I’ve been in Rome for nearly a week and have done a whistle stop tour of most of the main sights. I’ve been to the Vatican, Colosseum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and more.
Rome has a long history of civilisation and this can be seen by the ancient investment in massive engineering projects like the aquaducts. I’m not kidding, building projects like that or the Colosseum (50-70k capacity) show you what they used to be able to do back then.
Why is it now they seem to struggle with some really basic stuff? The city really stinks of trash, piss and other foul odours – more than any other western city I’ve been to. The metro is worse than the London Underground, except for line A trains which have air conditioning.
There is a beggar on every street and you can’t make it a block without being swarmed by street sellers. It reminds me of the markets in Tunisia – North Africa!
If you have a great imagination then you’ll enjoy it because you’ll be able to imagine what it was like back in ancient times. Oh I’m sure it was pretty dirty in Roman times too but we expect a little more now, right?
I’ll say one good thing. The constantly running drinking water dispensers are great, other than the huge waste of water when no one is drinking from them. For a country that dominated the whole aquaduct business you’d think they’d know about taps.
Before I go on Friday I hope to find a decent restaurant. So far I’ve been charged 18 Euros for ice cream, 3 Euros to have ice in my drink and not found a place that serves pasta!
