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Published: October 30th 2006
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The Colosseum
The Emporer gives the public what they want - bloody battles! Naples - Rome (Train)
29-30 August … apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Our very British walking-tour guide, who has his PHD on the Roman Empire, states - rather matter-of-factly - that the most accurate and concise summary of Rome’s contribution to western civilisation that he knows of is the scene in Monty Python’s, 'The Life of Brian'. Reg (played by John Cleese), the leader of the People’s Front of Judea, is justifying support for an attack on the Roman government and actually manages to frame a rather accurate inventory of benefits bestowed by the Empire. Our guide also did a rather cracking rendition of the entire scene for the benefit of the group. Incidentally, he went on to say that the best explanation of Latin grammar was the graffiti scene between Brian and the centurion (one for the python fans).
Modern society has more or less settled around these sites of historical importance - or so it would seem. The ancient city ruins are prominent in structures like the colosseum and forum but there is also much that was built over, marble and pillars were pillaged by popes or flattened by Mussolini to build a road. Even today, excavations below the
Inside the Colosseum
The arena for the spectacle that took place Vatican have found significant city ruins - but the car park will still go ahead. Still - Rome is called 'la Città Eterna' (the Eternal City) and the structures that still stand around us today are a testiment to this.
The Vatican City is a contained sovereign enclave that dominates the northwestern territory of the city. We shuffle with the throng of tourists along the gold-gilded halls toward the Sistine Chapel. We are ushered through chambers of painted by the likes of a young Raphael who held favor with the pope of his day. Finally we come upon the famous chapel and the masterpiece of Michelangelo’s ceiling. The chapel is otherwise unfurnished with anything ornate as not to take away from the religious significance of the art. The chapel is congested with a murmuring crowd straining their necks in all directions. Leaving the chapel, we pass through the halls of the Vatican museum with priceless artifacts and relics collected through the history of the Catholic Church in Rome.
My jaw literally dropped upon entering the doorway of Saint Peter’s Basilica. It is a palatial hall of marble and columns that draw your gaze up into the grandiose dome
Roman Forum - Ruins of the Empire
Everybody's talking about the fall of Rome. beneath which are the supposed remains of Saint Peter - the first Pope. Below the basilica are the tombs of the popes including John Paul II with the exception of the missing pope and Pius X who’s body you can see inside an altar in the basilica - his face covered with a bronze mask.
Our 2-star hotel was close to the train station and the standard of surrounding establishments was uniformly questionable. I never would have thought that after the worst meal of this trip in Paris (a very salty confit of dry duck) that my worst coffee would be in Rome. Bed and breakfast in Italy is generally not a good concept. We were served a stale bread roll with packaged fruit jam and a warm, brown, hot, watery concoction of something fouler than decaffeinated international roast. We abandoned the table and immediately bolted for the nearest bar with fresh chocolate brioche and espresso coffee. We also had to wander far to find reasonable options for dinner: across the city into its oldest part - The Trastevere - which is lined with osterias (cheaper eateries) where buskers will relentlessly unburden you of your small denomination Euro currency
if you chose to dine alfresco.
We also took the evening walking tour, with the same enthusiastic British guide, to see the interesting sites of more modern Rome. The highlights of which were: Camplidoglio - Michelangelo’s credible turn as town planner and his side project from the Sistine Chapel; the pantheon temple with the feat of ancient roman architecture - a massive dome open to the weather in its centre; Italy’s best gelato; the magnificent Trevi Fountain - crowded with romantics and pushy souvenir peddlers and the Spanish steps - where the likes of Shelly and Byron shouted their poetry from the window of an adjacent apartment to any who cared to hear it (and spoke English to understand it). Concluding this night’s walking tour here, it paid to follow the guide to his favorite wine bar where we sipped on a glass of robust Rosso de Montalcino and ate the culinary contribution of Rome: silky potato gnocchi dumplings in a rich tomato sauce.
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The full scene from Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian
Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and The Pantheon
The other famous domed temple of ancient Rome - discretely claimed and reconcecrated as a Catholic Church. from our fathers' fathers.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Stan: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point.
And what have they ever given us in return?!
Xerxes: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
Commando: And the sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
Reg: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads.
Reg: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--
Commando: Irrigation.
Xerxes: Medicine.
Commando: Education.
Reg: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
Commando: And the wine.
Francis: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
Commando: Public baths.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Francis: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
Reg: But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Xerxes: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace? Shut up!
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MISSY
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