All roads lead to Rome, even rail roads. We hiked a good portion of the Via Francigena towards Rome but chose to travel the last bit by train since we did not want to hike through city outskirts and industrial areas.

Online, we had booked a quaint ‘hotel’ – the large room is a bit bare, like a hostel but with a private bathroom. It’s in a historic building that was likely an apartment building until it was converted to hotel rooms. There’s a lush green court yard (making it very quiet at night), a wrought iron gate, even breakfast of coffee and a croissant. And we’re less than a 10 minute walk from Roma Termini, the main train station. Once we arrived by train, we simply walked here with our packs and settled in.

With an old fashioned paper map, we find our way around to all the main attractions of Rome. The very first thing we want to see is the Colosseum. It’s late afternoon and the sky is grey. But we walk for a few kilometers through the city and suddenly, there it is – the famous curved walls on which the Vancouver Public Library is based. We walked all the way around it to see it from all angles as well as to the Roman Forum. We try to take the Metro back but the machines are out of change, or the printer doesn’t work, or perhaps it just doesn’t feel like helping the hordes of tourists lined up for tickets. In the end, we walk all the way back while the skies burst open. The first rain we’ve had on our month long trip.

We are constantly aware of pickpockets since we keep getting warned about them. On our one rainy night, we walked huddled under one umbrella, when suddenly I felt a hand in between us. I slapped the hand and a young man jumped away behind us. Somehow he tried to get into Kees’ pocket right in between us. To no avail but it brought home the warning again. We leave all valuables in the hotel and carry only a bare minimum.

Rome wasn’t built in one day… and you can’t see it in one day either. We spent a day walking across the city to Borghese Gardens, a huge city park full of families, people strolling, ice cream vendors and crazy bikes. We rented a bike-like contraption for two. It was heavy to pedal, then would suddenly speed up and was hard to brake. We almost wiped out but at least we didn’t run over too many pedestrians…. And we had a lovely picnic in the park.

From there, we walked to the famous Spanish Steps. Lots of people sitting on the steps, rose vendors and a cascading fountain. In my mind’s eye I saw Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. There are certainly enough scooters around, thousands of them. And tiny Fiats. And all sorts of other little cars. Bill Bryson in Neither Here Nor There gives the best description when he says “You come around any corner in Rome and it looks like you just missed a parking competition for blind people.” That’s exactly how it looks! Cars stick out, parked on crosswalks, cars with literally not one inch between bumpers. We are happy to use public transit here although traffic in Rome is not as bad as I had expected. It’s busy but at least cars stop when you start to cross the road. So far. Many side streets are solidly lined with scooters, almost as many as you see bicycles in Amsterdam.

There’s an astonishing amount of garbage on the streets. Cardboard, bags, bottles all piled up around lamp posts and overflowing garbage containers. Homeless people sleep in doorways, steps away from streets lined with Gucci and Prada shops. Street vendors and operators of little shops and restaurants are mostly from Bangladesh. I was shocked to even see homeless people on the streets of Vatican City.

We walked back across one of the bridges over the River Tiber, to piazza Navona with its ornate fountains and palace. We followed narrow alleys, past the Pantheon, to the Trevi Fountain, our favourite although it was packed with people. Obviously everyone in Rome – locals and visitors alike – enjoyed the warm October sunshine and strolled along the streets, sipping coffee and enjoying gelato.

In our next Italian blog, we’ll visit The Vatican! But I do want to share with you the most bizarre experience we had when we were practically back at our hotel near the train station after walking all over Rome. By then we were quite proud of how city-savvy we were and how we did not get robbed. A little car stopped, the window lowered and the driver hollered at me, waving a map. I cautiously approached, weary of those infamous thieves in Rome. A nice, older gentleman in an expensive suit asked if we could tell him how to get to the train station. This one one of the few places we knew, it was very close by. So, we told him and even gave him our map. He told us his wife was arriving at the train station. Did we know where to buy flowers? We didn’t… Then he reached down and produced a gift. “Here,” he said, “for you because you helped me.” He proceeded to tell us he was from Switzerland, with the Ferrari F1 racing team and this was the VIP gift bag for the Grand Prix with some very nice and valuable gifts, including a Max Verstappen watch worth over a thousand euros…. Could we give him some euros for flowers for his wife because, being from Switzerland, he had no euros. We fell for it and gave him some cash. Not much. To this day we’re not sure if we got scammed or not… As our son said, “Most people get mugged, you guys get gifts on the streets of Rome.”