The Modern Charm of Vintage Rome

We arrived in Rome at 8 in the morning one day and stepped into a beautiful early-morning hush of a city that’s already centuries old. The airport has a grand name and the gorgeous Vitruvian Man plastered above the baggage claim area, taking me into a portal of history.

Our taxi ride into the city was never going to beat the rush-hour traffic. Concrete walls lined the route, and I kept my face pressed to the window, with a strange mixture of “new place” and “I’ve dreamed of this before” feelings. The moss on old buildings, the narrow cobbled side streets, the slightly worn grandeur of Rome were really going to be in front of me in a few minutes!

The Back Alley and The Balcony

The neighborhoods felt instantly domestic, with trattorias and chimneys and the kind of streets with names like Via Marentino. We stopped in front of a six-story building with a plaque of names of the residents. There was a small old elevator that couldn’t fit our two bulky suitcases at one go that led us to the floor of the family-run hotel of 30 years. A room with two windows facing the back alley, and a bathroom that would make any hot-blooded American blush for its tiny size.

The evening light slipped away while we went in and out of the gorgeous balcony, lined with potted plants, and the balcony rail was cold under my elbows. Below, the alley and market hum were still fresh in my ears. I thought to myself that this could be a place to live, this could be a place to die.

The Fountain And Cobbled-Stoned Streets

One afternoon we walked to the world-famous Trevi Fountain. We were hungry, and the sun felt heavy. We sat on the steps of a McDonald’s near a street artist spray-painting, and people-watched. Tourists were enjoying gelato and haggling over stacks of fake Prada, Gucci, and Chanel designer bags. Well, I bought one knockoff too, come on, travel is always a mixture of the awe and the absurd.

We climbed up to the top of the grand Colosseum while listening to Rick Steves’ audio guide to the place. As we walked listening to him, we got shivers imagining the animals and the gladiators in the arena for a huge spectacle of humans hungry to see gore and violence.

At some point, I crossed paths with an old Roman man on the Spanish Steps, and I tried to understand his story as much as I could as we tried sign language and broken English and Italian. His house was nearby, and his wife was paralyzed. But he loved the city and came to sit here on the Spanish Steps to see tourists. We’ve come to see the city of stones and statues, and here he was staring back at us.

The Vatican

On Day 6, we caught the Metro to Vatican City—the smallest state in the world. As we stood in line for 3 hours to see the pope’s home, I thought of the parallel world of the Indian Hindu pilgrimage that so many of us take to see the God Venkateswara in Tirupati.

Inside the Sistine Chapel, looking up at the ceiling that Michelangelo had painted was spellbinding. Roman Gods looked Divine, and time suspended itself under what felt like painted heavens.

The Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo painted scenes from the Bible, and hundreds of human figures and angels on the enormous ceiling in the 1500s. Of course, the most famous image is that of God reaching out to Adam with their fingers almost touching, which is known as The Creation of Adam. I now own a 13-dollar magnet of this most recognizable image in Western art.

The painting behind the altar is called The Last Judgment, which has Christ and the Virgin Mary surrounded by saints. Even though these paintings are more than 500 years old, the energy in the room was different and not static. I just can’t explain the feeling in words.

Back to Reality

Of course, once I stepped out, life was back to basics. My kids were whining, the heat was unbearable, we ordered food, and the service fee was 30% extra. My “inner mom” ironically scolded me, “What did you expect? You’re outside the world’s most visited cathedral.”

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