Escape towards warmth (republished pictures from 2013)

I’ve been thinking about a trip to Rome since the spring Battle for Vilegis. Ultimately, the situation compelled me to do so. It wasn’t the best date in terms of the larp I was supposed to meet, but somehow it worked out.

Coincidentally, the week before I left, I finished reading Mika Waltari’s The Mysterious Etruscan, a good portion of which is set in and around Rome. Perhaps this book also suggested that I avoid Christian monuments and stick to the older ones mentioned throughout the book.

Since I made the decision about a week before departure and didn’t have a substantial amount of money, I decided to fly with a low-cost airline and travel with only carry-on luggage. Unfortunately, it turned out that I was unlucky again on the WizzAir flight - the departure was delayed by two hours. However, the return flight with Smart Wings was completely uneventful.

I didn’t have a particular idea about the place, except that there would be lots of sights, even more pilgrims and only slightly fewer pickpockets. Somehow, I underestimated the first two points; the number of sights and pilgrims far exceeded my expectations, but I didn’t meet any pickpockets and didn’t lose anything on the spot (maybe the rumours about the number of pickpockets are exaggerated). The plan for the first day was to take Leonardo (by train) from the airport into town, walk into the historic centre, find some lunch, and then walk around. Then, around eight, check into the hostel and go to Alcabh, a local LARP pub.

My vague plan came to fruition perfectly; I set off west from Termini, following the sun, and after a while, came upon the scaffolding under which the Colosseum was hidden. Immediately afterwards, I found that getting around the Forum Romanum was quite a challenge, as all the alleys that pretended to bypass it were eventually blind. However, at least this way, I discovered a couple of places that deserved my second camera and some photos on black and white film.

Eventually, though, I did manage to get around the Forum Romanum, albeit not through some knotty street, but through a main street full of stalls (something I didn’t really care for). As chance would have it, I stumbled upon the Robert Capa photography exhibition right afterwards, and from there, it was just a short walk across the river Tiber to the Vatican. In the end, I skipped that, as there was a service in St. Peter’s Square and some hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims attending. Escape towards Castel Sant’Angelo was my choice, back across the river to the Pantheon. Again, by chance, I found Zafferino on the way, a restaurant that also served gluten-free pasta - and it was not bad at all. I mean, the staff looked a bit weird when I wasn’t sure if it was short or long pasta, but how was I supposed to know? Here, I’m happy for anything edible, and I don’t exactly get to choose much, let alone have a preference.

The rest of the day went according to plan, only much better than I expected. Considering the price, the hostel was good - the bed was clean, although the same could not be said for the shower. The walk to the pub was okay, too, and I met a few people I’d met at the Battle for Vilegis; in the end, they probably remembered me more than I remembered them. Then, a hilarious moment occurred when everyone in the pub was looking at my tiny laptop, which had photos of just the spring B4V scrolling on it.

In the morning, I went wandering downtown again but stopped just a short walk from the hostel at the Museum of the Romans, which was originally a huge spa complex. The next stop was breakfast, a short walk from the Trevi Fountain, which is interesting during the day, but later in the evening proved to be much more interesting in the dark and well-lit.

After breakfast, it was time for even more wandering. I write wandering, but it’s a thing I’ve never been very good at. No matter how uncertain I am about my location, I usually walk straight to where I want to go, and when I do happen to wander, it’s actually a positive experience for me. That’s how I walked past the Circus Maximus all the way back to the Colosseum and decided to pay it an honest touristy visit. Ultimately, my experience was more technological and architectural than historical. Its capacity, its permeability, the running water in the toilets and on the top floors, the warehouses under the arena, and the tarps shielding the spectators - many of today’s arenas have a lot of catching up to do.

From the Colosseum, there was no choice but to continue on to the Forum Romanum (it’s on the same ticket, by the way). The collection of local temples and other ruins is so enormous that Stonehenge has shrunk somewhat in my memory and no longer seems so monumental. From the Forum again to the Vatican, where the crowds were not as large today, but the lines to get in were terrifying.

I then finished my Sunday with a tuna pizza (another good one, basically impossible to find in the edible and gluten-free form here in the Czech Republic).

On the last day, I went to the Vatican Museum, where I was invited by Alessandro, a Vatican employee I had befriended during the Battle for Vilegis spring photo shoot. I took the metro to Ottaviano and walked a short distance from there, stopping for morning coffee along the way. The Indians were very entertaining, offering to bypass the three-hour queue and combine it with a guided tour of the museum.

The museum itself then surprised me, especially with how much of the exhibit could be accommodated within such a small space. At the same time, I fulfilled one of my cultural objectives, and that was to see Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam ” - the ceiling and the painting itself are so high that the posters sold on every Roman street corner show more detail than can be seen with the naked eye in the Sistine Chapel.

Three days was definitely not enough, even just for pre-Christian Rome, but at least it left me with something to look forward to next time. Perhaps we could consider staying there for a few days after the Battle for Vilegis 2014.

And a word of advice for travellers from Prague, shopping at Prague airport is not worth it, even Wenceslas Square is cheaper. At Fiumicino, it was different; for example, single malt whisky Laphroaig was about a third cheaper than elsewhere.