I made my first, and so far, only, visit to Rome in October 2022. It followed a tough year for me and my family so it was a welcome break and something I had on my list for several years. I had originally planned to go in March 2020 but the Covid pandemic came along so that trip didn’t happen and everything was put on hold. Since going I have promised to return as the city is fantastic from a historical, culinary, and cultural perspective. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit many cities and Rome is now in my top 3. Maybe I was lucky, but the climate was excellent and so were the people I met. I hope this will be of interest and my experiences will possibly help you to plan your own trip.
I’m a flexible solo traveller so I didn’t give a lot of thought to how I got there, and I wanted a decent hotel to stay in a central position. I don’t usually book anything except a room as I plan to get my meals out, either cafes, restaurants or street food. I wanted to visit the famous ancient sites, enjoy the food and wine in the bars and restaurants. Sounds simple enough!
Before I went I did a little research on Rome for inspiration and came across a TV Series with Stanley Tucci, Searching for Italy [1]. I have to be honest, at the time I didn’t know who he was. However, I thought the programme was fantastic and subsequently found out more about him – so there’s more to come on Stanley’s influence in future blog posts.
As a fan of ancient history, I enjoyed listening to The Ancients podcasts [5] and The History of Rome [6]. My intention was to also visit 19th & 20th Century sites relating to Mussolini and others but that was going to be a stretch on this week-long break. A brilliant podcast on Rome is An Audio Guide to Ancient Rome [3] and website with maps [4] by Daron Green. Excellent to download and listen to before a visit and during my stay, I’d listen before, on the journey and when I was there.
My itinerary was to fly to Naples on Day 1, take a taxi from the airport to the train station and travel to Rome by train. Day 2 to 6 were whole sightseeing days, Day 7 travel to Naples and explore, and, finally, Day 8 travel home, hopefully, exhausted.
On my sightseeing list were the famous Roman sights; The Forum, The Colosseum, The Pantheon, The Vatican, Trevi Fountain plus locations from the Stanley Tucci series [1].
So what did I learn? Stanley Tucci and his passion for Italian food, great sourced, well prepared and cooked food – and the joy of cooking, was very influential. Plus the locations he visited in Rome, which in turn added to the ancient locations I’d learnt about from my podcasts.
More on Rome in future posts.
Thanks for reading.
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Notes & References:
[1] TV Series, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (BBC & CNN). Season 1, Episode 2 on Rome. The link is to the more useful Wikipedia page, also found on CNN & BBC websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Tucci:_Searching_for_Italy
[3] Podcast, An Audio Guide to Ancient Rome by Daron Green. Excellent to download and listen to before a visit and during. The link is to an Apple podcast but it is widely available
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/an-audio-guide-to-ancient-rome/id1532659084
[4] Website, The companion site to the podcast series ‘An Audio Guide to Ancient Rome’. A great source of info
[5] Podcast Show, The Ancients from History Hit, there are many podcasts on Rome and wider Roman history
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988
[6] Podcast Show, The History of Rome by Mike Duncan, over 180 episodes. Excellent to download and listen to whilst travelling to Italy, before a sightseeing walk and also during
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-history-of-rome/id261654474
