I’ve discovered that I like Rome, and that November is a great time to visit.
I attended the EMBL Council meeting that was held in Rome in the last week of November, and the weather was balmy. People were sitting outside, eating in terraces and walking in shorts and t-shirts. The tourist volume was also very low, according to locals.
I’ve also come to the conclusion that Ryanair are bastards with carry on luggage allowance. They had us queueing in the departure lounge for half an hour while they measured that all carry-on bags fit in the little blue rack. There was drama in the queue as overloaded italians were complaining. I saw a man trying to close his suitcase by sitting on it, while wearing 2 winter coats. He also had fabulously chavtastic bling and designer stubble. Fantabulous!
We made it to Rome without major hiccup. It was amazing to see Roman aqueducts from the air, right next to modern train tracks. The hotel, apparently a very posh one, was rather bemused at my dietary requirements but they did their best not to kill me. One thing I discovered about Italy is that everybody – and I do mean everybody – says that “the rules are just a suggestion”. Crossing the street becomes a challenge. Apparently the key is to show no fear. If you blindly set out from the corner, the traffic will stop. If you’re hesitant, they’ll ignore you. Either way, you run a good chance of still being run over :)
There was a little memo card on the desk in the hotel, saying that local fire prevention regulations prevent ironing/tea making facilities from being made available in the rooms. This little memo card was located right next to an ashtray and complimentary pack of matches.
Indeed.
I made a tactical error when I thought that the formal council dinner was on the Tuesday and our informal Staff Association dinner was on the Monday. Turns out it was the other way around, so I ended up going to a very posh dinner with all the council delegated wearing blue jeans and a sweater. The good news was that I was with the rest of the plebs, way at the back of the room, so nobody really noticed or cared. The food was good, the wine was ample, which was a very good thing considering that there was about an hour of speeches with a non-functional microphone. The people at the head tables seemed to be enjoying them, but the only thing we heard of the speeches were sounds of Charlie Brown’s mother. This again being Italy, a dinner that was supposed to be ending at 10 was cut short at 11:30, when we were told that the buses were leaving in 5 minutes (and most people had just been served their pudding).
I had a decent breakfast the following morning, fuelling up for a full day of listening to people (thank god for wifi). I had lunch with the council delegates from the UK, Luxembourg and Finland. The council meeting went well and we got through the agenda in one day. All the contentious points passed (though one required a bit of back-room deal-making, but such is politics).
I ate more pineapple and rocket than I can remember in recent times, and drunk way too much (good!) coffee, which is probably a good thing considering all that wine.
We had time to go walking on Tuesday night, before going to our SA dinner. We went to the Pantheon and then crossed the Tiber to go to a restaurant in Trastevere called Ripa 12 that is supposed to be well known for its fish. I tried some really nice tuna carpaccio and had excellent swordfish. And more wine. And then GELATO! At midnight. In November. Brilliant :)
The italian mentality for not giving a damn about the rules came up again while we were heading back to the hotel. We were told never to buy a bus or tram ticket. They have to pay people to check them – so they don’t – and if they do happen to find you without a ticket, they generally just drop you off at the next stop.
On Wednesday, I channeled my inner Italian and decided to go to the Colosseum and to the Forum in the time I had before my flight back to the UK (I even took the bus without a ticket on my way back!). I had a really good time at the Colosseum and my piece of advice is to always book a tour guide. It cost me 20 euro to get ticket entrances to the Colosseum and the Palatine gardens, with guided tours for both. This might seem a lot, but if you consider that entry fees for both are generally 12 euro, and you get 3 hours of tour guides in total, that’s not a bad deal. What’s the clincher though is that you bypass all the normal queues! That’s worth the money by itself.
I wish I had had more time to visit the Palatine and the ruins of the Forum, but I had to cut my tour short so I wouldn’t miss my cab to the airport. Still, I had a very good morning and took lots of pictures.
All of these, and more, are available here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/rome_nov_2009/
My flight back was uninteresting and I wanted to kill the drunken lot behind me, but such is cheap air travel. The airport gods were clement on the way back though, because I managed to get through immigration and baggage reclaim at Stansted in less than 10 minutes. Unheard of!
Random quote of the airport, as said to a custom’s officer: Excuse me sir, but somebody’s sausage fell out near the baggage carousel.
The gods giveth, the gods taketh away. Our cab driver managed to misplace his parking ticket, so he had to make his way back to the terminal and get that fixed. We came back fairly chipper though, and when I asked him what sort of fine he had to pay, he said it was only £2. I asked him was his secret was and he said that he looked pitiful and sorry for himself. I said that that normally only works if you’re blonde and perky, but he said that it also works if you’re old and senile :)
Made it home, kissed Katy, ate take-away. All in all, a good trip :)