It's one of the most frustrating, hellish places to live, but also one of the most elegant, historic and vibrant, writes Paddy Agnew.
After almost 20 years of living in and around Rome, I still get a strong buzz when I walk into the city's centro storico. For a boy from Kilrea, Co Derry, the Eternal City remains exotic, especially at night when it becomes a real life opera set of hopelessly romantic backdrops, peopled by the most elegant, languid and glamorous humans on the planet.
This, quite simply, is far from wet and windy Rasharkin and that, quite simply, is why I like it. History is all around you. Even the manholes in today's Roman street still bear the cipher, SPQR, "Senatus Populusque Romanus", a mundane municipal reminder that this place has seen empires come and go, has had its day as the world's only superpower.
The remains of that imperial past are obvious, from the Colosseum to the Forum. Then too, Rome is still the centre of Christendom, given that the Old Man in White still has his impressive tent pitched here. What may not be so evident, however, is the extent to which Rome's more recent past remains all around one, practically untouched.
Last summer, on a warm, humid August nights made for late-night rambling, we visited a photographic show entitled Rome, Past and Present. If ever you had wondered what the Rome visited by Keats and Goethe looked like, not to mention that visited by Henry James a century later, then this was your chance.
The exhibition, based on material from the Alinari and Braghi archives going back to the 1850s, contained some astonishing images, such as that of cows grazing in the Ancient Forum or goats forging about Trajan's Market. Yet, perhaps the most remarkable pictures formed a series which contrasted the Rome of 150 years ago with modern Rome, placing pictures of prominent streetscapes taken in the mid-19th century alongside shots taken from exactly the same position in 2003.
The result was the magic of Rome: the not-surprising discovery that in almost every case, the streetscape has remained untouched, be it ancient Roman, renaissance, baroque, Victorian or Vatican. To walk around the narrow streets of the centro storico, especially on a traffic-free summer's evening when "Romani" are out for their passegiata, perhaps in search of an ice cream, is to understand both the instinctive elegance of Mediterranean living and also the real meaning of the term, "street theatre".
At this point, however, one needs to take a reality check. Yes, Rome traffic is hellish. Yes, Rome is a frustratingly difficult city in which to work. Yes, Rome is not a child-friendly environment. Yes, you can spend hours queuing at the post office or the bank, just to pay your bills.
I have never met a modern Roman yet who does not agree with all of the above. With good reason, Romans spend a lot of time and energy organising the weekend exodus to their second (or third or fourth) house in the country, in the mountains or by the sea.
The first-time visitor to Rome needs only to spend two hours in the city centre to realise, both from the ad hoc parking arrangements and the quasi gridlocked traffic, that Rome does not have the infrastructure of a great, modern capital city. Partly, this is because it stopped being a major economic and industrial centre 1,700 or so years ago. Partly, too, this is a question of political will (or lack of it) and corrupt or inefficient local government.
The foreigner in Rome can make his/her choice - take it or leave it. We opted to leave - leave Rome that is, but not Italy. That happened about 15 years ago when Róisín was a six-month-old baby. We were living in a leafy Roman residential suburb called Montesacro.
Suburb it might have been, but, even there, it was impossible not to conclude that Rome was not child-friendly. Cars were and are everywhere and their exhausts are exactly at baby buggy level. To go out for a walk with baby was to subject her to industrial quantities of carbon monoxide poison.
Accordingly, we moved to the small village of Trevignano Romano, 55 kilometres north of Rome on Lake Bracciano. We wanted space, clean air, and a less frenetic, more human environment. Surprise, surprise, we by and large got them too. In that sense, then, it is perhaps rather too easy for me to wax lyrical about the romantic elegance of Rome. After all, I don't have to live there any more. Be that as it may, I almost never travel into the centro storico from my provincial base without feeling a genuine sense of uplift on being plunged into the drama of everyday street life in Rome.
