Every one soon or late comes round by Rome - Robert Browning

The Presidential Palace

We set off at random again through the madness of the Roman traffic. Being a pedestrian can be a perilous business in Rome, even the police don’t stop at the crossings! Net’s strategy was ratified by the Roman tour guide the previous day: eyeball the drivers of the cars and motorbikes as they’re heading straight for you and keep walking. I was less brave and tended to just dodge them as they seemingly aimed their vehicles straight at me.

We got down to the Piazza Quirinale, with its eponymous, huge palace where the Italian president lives and took more photos of the guards - they’re a bit like the guards at Buckingham Palace in their ceremonial attire and rigid guarding stance.

It’s a short walk to the Trevi Fountain from there but this time it was much more civilised, with no tour groups but plenty of sightseers chucking coins into the water. It’s an offence to remove coins from the fountain and the money is given to charities. There’s a nice little church in the Fountain’s Piazza and I asked the priest if the ceiling painting was by Tiepolo but he didn’t understand me. Other tourists came in and took photos with flash, even though he kept telling them not to.

We then did more strolling and visited the Pantheon, on my list of must-sees. It’s free entry and it has a mind-blowing, huge and wide dome built with concrete by the Romans about 1900 years ago.

The Pantheon exterior

It’s supposed to be a solemn place because it’s a church and the tombs for two Italian kings, one of whom, Vittorio Emanuele has a huge, and I mean huge - but more about that later - memorial nearby. Monarchists keep vigil over the tombs, although Italy has been a republic since 1946. There is a recorded “Silenzio grazie”, repeated in four other languages, which is not as effective at quieting the masses as the stern guard in the blue uniform in the Sistine.

It was broiling hot again and the narrow, dusty streets were jam packed with people and cars; we walked up one street whose many fancy shops contrasted particularly with the potholed, rubbish-filled, grimy exterior. Then we reached the Spanish Steps, which were anti-climactic, I mean, they’re just steps, covered in camera-toting tourists but they do lead up to the Borghese gardens, which are full of delights and which provided us with plenty of entertainment in the coming days.

Net on the Spanish Steps

We spent ages walking through the gardens and ended up at a pretty little lake with a Grecian temple-type building nearby and rowboats. There are some fantastic views of Rome from the gardens, especially from the Napoleon Piazza, from where you can see across the Tiber to St Peters.

Views from the Borghese Gardens


The lake and Greek temple

It was very, very hot and we were drenched in sweat. We staggered down to the nearest Metro, a very grubby station called Flaminio and caught the train to Roma Termini, whose Metro station is even grottier!