Visiting Rome: Fear Not the Path

“Find where your soul might retreat and advance towards it thusly.” – Old Sean

Wearied

I continue to live in Riyadh during Ramadan, forever scheming on ways to exit the country during weekends. The holiday season, which is centered around spirituality, family and fasting during daylight hours, has no functional role for me to take part in. As such, the month has been one of repeated trips abroad.

This weekend is yet another trip. I fly to Rome during the fringed of night.

It’s worth mentioning that I originally wanted to visit Florence instead. But the timetables of my flight and Italian transportation conspired against me. As such, I decided to make the best of my time by staying rooted in Rome for my mini vacation.

My vacation was somewhat extended by asinine circumstances. My company in Riyadh, where I work as a consultant, was recently acquired by a new corporation. Part of the merger agreement stipulated that all employees who were just acquired were granted two days of paid vacation. This all occurred back in January.

However, my department managers actively hid this from their staff for reasons I don’t actually understand. We’re short-staffed, yes, but the time leading up to Ramadan is generally less intensive in terms of workload, so employees having slightly longer vacations would’ve not impacted any project KPIs.

However, no mention was made about our unknown, promised vacation for two months until a local Saudi let it slip that he wouldn’t be around for the next two days due to his required vacation. After I pressed him, he revealed everyone in the company was granted two days of vacation. When I confirmed this with my HR department, they grew furious (which may have been so much theater) and got into a heated phone call with my managers in front of me.

I demanded two extra days in Rome, which I was immediately granted. But my managers gave me explicit instructions to avoid telling any of my colleagues about their own time off. They cited an inability to manage such things and they would grant vacation some months later.

I agreed, left the office and promptly told every employed person with a pulse about their own promised vacation time.

Don’t ask me to be a part of your blighted manipulations.

I left work an hour later, booked my ticket and finished one last day of work before flying out. I was in a fairly bad mood for my entire flight, since the Arabian men around me had a very vocal conversation in the darkened plane about some nonsense while three kids behind me played extremely physically games, which their parents didn’t seem to mind. But I certainly did.

I’m quite ready to leave Saudi.

Dark Air

I landed in Rome around 1 AM without any substantial plans. There are many great features regarding Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, but 24-hour transportation isn’t one of them. There are practically no busses, trains or decent transport from midnight to around 5 AM. Rideshares and taxis are a whopping 60 or 70 euros which exceeded the cost of my flight.

So instead of rushing towards a quiet Rome at night, I decided to take a walk. A very long, meandering walk all the way off of airport grounds to the sea. I stopped at some bars for snacks and water along the way, peered down at evening snails enjoying their evening and sat on a moonlit beach.

While not terribly eventful, it was peaceful. When time started trickling closer to 5 AM, I hiked back to the airport where I caught a bus heading into Rome.

Through All the Quiets

Rome in the wee hours of the morning is a rare treat. The entire city has softy settled and there’s only a few stray cars here and there. Romans and Italians, bless them, have very little interest in waking up before their venerated coffee shops do.

I took an ambling walk north through the city, stopping to peer at simple parks with green grass and trees with blooming flowers. Rome was growing colorful with spring and I reveled in the sight of greenery and flowers. Despite Riyadh’s best urban planning efforts, Saudi Arabians typically don’t live in a lush climate. The burst of life under clouds was a steady balm for my soul.

Babble Breakfast

I’ve visited Rome quite a few times over the course of my life. Perhaps more than any other European city, save Paris. As such, I’ve steadily whittled down my bucket list for the region.

That’s not to say I’m finished. There’s always more to do, see and discover in Rome. But now my targets are a little further to the fringes.

For this particular morning, I was interested in visiting Hadrian’s Villa, also known as Villa Adrianna near the town of Villanova. It took a bit of clever timing between busses, but I eventually arrived in walking distance. Waiting for the grounds to open, I had an enduringly excellent Roman breakfast.

There’s a running short video joke about Roman coffee stops.

In America, the person walks up to a counter after waiting in line, orders a specialty coffee, gets different options for sizes, asks if they want cream, sugar or milk, , is asked of they will pay cash, card, credit or debit, is charged 12 USD, is asked if they are a rewards member card, is asked if they would like to donate money to a charity, gives their name and then is informed that the coffee will be ready in 10 minutes.

In Italy, a person says espresso while standing and lays a Euro on the counter. Then a saucer is placed down and a coffee atop it.

May Italians remain shining examples of proper coffee-based living for generations to come.

Among the Blooming Ruins

Within the next hour, I arrived at the entrance to Hadrian’s Villa.

