Rome: An Account Of A Rat and The Ruins

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 Eva 0 Comments

Buongiorno, ragazzi from bellissima Roma where we’ve come to sample some dolce vita. We had to be somewhere on the continent in August, and Italy was the best option after leaving Malta and before we head into France. Checked out Turkey – way too hot; checked out Tunisia – too unstable; checked out Libya – doubly unstable. Everywhere too hot in more ways than one! So here we are in Roma, to continue our Italian travels, after flying across the sea from Sicily on a budget airline flight.
Street busker at work

Summer in the Eternal City appeared bereft of Italians. Where were all the Prada-accessorised, D & G-clad, perfectly tanned beautiful people? They’d vacated Rome for the beaches and coastlines, and so it seemed that the tourists outnumbered the locals. Away from the usual attractions, streets were quiet and many shopfronts closed. Rome wasn’t the potent sauna we’d been expecting of mid-August, with temps climbing to around the low 30’s, with a light breeze at times by evening. Maybe the summer scorcher was yet to come.
A Michelangelo masterpiece in the Church of St Maria Minerva

The most exciting moment during our short stay was THE RAT!   On a balmy evening, we sat outdoors in the Trastevere neighbourhood at one of the 6 or 8 tiny tables squeezed together and bedecked with red-and-white-checked tablecloths at a tiny family trattoria that sat side-by-side with a tiny pizzeria in a teeny-weeny piazza. An Italian female singer in costume accompanied by her guitarist arrived on foot across the cobblestones and did her busking thing around the tables in a gorgeous voice and beautiful face. Tips collected, off she and guitar man went and diners went back to eating their pasta and pizza and to their quiet conversations.

It was then that the rat (more like a mangy-looking mouse) ran across the piazzetta causing gasps from diners. “Ratta!” someone shouted. There was a moment of frenzied panic as some stood up and began backing away towards restaurant doorways. One woman stood on her chair in fear. The rat ran back from where it came and all settled down. It made a re-appearance minutes later. More shouts and panic, mingled with nervous laughter. We watched the reactions range from cool amusement to absolute horror, and tried to control our laughter. The pizzeria’s signora then dragged the young cook out of the kitchen with a broom in his hand and gestured for him to pursue it. Honestly, what was he planning to do with the broom, sweep it? It was the rat’s lucky night for it escaped through a smidgeon of a space under a roller door. The young cook found pieces of cardboard and stuffed them into the crevices so that the rat wouldn’t return. If anything, the rat seemed to have sparked some animation and lively conversation into the quiet little crowd of diners, and made a pleasant evening even more memorable for us.
The ancient Pantheon houses the tombs of Raphaelo
and Italian kings

We’d visited Rome on previous travels and had seen the major sights before, however we felt compelled to visit the famous antiquities again. Some sites can never be fully appreciated in one visit. Being in Rome and not re-visiting the Colosseum or Trevi Fountain would be akin to going to Paris and missing the Eiffel Tower or Louvre – unspeakable! So we sought out our favourite gems to see, as well as be on the lookout for Rome’s many hidden little springs and drinking fountains, some of which are quite ornate.

Water spring

Pretty quickly into our treasure hunt though, I was blaming the publishers of our Lonely Planet guidebook for changing the size of the font – how dare they make it impossible to read! Labels on maps, in particular, looked little more than trails of ant droppings – until the spectacles went on. I’m determined, when I get back home, to dig out my old editions and compare the size of the texts to see if they’ve changed.
Views across Rome from Palatino Hill


It was there, smack-bang in the middle of the scattered ruins of the Roman Forum that, after 3 ½ months of being constantly on the move, my right knee decided “BASTA” (enough)! I ignored the occasional sharp pains at first but they grew more insistent as I limped about following Max around columns and temples, refusing to give up and therefore miss out on all that wonderful history surrounding us. Besides, my imagination was all fired up trying to picture scenes of how it would have looked during the reign of Augustus and his wife Livia. After queueing for 1 ½ hours under a fiercely skin-burning sun to buy tickets (and that was the short queue), picnicking at the summit of Palatino hill with brilliant views across Rome and the Forum below and being in the midst of an amazing visual feast of relics, I was on a sensory high and wanted to absorb it all.

On a dodgy knee, we viewed the Colosseum from afar

The knee won out in the end and we caught the bus back to the hotel with a disappointingly unfinished tour of the antiquities under our belts. Our remaining day was spent relaxing in the hotel and resting up the knee which I was fervently praying would heal quickly. Not having experienced knee pain like this before, I envisaged worst-case scenarios – being pushed around in a wheelchair like a geriatric invalid on the slopes of Chianti, which would be our next stop, or worse still, having to cut the holiday short and fly home in agony. In the end, to the relief of my over-active imagination, the knee responded well to massage, ice and anti-inflammatory meds.

Ancient ruins of the Roman Forum


Luckily for the knee and for me, we begin the next sector by picking up our brand new Peugeot lease car to drive us through Italy and France over the next 2 ½ months. The timing of it couldn’t have been more perfect.
We've thrown our coins into the Trevi Fountain to ensure our return

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