Travel Europe Through Books

“I have forgotten what it is like to be surrounded by quiet.”

–Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome. 

If you get the hankering for a spontaneous city trip to Rome between April and September – just don’t. Whatever you think you saw on that Instagram post or whatever travel videos on YouTube you watched that make you think that you should drop whatever you are doing and jet off to any Italian city on a “last minute deal,” sit on your hands and ask your spouse to hide your credit card until you recover from that urge. Book a table at the local Italian restaurant if you must to scratch that itch for all things Italian but for the sake of your nerves and sanity, do not get on that airplane. What you think you will be able to do when you arrive is simply not possible. 

Before my most recent visit, I was seduced by the velvety memoir called Four Seasons in Rome by the Pulitzer Prize winning author Anthony Doerr. I was googly-eyed once again for Rome as Doerr describes from 2005 in his book. The eloquence of his spontaneous notes in his diary made me hopeful that the invitation to indulge in life I experienced in 1992 would still be valid in 2023, even in the anthropocene epoch of global tourism. I found the Colosseum still there but the mood in the city has turned aggressively commercial. Throngs of shucksters and opportunists have replaced the gypsy children that stand at the ready at every tourist attraction to relieve you of every dollar or euro that is not tattooed to your body. Despite Rome being known as “The Eternal City” it is unfortunately not an unchanging place–and it has changed for the worse. 

Both Elenora Clark in 1950 and Anthony Doerr in 2005 in their respective literary memoirs express a sentiment about Rome, and I paraphrase: There is “too much of everything”. The city is larger than life. History is stacked in as many strata throughout the ancient city center as a pastrami panini. The gelato cafes have over one thousand flavors of ice cream to sample. There are more types of cheeses than you can count on your fingers and toes. Every chapel and cathedral is decked out like a Dolce & Gabbana boutique. You can even visit Baby Jesus’ crib! (because Jesus was born in Italy, or haven’t you heard?) Rome has been the center of gravity in the western world for nearly three thousand years. In those three millennia the town has heard it all and seen it all; from promiscuous Popes or Germanic heathens. Rome does not blush nor wince easily. You must eat Rome like one of Hannibal’s elephants–in small bites. 

The best time to visit Rome is when the rest of Europe is in the Alps, skiing, in January or February, or have just gone back to school in early October. Rome in the high tourist season is not for the faint of heart and requires extensive and coordinated planning. The five things that you will NOT be able to do on your visit in Rome if you have not planned ahead by at least seven months and three quarters, are the following:  

To succeed at visiting these five top attractions one must take into consideration the opening days and times of the desired attraction, secure tickets AND reservations for everybody in your party, or else two people may need to sit outside and wait while the “lucky ones” are corralled through the Sistine Chapel with nine hundred strangers.

If you are a brave, hearty soul and take your children with you during a school holiday you will be happy to know that there are some places still that children are still admitted for free* (*conditions apply). While children may not need to pay admission they will need to prove they are younger than eighteen if they look older than fourteen. Valid ID is required at the door. Just because the admission is free doesn’t mean that they don’t need a ticket. Free tickets can be “purchased” via scanning a QR code at the ticket office. If you succeed at “purchasing” a free ticket for the kids, those children may also need a reservation to visit the attraction. Should no reservation be possible during the week, the kids will have to wait outside dodging Bangladeshi vendors pushing everything from sunglasses to umbrellas who do not understand the word “no” in any language.    

There is no reason, rhyme or order to the process and no enforcement or suggestion of best practices. You will need to tap other tourists on the shoulder and ask them (kindly) “what time is your reservation for?” If both parties share a common language you can ask (kindly) if you can go ahead of them if your reservation is before theirs. And so on and so on until you find others with a similar reservation time. Be warned that the reservation that you have carefully printed out and brought with you from home may need to be exchanged for an actual ticket, so please, show up very early, as the line to claim your reserved ticket may be forty minutes long as well.

Finally, If you have a valid ticket and you have arrived on time for your reservation you will need to stand in the right line, and not in the line for those who do NOT have reservations. The line for those WITHOUT reservations will not be clearly marked as such and may very well be moving faster than the line for visitors WITH reservations. If in doubt, do not ask the people in front of you because they are just as confused as you are. When you arrive at the front of the line and the attendant asks if you have a reservation to visit, before answering yes or no, you must ask in return, “Do I need a reservation for this line?” If the answer is no, go in without showing your reservation. If the answer is yes, show your tickets and reservations. Warning: If you show your reservation at the front of the line that does NOT require a reservation, you will be sent to the BACK of the line for visitors WITH reservations. So, play your cards close to your chest and do your best to bluff if you want to see what is inside any of the top five tourist attractions listed above or you will leave with some great photographs of you and your group OUTSIDE these world famous attractions…like me!

For those who are not able to get reservations to visit Rome’s top five attractions during their visit please know that there is an endless choice of restaurants in Rome that serve food that is better than anything you have ever experienced anywhere else in the world that do NOT require reservations, and the lines are usually non-existent. So while you’re pouting about not being able to visit the Villa Borghese’s art collections you can cry into a hot bowl of melanzana, savor handmade raviolis, dig into a deep burrata salad, crunch thin crust pizzas or salivate over a succulent knuckle of rosemary lamb. I guarantee that you will start to feel better fast!

In contrast to the eternal hustle and bustle of the metropolis, meals in Rome can be a welcome unhurried, mindful experience that are worth slowing down for. The smiles over a steaming bowl of freshly made pasta and mind blowing pizza are just as brilliant as those inside the Colosseum, Pantheon, Vatican Museums or even Villa Borghese and makes visiting Rome worth it, even if you may not able to see and visit everything you had hoped to. 

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