Roaming around Rome

I realised after walking around Rome how much I've learned since I was last here 10 years ago.

In the last 10 years, I've developed a really passionate interest in history as a result of studying the History and Politics of Spain as one of my modules at uni, I can speak Spanish so much more comfortably now than I could then so picking up Italian is a lot easier, and I'm a much more experienced traveller, partly as a result of having been on more holidays but also as a result of having lived in 7 different places since then across 3 different cities. Taking a bus, metro or train in another country (or frankly even in the UK) used to be much more difficult for me to wrap my head around than it is now, and I think last time I was here I just followed the rest of my group without making any decisions myself. This has all led me to feel a lot more confident as I write this in Rome today than I did then.

In the context of the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain, 10 years are a drop in the ocean but it feels very significant to me.

As much as I know a lot more about Roman and Italian history now, I still found it very helpful to go to Welcome To Rome, a cinematic experience that brought the long history of this city to life and illustrated how the ancient structures here used to look. After that refresher, I was much more easily able to orient myself in both time and space, so enjoyed subsequently seeing Ancient Rome's historic sites, including a few I didn't get to see last time (partly because this time around it's about 10ºC cooler!)Read more