At 1 pm, I decided to push for a walk. After waking at 10 and laying in bed until 10:30, I opened up the shutters, let in the light, facilitated breakfasts, showered and read through the Lonely Planet. Ailyn got up earlier than me by about a half hour and Sennen awoke only when I began roaming the apartment. This quiet, lazy Christmas went on until I thought we had grown too slothful to keep it up all day, uninterrupted. It took cajoling and some stink eye to get the kids to mobilize for a Christmas walk.
Little did we realize were far from unique. It seems the Trastevere area has enough tourists to make it worth a surprising number of businesses to stay open. It also seems there are enough muslim employees and/or business owners to operate a decent array of restaurants, gelaterias, bakeries, mini-marts/kiosks and a small, disappointing Christmas market.
People with backpacks and fanny packs, wearing their best walking sneakers, speaking every language but Italian meandered the narrow streets of the Travestere – often with children and strollers, sometimes with grandparents or just people old enough to be grandparents. There were Americans who said similar things to us, sounding like us – and French people having essentially the same conversations, but sounding much more elegant. And other people whose words I couldn’t understood, but I’m pretty sure weren’t so different from our family.
Despite having all the time in the world, no public transportation or taxis available and every attraction being closed, we did have one objective – finding the local laundry service and checking its hours to see if it will indeed be open tomorrow. We located the laundry, but it gave no clue as to its hours and when it will re-open. We’ll just have to hope and trust Google – but it is extremely conveniently close.
In fact, that’s the immediately noticeable difference with Rome. Unlike Venice, it has everything, everywhere all at once. There’s an entire world of key retail, food and services within a three-minute walk. And what’s beyond our immediately vicinity is highly accessible both with extensive public transportation and easily accessed taxis and rideshares. It turns out for 24 euros a person, we can have weekly public transportation passes good on buses, metro trains and above-ground light rail. We spent about the same per person per day on vaporettos in Venice.
On top of that – not that Rome’s housing is new by any means – our apartment is probably a lot newer than the homes in Venice. We’re enjoying bigger bedrooms, larger bathrooms, a much larger kitchen and better heating. Our personal comfort has taken a big bump which in turn made the sleep-in and lazy day feel all the better.
Our walk around Trastevere was delightful. Once the laundry reconnaissance was complete, we had no agenda.
We stood by the Tiber and compared and contrasted it to the Seine – a conversation I have to imagine happens all the time. We discussed seagulls that may or may not have had traumatic injuries (Ailyn worried a lot for them). Sennen had some gelato, Ailyn and I some tiramisu. We saw a pistachio pannetone we would liked to have tried, but decided it cost way too much – then hypothesized that beginning tomorrow, pannetone prices will be slashed in an After-Christmas Pannetone Sale. A Bangladeshi sales guy tried to convince Ailyn to buy a 150 euro cashmere blanket for a special 90 euro price. We learned to cross streets like Romans – or possibly just like a melange of tourists who don’t know the rules. We’ll know more on that tomorrow. We examined architecture and guessed the ages of different buildings – noting how many had older and newer parts. We discussed how Rome has been around so long it has layers of architecture, building, history and archaeology. We sampled suppli – the smaller Roman equivalent of arancini that according to Alex have become trendy of late.
Having seen little, but getting a sample from last night drive, today’s walk and reviewing the Lonely Planet – something this year I’m encouraging the kids to do so they have more context and can participate in creating our plans – we discussed how Rome seems a little like Paris, but less polished. Thus far, the group feels Rome is less polished and more organic than Paris.
“That’s kinda’ all of Italy from what I can tell,” Sennen said. “A lot of things are like France, they just aren’t as smooth.”
I smiled with my Francophile heart.
Also immediately clear is Rome is cosmopolitan – especially compared to Venice. There’s a ramen shop at the corner – open on Christmas Day no less. We saw Korean markets, Kebab shops, Indian restaurants and sushi. There’s a lot of Italian food, to be sure – and also a lot of variety. Even the Italian restaurants have more varied menus and the Roman style pizza appeals to me more than what we found in Venice.
Perusing the Lonely Planet made me realize, I have a conundrum I really hadn’t considered. In a city as old as Rome that has buildings from so many eras and influences from so many sources, how do we go about exploring the city? Because of how we’ve always traveled before, Ailyn likes less plans and sites and more walking and exploring, “You just walk around, see what’s going on and do that,” she said the other day.
It’s just another way to say “When in Rome, do what the Romans do.” Which seems highly relevant.
In France – other than getting us a time to visit the Louvre – that’s exactly what we did. Cannes and Paris were moving explorations. Venice was more or less the same except we chose districts of the city and I booked us a tour of the Doge’s Palace and a gondola ride.
I wonder, though – in Rome, am I doing the kids a disservice if I don’t ensure they see the ancient sites like the Coliseum, Pantheon and Palatinate? Is it okay to let their aversion to touring churches keep them from seeing Caravaggio frescoes and Bernini sculptures? We have a visit to the Vatican booked – so there is that. To what degree do I make sure they see the Renaissance still alive around them? Or the Baroque period alive and well inside a church? Do I quietly set us up for success by steering us toward the right areas, hoping they’ll want to walk inside? Or do I make the executive decision that you have to walk in and stare at the Caravaggio in the cupola because that’s what civilized people do? Love the tromp l’oiel, dammit!
Emily’s trip to Italy with her parents in her early twenties was being dragged to a lot of boring churches, eating some decent Italian food – but really only enjoying her time with her parents, which could have been anywhere. She has little recollection of the things they saw and had no real desire to return to Italy.
That’s not what I want for Sennen and Ailyn. It’s fine if this is the appetizer to other courses of Italy they have later or throughout their lives. I don’t need to cram it all down their throats. On the other hand, what if it’s the Caravaggio they thought would be boring that inspires and moves them? Sometimes one unexpected and beautiful thing shifts the entire direction of our lives.
I imagine I’ll be searching for the right balance of suggestion, insistence and relinquishment. I’m hoping the Lonely Planet and exploring the right neighborhoods will at least open a door or two – just enough that I feel they got something deeper than souppli and gelato from Rome.
At the same time, wondering about the lives of seagulls on the Tiber is not time wasted. I don’t think any of our travels have been.
Tonight we have reservations at a local restaurant. We’ll finish out the day and evening nice and easy. Tomorrow, maybe we take on the historic center of the city, or perhaps Trevi. Or wherever our weekly metro passes take us. The real exploration begins.
