LetsTravelRome

Travel: My Roman Affair.

05 May 2006

Breathtaking. Fascinating. Magnificent. SYIDA LIZTA AMIRUL IHSAN was intoxicated by the sights and sounds of the historic city of Rome.

ROME was not built in a day, but my friend Tracy Toh believes you can cover it in less than 24 hours.

So it was that when we were in Florence recently for salabianca and philosophy-Men’s fashion shoot for its Ciao! Italia campaign, we used our free day to travel to Rome to immerse our senses in the sights and sounds of the historically opulent city.

We took the Eurostar from Santa Maria Novella, Florence’s main station at 9.30am. The 90-minute journey to Rome cost us about RM165 (one-way), an option we chose over regular train (half the price, but more than double the travelling time).

We arrived at Roma Termini, the city’s main station at 11am and headed straight to the subway for Barberini.

I wanted to buy a Rome Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) T-shirt and Toh wanted to show me the Fontana di Trevi. (Toh is familiar with the city, having been there many times. She also speaks Italian fluently, though she humbly insists that her skills are limited to touristic purposes).

Piazza Barberini is the meeting point of several streets like Via Barberini, Via Sistina, and Via Vittorio Veneto (where the Rome HRC is located). Traffic was swarming that morning with buses, cars and scooters that come with visors.

The square’s main feature is Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Fontana del Tritone (Fountain of the Triton). A figure, blowing water from his triton, sits in an open clam held together by four wide-eyed fish.

On one side of the piazza is the facade of Palazzo Barberini, named after one of Rome’s most powerful families. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, located in the palace, now houses a collection of paintings including Raphael’s portrait La Fornarina and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes.

Next, we walked to Fontana di Trevi or Trevi Fountain, which, at 25.5 metres high and 19.5 metres wide, is the largest, most ambitious and most beautiful of Rome’s Baroque fountains. The stonework is immensely captivating and the endless stream of tourists (and souvenir peddlers) is an indication of its popularity.

In seamless reaction, I found myself impulsively taking pictures, eager to capture the breathtaking view of stone-carved humans and animals.

In the middle of the fountain, Neptune stands in a free-standing column, flanked by Abundance who spills water from her urn and Salubrity who holds a cup from which a snake drinks.

We left the fountain for the Pantheon, a magnificent building constructed in 27BC as a Roman temple but was later dedicated as a Catholic Church. It was built during the reign of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and his name is inscribed on the structure.

It reads M.AGRIPPA.L.F.COS.TERTIUM.FEZIT which in English means “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul for the third time, built this”.

We wanted to enter but the huge crowd discouraged us and we headed for Piazza Navona instead.

They say if you have seen one church you’ve seen them all. But I was fascinated by each and every one that I saw in the Italian capital.

Piazza Navona is located on the site of Domitian’s stadium, once used almost exclusively for sports events, including the famous August regatta where participants wore the colours of the nobles and the civic clergy.

The attraction of the square is the famous Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini, dated 1651. It represented the rivers Danube, Ganges, Nile and Rio de la Plata, arranged on a steep rocky reef from which an obelisk rises into the air.

Another prominent 17th-century artist, Borromini built the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone, which stands in front of the fountain. There are also the Fountain of the Moor and Fountain of Neptune along the square.

“I think you have seen enough fountains for the day,” Toh said, after another session of picture-taking at Piazza Navona. The sun was shining brightly and we thought, why not have a gelato?

There are at least 35 flavours of the Italian ice-cream lining the counter at Giolitti.

The shop is small, with green signage and in one section, people were queueing for pizza and pasta for a quick lunch.

It was a task choosing which flavours to have. They spanned a dizzying spectrum and it would take days to try everything; from interesting (rice), intoxicating (Grand Marnier), fruity (pineapple) to normal (caramel).

I took the medium cone and the server plonked huge servings of gelato (in caramel, strawberry and pistachio) onto the crispy cone. The taste was heavenly.

Enough of sight-seeing, we went shopping instead at Via Del Corso, the city’s shopping district. We visited la Rinascente, Italy’s leading department store.

We also surveyed clothes in Etam, a French high-street label which is just average in choice and cannot compete with the variety and style found in other highstreet labels like H&M and Topshop.

We stopped at Zara and found the clothes the same as those in Malaysian stores (although, there is a better variety of shoes). The store also sells perfume and cosmetic products.

Before long, it was time to head back to Roma Termini for our 5.30pm Eurostar to Florence.

It turned out one day was not enough. I still want to visit the Vatican City, its museum, the massive Coliseum and see more churches and fountains. I bet it takes more than a lifetime to study Rome in all its different levels and complexities.

If you would like to experience Rome, and all its attractions then visit our website at Lets-Travel-Rome.com

posted by Les Sheppard @ 9:46 AM