One of the attractions is that the relatively small city centre is still inhabited by Romans, admittedly those who can afford city-centre prices. Furthermore, areas such as those near Piazza Navona or the Pantheon or the Trevi Fountain are not exclusively made up of bars and restaurants, as in a purely tourist town, but also contain a range of artisan shops as well as ordinary alimentari or grocers.
My barber has his little shop less than 100 metres from the Trevi Fountain, while the leather shop that occasionally repairs my briefcase is just off the Spanish Steps. Likewise, the Foreign Press Bureau which I use as an office base is about 100 yards from Palazzo Chigi, Italy's government house, while I buy both perfume for the Baroness at Castelli's and Valleverde shoes for myself on all-fashionable Via Frattina, just 200 metres away.
I have learned, too, to love the noise, clatter and extraordinary efficiency of the crowded Roman bar where, often in the square meterage reserved for an Irish phone booth, you can have everything from your morning cornetto and cappuccino to a full lunch, and all of it done, pronto, pronto. Based on recent experiences in Ireland, I would humbly suggest that if the average worker in the Irish catering industry were to spend a week's apprenticeship in a Roman bar, their productivity rate would quadruple.
I love, too, the democracy of the Roman bar where the elegant, middle-class signora elbows her way through, side by side with the guys from the building site across the road. Bars and restaurants are, generally, one of the great joys of Rome living. People often ask me to recommend a restaurant. I usually reply that they can choose from about 3,000 available possibilities. If you look for a trattoria (often small and family run) and if you ask the waiter what he recommends rather than asking for the menu, then you rarely go wrong.
As I write now, the temperature in downtown Rome is close to 32 Celsius. That can be no fun, especially for the Irish visitor. We solved the heat problem, to some extent, by choosing to live outside Rome. This is the time of year when that choice seems most winning. Press conferences, papal trips and football tournaments permitting, the Agnew working day can be pleasurably interrupted by downing computer tools and jumping on the bike, headed for a dip in the lake (always wearing regulation Irish Times foreign correspondent dinner jacket, of course).
This, too, is the time of year when the (hard) working day begins with an intense perusal of the newspapers, sitting over the cappuccino and cornetto down at Jolo's bar on the lakefront. One sits, one reads and one reflects that this really is "work" (very tough) and that, furthermore, it is far, far from Kilrea.
Thursday: Conor O'Clery on New York
When in Rome
After you've seen the sights:
Giolitti's ice cream parlour Situated in Via Uffici del Vicario, just down from the Italian parliament in Palazzo Montecitorio, Giolitti's must be the most elegant ice cream parlour in the world. Your correspondent once treated Gerry Adams to an ice cream, there. Not many people can say that, can they? The ice cream is delicious.
Rooftop bar at the Hotel Eden
If you are feeling flush,
try the rooftop bar in the Hotel Eden on Via Ludovisi, just off Via Veneto. The prices are astronomic
but the view out over the Spanish Steps across Rome to the Vatican will make it an aperitivo with a difference.
Terme dei Papi, Viterbo
The Terme dei Papi, the Thermal Baths of the Popes, are not actually in Rome but rather in the old pontifical town of Viterbo, about 80 kilometres north of the city.
If your aching feet have had enough of the tourist trail, then the thermal waters in Viterbo will do you no small good.
Furthermore, there is a free daily navette service from Piazza Mancini in Rome.
Three things I miss about Ireland:
Banter and chat: Without much originality, I have to claim that I miss nothing about Ireland as much as the good-natured banter, informed chat and pungent observations of the Irish themselves. Be they friends, relatives or complete strangers, the Irish are nearly always great company. What is more, they never have to go home to bed at 10 p.m.
Horse racing: Having grown up in a horse-mad family, having showjumped and ridden in point-to-points in the misspent youth and worked in racing stables as a student, I badly miss horse racing. A visit to the Leopardstown Christmas meeting has long been a highlight of the annual Christmas pilgrimage back to the auld sod.
Wet and windy days: No, folks, I was just joking. Strange to relate, I honestly do not miss the year-long Irish winter of rain, rain and grey.
