When you get the chance to spend 10 days in a city you tend to see it from a different angle.
With 10 days in a location your schedule can include one intentional rest day and one unintentional sick day. You can see things at a different pace than folks who have only one, or even a couple or three days. You know where the grocery store is and have scouted out the street market so you can cook at home a couple nights. You can anticipate the signal turning green and stride confidently into the street like a local. You can go to the same restaurant twice and have the waiter greet you like an old friend as he sees you coming down the street.
Yes, we saw the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum and the Spanish Steps and Piazza Navona and the Forum and the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Basilica and 100 other things that are unique to Rome. What is harder to communicate is the sense of being there, where a good portion of early Western History was written. Walking down the street to dinner and passing a set of ruins being excavated with some interpretive signage added for us tourists is mind-blowing. Being in the Sistine Chapel is an intriguing experience when you think of the history the room has witnessed, never mind the art. Whether you’re a Christian or not, to think that a contemporary of Jesus’ ~ the Apostle Peter ~ was martyred and buried in this city, is a thing to be experienced. Walking part of the Appian Way as you tour the Forum complex……I mean seriously…….theres nothing like being in the place where all that stuff happened.
We went through AirBnB for our apartment in the Trastevere neighborhood ~ an up and coming location across the river from most of the ancient Roman sites. Gentrification looks pretty much the same in Rome as in Denver. Graffiti everywhere, intimate concept restaurants with a small but powerful menu, a smattering of obviously upscale housing with secure access, small businesses clearly struggling to make the transition to a new clientele, very tight parking, and a mix of young, urban “hipsters” dressed in the latest fashion interspersed and older folks classically dressed to the nines for a trip to the grocery store. Our apartment was on the top floor with a lovely outdoor balcony/hang out space and a good kitchen. We’d recommend the neighborhood and the apartment if you’re looking for a cool place to spend some time in Rome.
Would we live in Rome? No…..a big city is still a big city. Would we visit again? Yes, even with 10 days there are still lots of things to see and do.
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