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Posted on by Rick Steves

If Paris is a Formal Garden, Rome is a Fertile Forest

My Rome guidebook is joy to update. While Rome used to be a jungle, now it’s a forest. In fact, if Paris is a formal urban garden, Rome is a fertile forest rewarding countless cultural truffles to those who know where to sniff.

Enjoying the new and strikingly modern building housing the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), I pondered the grand monument that kicked off the Roman Empire’s best two hundred years — the Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace.” They had what they wanted. Now, on their terms, there would be peace in the land. They were so dominant, with a military so huge, that — short of pesky little acts of terrorism on the fringes of its empire — there was no way for what it considered the barbarian world (anyone beyond its borders) to even quibble with dictates from Rome.

This Altar of Peace museum is so striking because it is literally the first building in the old center of Rome built after 1938 (when Mussolini shifted focus from construction to destruction). For the rest of my visit, the architectural charm of Rome was more clear — a city with no new buildings (and no electric lines, since everything is underground), coursing with people living well.

The city is infused with money. Things are actually working now: A fleet of new topless hop-on, hop-off tour buses (#110) is capped with a layer of wide-eyed tourists enjoying taped tours as they glide through the city; Lazio wine (from the region of Rome) is served with pride — I loved the Montiano; and the Termini train station is a sleek mall with everything you might want, and only a shadow of the rough edges that once made it the scariest station in Europe.

While not wanting to be ageist, I try to avoid old-school guides in my work. Too often, old-timers were trained by rote: “Loooook. Dees is dee Victor Emmanuel Monument. We no like…but eeees here. Loooook. Now you a see de beeeeeeautiful Trevi Fountain.”

Younger guides, on the other hand, venture away from the tour company scripts to explain today’s Rome. For instance, they explain that many politicians are corrupt, enriching themselves with their power. When some Romans vote, they actually slip a slice of salami into their paper ballot, check the box, and say, “Eat this, too.”

Comments

28 Replies to “If Paris is a Formal Garden, Rome is a Fertile Forest”

  1. It is amazing how a city that fell so many times through fire and war stands today as a new symbol of an growing international kinship and the evolution of thought.

    While the new open-top buses sound exciting, there really is nothing like cramming into a small closed-top bus with locals and tour-groups in the heat of summer.

  2. Regarding your comments on guides, I think the key is that since the city is always changing it is important to find a guide who updates their knowledge and is flexible enough to change. While the young seem to adapt to change easier, some of us “young at heart” somehow find ourselves adapting to the world around us. This blog is just an example of doing just that :) Happy Travels Rick!

  3. thanks for the invitation, rick. travel with you is always great. until i can get back to europe myself, your blog will keep me in touch with the goal. have a wonderful trip.

  4. General comment about travel in Europe …just got back from the UK, where it was very difficult to find anywhere willing to take a swish (signature) style credit card. At many retail outlets and transport facilities purchases could only be made with chip and pin credit cards, and I was told this was the case throughout Europe. Therefore anyone planning a trip to Europe this summer should not rely on using their credit cards; an ATM card and carrying large amounts of cash is unavoidable.

  5. Hi Rick,

    Just returned from a wonderful trip in Italy planned with your guidebook’s help. I have a new recommendation for you if you find yourself in Florence. It is called Bicycle Tuscany http://www.bicycletuscany.com/index.htm

    They pick you up in Florence and take you into the Chiati region for a 13 mile bike ride with Winery Tour and tasting(Machiavelli’s home where he wrote The Prince), hill town visit with lunch.. and lots of beautiful. No better way to feel closer to the beauty of Tuscany than on the back of a bike. The tour is run by an ex American from Colorodo who has lived in Italy for about 17 years. I must say that it was an excellent value and we learned alot.. At 60 Euros it ran from 10am to 5pm and included the lunch and wine tour. You do not have to be a pro bike rider to do this tour.

    Hope you have a wonderful time.

  6. Hi Rick,
    My husband and I, along with another couple, are off for our first ever trip to Italy. We leave on 4/17 for 17 days. I’ve been reading your Italy guide for months and based on your recommendations, I believe I will travel with one suitcase for the first time ever!

    Thank you for all of the great information.

    DIane

  8. Hello Rick,
    Its exciting to be on tour with you via your blog! I teach in Perugia in the summers and will head there on May 22 for my 6 weeks in Italy. I have alot of 3 day weekends to travel..but it is difficult to travel far with the limited time. I’ve been to alot of the hill towns, all the big cities above Rome. Where would you suggest I go this summer? My husband will be with me for the first 2 weeks…for an anniversary! Any suggestions? Do you not like Perugia? You have not mentioned much about in in your books.
    Ciao amico mio!
    Buona fortuna a te!
    Idalee

  9. Hi Rick. I was glad to have your guidebook along with me several years ago on a trip to Italy. My only stay ever at a hostel was in Rome-the Beehive. Nice place. I’m looking forward to receiving your new Croatia and Slovenia book in the mail tomorrow. I’m planning a trip to Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro in May/June and am eager to read your suggestions on Kotor and Mostar. Have a great summer. Phil White.

