Lenka&Martin Travelservice - we plan vacation for you! ;)
Eternal City 2021:
It still stinks worse than jar of yesterday's piss left overnight on top of central heating. Termini is a beautiful place for scarcely dressed lonely female travellers with cute habit of asking directions in poor Italiano. Czech Sherwood squared. Public service is probably aware of heaps of trash boiling in summer heat like termite nests, while something black and vivid is oozing from trash cans just a few steps away. I think it killed all the flies, because I haven't seen any. Building's maintenance is completely left for it's fate, but I must admit that multiple layers of spray paint do a good job in supporting remnants of fine antic stucco on crumbling facades. Some apartment doors looked like gates to seven hells. Still, apart from all these insignificant details, Rome is quite a nice city. If you can hold your breath long enough to pass the worse streets.
Since modern Rome is built on leftovers of greatest collapsed civilisation of human history, antics are just lying everywhere like kid's toys. Even right at Termini station you can't miss Servian walls (first Rome's fortifications). And when it comes to main sights, nothing can compare to it.
Baths of Traian + park
On the way from Termini to centro you can't miss nice park with palms, suspicious pink trees and Terme di Traiano. Space of the original baths takes up measly 330 per 340m.
Colosseo
This time we were able to get in, because "post"-covid Rome was almost entirely touristless. 2 hours is enough to see everything inside and what is still standing is perserved enough to get a good idea how Anfiteatro Flavio looked like two thousand years ago. I especially recommend noticing elaborate system of levers and elevators in arena's floor that was used to deliver hungry and bloodthirsty lions to equally bloodthirsty spectators. My fantasy fails to picture hundred day's opening celebration games during which thousands of animals and gladiators were slaughtered. Rome surely needed bread and games back then (before the demand changed to aperol and cocain), but these were no fucking Olympics. You can use this site to check how Colosseo looked like before. Also do not miss Ludus Magnus, biggest gladiator school in Rome. It's partially uncovered remains you will find just next to Colosseo.
Forum Romanum and Palatine hill
Lenka was understandably bored by general remains (mostly what's still standing are crumbled walls of unimpressive height), but there are also some temples quite well preserved. I recommend catholic church built-in, houses of Augustus and Livia or Imperial palace from whose windows the inhabitants could watch games at Circus Maximus. Also it's clearly visible in Palatine museum that post-roman nations were very jealous of latin noses. There was not a single one intact. Forum Romanum is absolutely a wet dream of anyone not completely neglecting the existence of history.
Pantheon
The best monument in Rome. Agrippa be forever blessed by Jupiter for financing a construction of this tempio (I recommend to read his story - especially his childhood pact with Octavian). Nevertheless the domus, by then the greatest on Earth was built a bit later. Standing in the middle is completely mesmerizing. Catholic church desecrated the place in post-roman years by building christian icons inside, but I think at the same time this action managed to keep the structure for future generations.
Vatican + Museums
The square is pretty enough, but the museum was quite disappointing (when compared to Louvre) unless you are specifically interested in christian history. Sistine chapel is amusing, organisation around museum entry is not (changing e-tickets for real tickets, no really visible signs to point you from the square to museum entry). So for everyone - the entry is juuust some 1km around the corner from the square in Viale Vaticano. Personally interesting were items from ancient Egypt, including mummies and tombs, from Akkad, Babylon and Assyria, and some tools. These are either ceremonial (Pope holds the sacred spatula (svatá špachtle) during coronation performed by team of masons) or they are Pope's personal tools in case he wants to perform some sunday afternoon leisure time repairs on Sistine chapel.
Maybe also used by Pope's offspring for role playing as dual-hammer wielding paladins entering some abandoned church in countryside through red glowing hole in it's floor.
Medieval benchpress
Quiz: I leave discovering these men's identity to you. Both represented two most influential cities of Antiquity. If you know your way around history just a little bit, you will recognize them by their faces.
Capitoline hill and Hadrian's mausoleum
Best view in Rome. You definitely can't miss this.
Very nice view indeed
Cake
Before we continue forward, it's honest to admit that the weather tried to kill us. I was mostly resilient to it (being Level 4 Kalah instructor), but Lenka had to adapt from cruel Pilsen's climate and even undertook some diving lessons while I impatiently waited.
You don't need to carry water, these fountains are everywhere. I just don't recommend drinking this water for prolonged period of time, since it's full of calcium. As my friend laconically quoted: good for your bones, bad for your liver. Unless you wish your liver to resemble your bones.
Fishtalking exercise
Baths of Caracalla
Practically just next to Circus Maximus. Very well preserved when you take into account that it's about 1800 years old. Size: impressive. Do not forget that the structure still standing is about one quarter of original building. On a marble block of one of the pools you will find ancient piškvorky scratched into the surface with few latin comments.
Another (left) pair of nice view
Ostia Antica
Amazingly preserved Roman port on junction of mediterranean sea and Tibera river. It's basically not so small city with a billion of secret corners (if you don't mind crawling in restricted areas, where you are free to succumb to your personal dark desires), teatro, fortress, necropolis and true roman road (which is very hard to walk on with nowaday's sneakers). Especially interesting was a local ancient pub with bar, three rooms and menu, painted on the wall - it contained what seems to be a glass of water, turnip and two hanged apples. Ancient Rome might not have been such fun in the end.
Burial pizza ovens
Life is way too short in places and with company like this
Some nice scenery of Ostia with pine trees (clouds on sticks, as Lenka poetically expressed herself)
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Refreshments (with links)
Café Mémé - I would never guess such an average looking place will make the best fruit shakes we had there.
Grom Ice Cream - surprisingly one of our Kalah students serves there, but I didn't have time to check his reaction, as I was armed just with two spoonfulls of pistacchio and cioccolata ice cream. Ice cream too sweet for my palate, but otherwise good. Grom is also a name of very famous Polish special forces unit, meaning thunderstorm in Polish.
Grezzo - Undisputedly THE BEST ice cream in the city. Why? Completely bio, completely from raw resources. Incomparable to anything else, ice cream can't get any better than this.
Ditta Trinchetti - in Trastavere quarter, amazing food for normal Roman prices. Even though Lenka had some sneaky suspicion in the beginning, she enjoyed her lasagna very much.
O'Pazzariello - forget about touristic places and come here for true pizza napoletana. Probably the best pizza I had in my life, served in a completely inconspicuous place that everyone misses. There is nothing flashy, just fucking good food.
Ciamei Caffe - freshly roasted cafe in a cafeteria with very pleasant service and equally pleasant interior. Crostata is also very good.
Minor sights
Anywhere you go, you will find two things of paramount interest. Legs and bikes. In very rare cases also legs on bikes (not this time though). Some of the legs were already posted way above.
Sea
Two times there. Don't eat anything at seaside beach bars, unless you revel in digesting seafood that didn't crawl fast enough to escape humiliation in flour and painful death in deep basin of yesterday's boiling oil. Really terrible food habits, everything fried. Apart from that, we caught some good wind one day and played around like kids, oblivious of the possibility of decapitation by fast flying kite. Originally I wanted to visit Capocotta beach, but we were kicked out by a lonely guard - apparently it's presidential area and I didn't have a proper invite. (offering discreet Lenka's services didn't prove to be an appealing bribe. Offering my services didn't help either, despite the fact that google tells me Capocotta is favoured by LGBT community).
So that's about it this time.
End of report by Lenka and Martin Travelservice.
We will be back before you say Blueberry muffin.
