Part of my study abroad trip to London and Rome in September is a series of blog posts about the things we see and do while on the trip. This is the third of four final required posts about the experience, and is about the idea of Rome in the literature we read pre-trip.
I could never connect with Forester’s view of Rome, but I think I started to get a glimpse of how Doerr saw Rome, but not while we were in Rome itself.
All of the time I spent within Rome always seemed to be too fast-paced, to much in a rush to be somewhere else and not enough time just leisurely enjoying being where I was. I think the day spent in Sperlonga though was pretty close to some of what Doerr talked about.
The sunlight over the fields of grapes, the lazy pace through the city, the history without crowds.
Doerr gave the impression of a Rome that was rooted both at once in ancient stone but also was somewhat ethereal. I think the closest I got to that was pulling away from the conversation and buzz and just leaning against the railing of the patio at the Minardi farmhouse and looking over the fields of grapes to the city of Rome far off in the distance with the storm cloud raging above it.
Maybe if we had been there for longer, or if I had cleared a day away and just spent that day doing nothing but sitting in a piazza somewhere and watching the city live, I might have gotten to experience more of how Doerr wrote about Rome, about living in Rome instead of travelling through it.
Next time.
This is the paradox of travel, isn’t it? We so want “to see everything,” and yet the way to really feel like one has been in a place is to slow down, enjoy the cafe life, take the measure of the place. Glad you captured a moment of that in Frascati. Bellisimo.
There is a tradition, as you read in Room with a View, of “the Grand Tour” of Europe. It takes a return journey to allow yourself to take a slower pace. In 2011, a friend and I spent three days in Rome where, other than the Vatican (and fortunately it was not so terribly crowded that day), we did what we called “Rome Free.” We wandered the outskirts of the Forum and Colloseum, ambled through the piazzas, sat near the fountains, lazily sat on the benches up in the Villa Borghese, drank cappuccino. Three days felt like a week! As our guest, Carol, told us–all of Rome is a work of art!