  10. Enjoy your latest adventure to Roma!

    I only wish I was there today as well.

    Perhaps I will include some salami with my mail in ballot next year….a wonderful idea!

  11. My family and I traveled to Italy last summer, hauling your guidebooks everywhere we went. We loved every day, except the nine hour flight back home.

    You are dead right about the “new” Rome–I fully expected to find a dangerous, dirty city where the only reason to visit is the antiquities. I couldnt have been more wrong—I found Romans to be very friendly and helpful, travel in the city to be surprisingly easy and the streets remarkably clean. We even happened to “bump into” the Pope as he conducted a mass right in front of our hotel, the Mecanate Palace!

    In fact, we liked Rome better than Florence for many reasons. We look forward to reading your updates for Normandy and Provence for our 2008 trip.

  12. Hi Idalee,
    Have you been to Carsulae? We love Italy and can’t seem to move on to other countries, including the US. In September, for the first time we stayed 2 wks. We put our friends on the train in Orvieto and left for Assisi by car, via either Perugia or Spello. Though we are mainly “Rick people”, I had looked in my old Eyewitness Italy guide and seen 3 routes to the area, with route descriptions.
    In Roman times, Via Flaminia was split into 2 branches from Terni to Foligno The western route was later abandoned. Medieval towns used outposts as quarries, but Carsulae never became a modern citta. We spent about 4 hrs there, almost by ourselves wandering Roman ruins in a field. There is, surprisingly, lots of info on the net. Try Wikipedia and this: http://www.italianvisits.com/places/carsulae/.
    We also tried to go to Gubbio as a day trip from Cortona, but we got there just as everything closed for lunch. Definitely, spend the night! Did get hooked on truffles in Umbria!

  13. Ever changing Rome is such a cultural experience. The City is so heavy with history, you can almost hear the ancients whispering to you. One could spend a year in Rome and most likely not see it all. It really has so much to offer just about any traveler. La Dolce Vita.

    Ciao!

  14. Rick, if you end up in a town called Suvereto, you might want to check up on a restaurant named Ombrone. I ate there a few years ago, and it was Unique. It had at least 7 different olive oils to pass around, a menu with 26+ kinds of coffee, and the coffee was served on a tray with 26+ different kinds of sugar. I had wild boar for dinner and still remember how savory it was (and I am a fish and chicken person.

  15. I was in Italy last year, having previously visited in 1995. I was impressed with the extended opening hours of some places like the Pantheon and the Forum (formerly only open in the morning), and with the restoration work that had been done. In the case of the latter, St Agnese’s church in Piazza Navona looked as good as new, and the statue of Marcus Aurelius had returned to the Capilotine hill.

  16. Your comment about politicians reminds me of my stay in Siena last month. The St. Catherine’s day ceremonies were in progress (a wonderful time to be there if you can’t make Palio) and I was standing in front of a hotel, where there was a car waiting for an important politician to get in and a police motorcycle escort was waiting to take him down to the square for the ceremony.
    I approached an Italian man standing nearby and asked who this important person was. His english was bad, so he had his son talk to me. The politician was something like Italy’s Secretary of the Treasury. As his son was speaking to me, the father turned to the son and told the son to tell me that the politician was “a piece of sh__”
    What fun it is talking to locals!

  17. The Italian soldiers we talked to at the McDonald’s restaurant, near the Spanish Steps in Rome, assured us, “There are no Italian soldiers, only Italian uniforms.” (1989)

    If we watch the drivers in Rome, we can see how their Army acted and reacted during WW II. The Italian drives as if there are no rules, and when there is a traffic jam or some other problem, he just gives up, throws his arms in the air, smiles as if to say, “No big deal, I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.”

    In Rome, Italy, people will be driving at 100 kpm, on a street with a posted limit of 50 kph, and regardless of how much I blow the horn, they won’t move over and let me pass. It seems like traffic lights in Rome are connected to car horns — each time a light turned green, we heard horns blow.

    Most countries have traffic “Laws and Regulations.” Italy has traffic “Hints and Suggestions.” Three guesses what a red light means, or a left turn lane, or a two lane road, or a Do Not Enter sign, and … … . (1985)

  18. It’s great to sea the Ara Pacis open again. I was in Italy two years ago and it was still closed for renovation. I was highly disappointed, but it gives me more incentive to go back! Regarding the Pax Romana, it is a bit of an exaggeration. Civil war still plagued Rome in between dynastic changes (especially 68-69 AD) and conflict with the Germanic tribes and Parthians was still a major aspect of Roman life. The Germans even wiped out three Roman legions (Augustus’ famous ‘Give me back my legions, Varus!)

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  28. Well Rick, I have to agree with you that Rome is beautiful city. I was there few times, and every time I was impressed. So many culture, monuments… Nice hotels, too. But on the other side, Paris is my favourite city. I was there number of times, and would get back again. Place where I’ve usually stayed is Hotel Sorbonne, because of nice atmosphere, and because this place is near all major monuments in Paris. Ok, maybe I’m little biased about Paris, but I like this city more then Rome.

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