected the look through endless practice. Either way, they were beautiful. And I think they were impressed by our ever-so-stylish dancing. Yep.

Today we spied a little further afield as we looked through the keyhole after Sarah dropped us at Circo Massimo. No-one we’ve spoken to seems to be able to remember what this famous view-hole is called, but you walk through the gated rose garden, up the hill past the orangery. The big locked gate is to your right, distinguished still despite it’s peeling green paint.There’s a queue of tourists patiently taking it in turns to kiss their eyes up to the Alice In Wonderland-esque keyhole.Your turn comes and you sidle up to spy a long arch of considerate trees, framing a classically Italian domed church, far off in the distance.

Once your eye has foraged through the tunnel of branched shadow, it looks to be showered in morning daylight. Pretty.

We paid a quiet visit to the Catacomba Di Domitilla after a Carbonara lunch at our cousin’s flat. 17km and 150,000 graves labarinth’ing under the surface of Rome’s outskirts. And that’s the ones they know about. I love the thought of another (under?) world going on ten foot beneath the one we’re busy in. There are secret tunnels running from the Gladitorial Training Ground – now in ruin on Via St Giovanni in Laterano – to the Colosseum and there’s dedicated passageways which the city’s ruling families and religious leaders once used in order to reach the stadium safely. They should so do tours of Rome’s innards.

Our Italian (but Indian accented?) tour guide was explaining this afternoon, about how paintings such as this dove holding an olive branches and that figure clasping hands together in prayer, symbolise not the end, but the start of life. So it seems appropriate that the city’s crystal supply of precious eternally running water should also originate from the ground. It spurts out of fountain-taps dotted all over the city’s era-torn surfaces and might be the coolest and clearest you ever tasted. All thanks to the Romans. Yep, history’s definitely alive and well in Roma 2012.

So, tomorrow is our last day. We fly back to England at 17.50. But before that we are being treated to ‘Eataly’. Sarah is in awe of this place. And to be fair, it sounds brilliant, even before you get the details (basically, it’s an department store for Italian food. Could it get any better?!).

Somehow, I think ‘Eataly’ may be a fitting bookend to our trip.