It was a bit of a star-crossed journey, if I’m being honest. From Sorrento to Naples, our transfer car driver did his best to murder himself and everyone else in it. If you’ve never seen one of those big airport transfer vehicles before, just imagine being in something roughly the size profile of a small elephant, and now imagine an Italian guy dodging and weaving through traffic. At one point, the automatic brake engaged on him the moment before we got into a nasty fender-bender. So this picture of me smiling is because Elizabeth, Pam, and myself had survived the transfer and were safely on the bus out of Naples.
Italian trains are pretty nice. There was plenty of space for us in our little cabin. The train moved fast. It smelled good. Zero complaints from any of us.
Now, the train terminal at our destination was a little more complex than the train terminal in Naples had been. There were multiple levels, escalators, and a hell of a lot of ambiguity on where the proper ride share/loading zone was. It didn’t help that there was a huge construction project going on at the station, either. The three of us bounced around like pinballs in a sea of European humanity before Elizabeth took charge (as she does) and got us to our next transfer car. I chucked suitcases into the car and heaved a huge sigh of relief to be done lugging around multiple checked bags.
Even now the travel was a little adventurous. Our driver didn’t seem to have a very good sense of where they were locally, which is very strange. Even weirder, the hotel we were dropped off at was not the actual hotel we were supposed to be dropped off at. I don’t know, fatigue made me miss part of the conversation, so I can’t exactly tell you what happened. What I do know is that we were at a hotel, and it wasn’t the right hotel, and it would be nice if we could just get to the correct hotel. Fortunately, a quick call to Pam’s travel agent Vanessa helped sort everything out. Now we could grab all those suitcases, set them down in a room, and get them out of our hair. I could wander down past the front desk, open the gate at the front of the property, and take in the view from the street right in front of the hotel. The hustle and bustle of the massive crowds a few blocks away didn’t seem to permeate up here.
Welcome to The Eternal City.
If you know very few things about me personally, you likely still know how much of a history buff I am. At some point in middle school, I branched out beyond my obsession with the American Civil War to become a real Rome nut as well. Every library book in the city of Kentwood ended up at my parents’ house at some point. I spent the week after my knee surgery playing a full campaign on Total War: Rome II until I could walk again. Several years ago, Elizabeth showed me a Tik Tok trend of women asking their boyfriends/husbands how often they think about the Roman empire and being disgusted at their responses. My answer was honest: if not every single day, I think about the Romans most days.
How could you not? From the foundation of the Roman Republic to the moment that Constantinople’s walls were breached for the final time, there are over 2,000 years of history in a rich tapestry. If there is any city in the world that knows its historical importance and weaves the past and present together seamlessly, it is Rome. There are buildings that began as temples to Jupiter or Juno that were unearthed during the Renaissance, repurposed by Michaelangelo, and became beautiful cathedrals. You can walk a hundred meters down the street from the Spanish Steps or the Trevi Fountain and suddenly find yourself amid the high luxury of Rome’s fashion scene.
I’ve been told before that Rome is a letdown compared to Paris or Tokyo or New York City. People have described it to me as loud, crowded, dirty, and way too hot. There’s usually a caveat in there of “Well, if you like history, I guess”… You have to assume that the experience of a non-history-fan in Rome and that of myself, avid listener of Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome podcast, would be very different. But still, where there’s smoke there’s usually fire (if it’s in Rome, Nero might be playing his fiddle!). So I tried to maintain realistic expectations for the City of Seven Hills so as not to set myself up for disappointment.
Waste of time. Rome couldn’t have been better.
It wasn’t just me who enjoyed Rome, either. Pam and Elizabeth basically told me to plan what I wanted us to see in the city and they would follow along. For them it was a logical decision to let the history nut go where he wanted, and also a little bit of a placater to get me to go along with all of their other plans over the course of the two weeks. So for a little under 48 hours from October 7th to October 9th, they followed my lead – as did Winston once he arrived in Europe on the afternoon of October 8th. You can’t see Rome in 48 hours. You can barely scratch the surface. But what a surface-scratching it was! In upcoming posts, I’ll write about the inside of the Colosseum, the Roman National Museum and the Baths of Diocletian, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, even the Tomb of the Scipios. It helps to have great tour guides to see all of that, and we certainly went at least 2 for 3.
The one thing that we didn’t have time to focus in on was the abundance of symbols of the Catholic church here. There’s the whole Vatican complex, of course. Some of Elizabeth’s family who arrived early for the wedding went to the Vatican. Pam and Winston have both visited before and both gave largely positive recommendations. There’s one major rub, though: I’m not Catholic, and I’m not really interested in the history of the Catholic church. Fortunately for me, when Elizabeth found out the Vatican was at least partially constructed with marble repurposed from the Colosseum, she flew into a rage of righteous indignation at the Church for their, uh, recycling efforts. As neat as it may have been to visit, I can’t say I regret that we used our time the way we did.
My Rome blog miniseries will also include the thing that has stood the test of time with Elizabeth – the food. That will include a blow-by-blow account of the single greatest meal we have ever eaten. It will also include what happens when you go to a touristy pizza shop near the Colosseum and get pizza that Papa John’s would be ashamed of. In between those two extremes, there’s plenty else to discuss. But mostly, we will be talking about Taverna Trilussa.
When I wrote the introductory post to Sorrento, I wrote a little bit about the geography of the area. I’m not going to do that with Rome. Everyone knows what it is: the city on top of 7 hills along the Tiber River in the center of Italy. It’s a city; there are a lot of roads. Consult the map above if you need to know more.
But in that Sorrento post, I also spoke in brief (but glowing) terms about our incredible hotel. I should do something similar here, though in slightly less glowing terms.
The Palm Suite Hotel is located in prime Roman real estate.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it had a prime unobstructed view of the Colosseum. That would have been nuts. But it did let you see out into the city a little bit, and if you’re enjoying the Roman vibe that’s a plus.
I guess this isn’t the nicest neighborhood or something, so to put down a 4-star hotel to trap piggies like ourselves, the property has to be gated. Not a big deal, though the gate was a little annoying. Far worse for me was the room key + lock system. I was completely dumbfounded about how to unlock the room, and it turns out it wasn’t just me. Winston and then Elizabeth were stumped in short order as well. Europe is well behind the American magnetized credit-card-sized room key system, and this experience convinced me that they need to catch up fast.
The interior of our suite was nice enough. The furniture was a little weird, but Elizabeth and I had an excellent bed to sleep in (after I watched Games 3 and 4 of the ALDS of course, a grueling task that kept me up late). Breakfast was an order-up catering system that all four of us were collectively too Dumb American to figure out in time, so that was a swing and a miss. Altogether, it wasn’t a bad hotel. If it wasn’t judged against the Vittoria, or some of the truly insane hotels we were going to stay at (just wait until I get to the Austria part of this series), I’m sure I would view it much more fondly. But when set against its peers, it did fall a little flat. Sorry, Palm Suites.
Augustus was said to have boasted during his reign that “He found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” For all of his bravado, he wasn’t the one who had built the most lasting testament to imperial Rome’s prowess, which was just across the street from Elizabeth, Pam, and myself. No, the Flavian Amphitheater came almost a century later. For centuries afterwards, it entertained the masses. If you squinted as we rounded the corner into the big oval byway that the Colosseum sat in, you could almost pretend it was 150 BC and those masses were the plebs urbana going to watch some gladiators fight it out to the death.
And for a Rome nut like myself, what could be more exciting to imagine?