Despite the bad press he received for persecuting Christians, Diocletian is my favorite Roman Emperor for his unmatched capacity for pulling the Roman territories out of their devastating economic and security crisis. He is followed by Marcus Aurelius, who I adored for his pragmatic writings on Stoicism. There are many contenders for third place, but Hadrian is among them. His astonishing building capabilities have immortalized him through his restoration efforts and super projects, including Hadrian’s Wall in the modern United Kingdom.

I was delighted to enter Hadrian’s Palace. The ruins are extensive and amazingly well-represented. There are wide swaths of land blossoming with new flowers. Clever crows wing past the low trees. A modern city nestles low and bright on the slops of a nearby mountain. Ruins are accented by further flowers, standing marble statues and skittering green lizards.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have a hobby that specifically applies to Rome. I’ve always visited the city alone, so I enjoy plugging in audiobooks and podcasts to hyper-immerse myself in actual history with the physical sites. Sometimes this lines up, like walking past the Augustus Mausoleum while listening to a dusty, loving voice talk about the birth of the Julian-Claudian dynasty.

At this point, my audiobook didn’t link up with Hadrian’s Villa. I was still recalling far earlier events, namely the meteoric rise of Julius Caesar before his dramatic, heavily retold assassination.

It was still lovely. Crested by flowers, settled by tress, the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa are beyond beautiful.

The Field of Glass

Following my time at Hadrian’s Villa, I took a combination of bus and metro to reach the Park of the Appian Way.

While I extensively hiked the Appian Way during my last visit to Rome, I missed out on seeing the famed catacombs of the area. I spent a few hours simply looping through the park on foot, evading herds of sheep and excitable mountain bikers.

Over the course of my hike, I sat in further fields of flowers, lay under a cloud-fringed sky, peered into ruins and visited the Ninfeo di Egeria, a traditional water feature known as a Nymphaeum in English, which would host a spiritual, beautiful nymph-being from Roman and Greek mythology.

While I didn’t sight a nymph, there was a lovely waterfall and placid duck enjoying the old structure.

I continued walking along, often noticing there was glass beneath my feet. Great, dull chunks of shattered glass covered entire fields, invisible at a distance due to the growth of grass.

I cannot fathom the reason for the broad landscaped of glass, unless it prevents erosion. It was still a unique experience. Brief searches online didn’t enlighten me, so it’ll remain a minor mystery for the time being.

Delver

I finally reached the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian, one of several catacombs near the park.

I’ve never been in Roman catacombs before, so I was excited for the experience. Naturally, they don’t just allow free roaming through the sacred burial sites. Rather, tour guides are required to prevent people from getting lost. I booked the next available tour despite it being Italian and began to delve.

Once upon a time and also occasionally now, I enjoyed the Elder Scrolls video game Skyrim. A major feature of the game comes from dungeon exploration, which involves plenty of underground monsters to fight. I always thought the dungeon layout was a bit silly. Narrow, surprisingly intact hallways snaking underground with precision, occasionally opening into caverns. Since most of what I’ve seen in life are natural caverns, I figured the dungeon layout was a video game mechanic, allowing players to more easily map and circulate through the area.

But I now think that the Skyrim developers were working off substantially accurate models. Roman catacombs are exactly like tunnel mazes with plenty of distinct paths, sudden dead ends, incorporated subterranean architecture and waist high burial platforms embedded in walls.

I had a lot of fun in the catacombs. I learned about vase offerings for the afterlife, Greek, Latin and symbolic etchings. The majority of ruins were Christian, but there was a cavern section dedicated to pagan worshipers which predated the Christian portion substantially.

I spent a couple of hours in the underground labyrinths. When I was finally finished, I emerged with slight limp, having somewhat pulled both my leg muscles.

To be fair, I’m not sure I actually pulled or muscle, as much as simply overused them. I had walked a total of 60,446 steps in a single day, which may have been the reason for the muscle strain.

The rest of the evening would return me to Rome’s center, where I would find my Airbnb. To my delight, I found a restaurant called Pasta al Volo which had some of the most fantastic meal options of my entire trip. I drank red bear and ate saffron pasta with light cheese and a sprinkling of bacon atop.

Not bad for a first 24 hours in Rome.

The Everwalk

The next day, I awoke with aching legs and a limp. But instead of taking it easy for the day, I opted to walk. There was never a time when pain caused me to feel overly hindered, so I had no issue carrying on.

My walk, which was initially just for a quick breakfast, ended up spanning into an all-day hike. To list all of the details of that hike would be long-winded. And photos do nicely enough to showcase the beautiful spring day. So instead, I’ll list the major landmarks of my journey.

In general, my route took me past Villa Carpegna, through the fields and forests of Parco Villa Doria Pamphilj, to the base of Fontana dell’Acqua Paola, over Janiculum Hill, down slopes into the urban walking area of Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, across the Tiber and into Rione VI Parione, past the street performances of Piazza Navona, into the Museo dell’Ara Pacis, around the Mausoleum of Augustus which is currently under restorations, into Piazza del Popolo, back across the Tiber, to the gates of the Vatican and back to Trastevere, at which point I took a train back to Isola Sacra, a neighborhood near the Rome Airport.

See? Long winded.

Flash-Mind Impressions

There were a few standout memories I wish to record from this journey.

First, many Romans and tourists alike were walking while carrying branches of pale green leaves in honor of Easter. I didn’t fully understand the meaning behind them. The Italians I asked were generally a bit older and my English questions weren’t clear. I finally got a clear answer in a museum.

These branches, generally palm branches or olive branches, are part of a Mass celebration in Saint Peter’s Square. The ceremony is held by the Pope, with some branches being simple, unadorned plants while others are elaborated decorated. The Pope blesses all the branches which should be kept in the house for a year, at which point they’re burned to make ashes for Ash Wednesday.

Interesting, no?

Secondly, I continued listening to my audiobooks the entire time I doggedly limped onwards, taking frequent breaks on benches. It was a lovely aspect of the day and a completely indulgent experience. The duality of the partnership between Octavian/Augustus and his childhood war-companion Agrippa are some of my favorite Roman stories.

Thirdly, one of the features of the Middle East which often breaks my flow is the call to prayer I often hear in Riyadh. The mosque near my home, roughly a block away, has absolutely maxed volume, literally shaking drying silverware on my counter. The bells in Rome have similar clashing volume, ringing for long minutes. I often have to pause my audiobooks until they subside.

Fourthly, lest anyone thinks this walk was healthy, I was snacking aggressively the entire time. Cheese boards, glasses of wine, chocolate snacks, Gelato cones, spaghetti lunches and more framed my walk.

Fifthly, I adore the architectural sights and stone sphinx carvings around Piazza del Popolo. But the same area has an ad plastered over the northern wall near the Museo Leonardo da Vinci. I hate ads in general, as the principles behind them has shifted away from product introduction to overt mass manipulation and high buy in costs for anyone attempting to create inroads into any market. But I especially loath ads in front of beautiful structures, naturally scenery and important icons.

In certain places, ads on landmarks are acceptable. Times Square and Tokyo come to mind, as they are specifically designed ad spaces. But most landmarks deserve to exist as monuments to human efforts across the ages, independent of modern corporate greed. I don’t want to see McDonald’s logos on the Colosseum, the Statue of Liberty with promotional movie posters waving from her torch or Starbucks banners on the Taj Mahal. Part of my critique when trying to enjoy the Pyramids of Giza are the endless hawkers trying to sell things at that most ancient of tourism sites.

So I dislike a blaring Samsung advertisement at Piazza del Popolo. I dislike it so much, I’ve decided against ever buying another Samsung product. It’s going to be quite a query purchasing new smart phones going forward, as I swore odd from buying Apple products as well, since 2011. But it’ll work out somehow.

Finally, the last note i wish to make about this walk through Rome, artwork is a major feature of all Roman explorations. Lions embedded in walls, bold statues, elegant arches, cultivated hedge patterns, rushing fountains, rings of street performance watchers, graffiti, decorative lampposts, De Vinci mechanical models, canine images and wall reliefs graced my vision.

I finished off my journey by enjoying my usual favorite Roman tradition. Chocolate and alcohol shots at Rivendita Libri “Teatro e Cioccolata”.

A Few Moments More

The following morning, I allowed myself some time to sleep in. I had a hearty breakfast of pasta, pastries, wine and sparkling water. I spent my next hour walking the beach before summoning an Uber to return to the airport.

Check in went smoothly and I soon bordered the plane. A Saudi Arabian fellow flying home has made three rather vocal scenes by bringing more luggage than he was allowed, pulling down other folks luggage from the overhead bin for his own bags and standing at the front of the plane for the first hour chatting amicably in Arabic until flight attendants escorted him to a seat at the back of the plane.

There’s also a little Italian boy seated next to me, about 12 years old. This flight has been torture for him, as he’s constantly fidgeting, bouncing, readjusting in his seat and opening and closing his laptop. It’s unintentional, but he’s jabbed me with his knees and elbows more than eighty times during this flight, and we only just reentered KSA airspace.

Ah, I very much have no wish to go back to Riyadh.

I’m planning a trip to Jeddah next week, so perhaps I’ll write more then.

In the meantime, best regards and excellent trails,

Old Sean

Written March 26th,2024

Read more about visiting Rome and seeing the world by visiting Leftfade Trails Destination Info.

Affiliate Disclosure: Leftfade Trails contains affiliate links, so using services or products through these links supports the website, at no extra cost to the user. All links are to tested services and products designed to aid travelers on their journeys. Some links specifically connect to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate this website earns from qualifying purchases.