Traffic
Urgh! I spent at least an hour every
day just waiting in traffic on the bus. Rome is... Look, don't
drive in Rome unless it's a moped or a motorcycle. There's zippo
parking for anything larger than that, bother drivers and pedestrians
gleefully engage in Frogger at every opportunity, and the mopeds will
break every single traffic rule in existence.
Most of the vehicles on the road are
mopeds by the way. They are the scariest of them all, I assure you.
Other drivers, both buses and otherwise are constantly honking at the
mopeds, and each other.
Romans are nuts.
So yeah, that leaves public transport.
The metro is quick, excellent, and puts you off near most of the
major attractions. Line A is cleaner than Line B, but both are good
routes. The trains on both are fairly clean, but since Line B trains
stop for the night above ground, they tend to be a bit more
colorfully decorated than Line A trains, if you know what I mean.
Some buses, like the H bus, may not be
listed as stopping at that bus stop, but they do. This one will drop
you off near the Capitol, and from there the Colosseum, forum, and
palatine aren't far off.
The signs at each stop will let you
know what buses stop there, and tell you what stops the bus makes.
Make sure you are heading in the right direction however. There may
be a red box highlighting the stop you are currently at, and if not,
it will tell you on the top of the sign, so you can figure it out.
Also, make certain you take the correct
exit from the metro. One of the stations has eight different exits
onto the street, but the Colosseum station only has the one, so it
depends on where the stop is.
Your hotel can help you figure out the
best path to where you want ot go, and the bus to take to get there,
but paying attention to get the right spot in the unfamiliar city can
be tricky. It rarely drops you off right at the attraction after
all.
Don't misplace yourself as badly as I
did!
I'm pretty certain when God was handing
out the sense of direction, I must have been standing in the wrong
line. I played Where's Waldo starring me as Waldo most of the trip.
I never was good at that game.
Graffiti
Love it. I love it! Rome has great
graffiti, even the ones that are just elaborate names. They seem to
let the good or entertaining graffiti alone, and remove the bad
graffiti. Get good enough and you can get jobs decorating the
shutters of Roman shops. My favorite graffiti was at the ice cream
place on the corner.
The graffiti there is everywhere but
the tourist areas by the way. Those seem to be the only places that
they keep clean of that bit of 'art.'
Nuns (and priests)
Rome is full of nuns and priests. This
makes sense, given the Vatican is in the area, and the sheer number
of churches there.
All of the priests are in black and
have the priest collar. Some have funny hats; some where robe or
slacks, but otherwise, it's pretty standard all over.
The nuns on the other hand...
There are way more nuns than priests,
and they come in an absolute rainbow of colors. The cut of the cloth
is basically the same, and most of the nuns are almost completely
monochromatic, down ot their umbrellas. They tend to travel in twos,
three, and fours, but almost never alone. I found the color of their
habits the most curious thing though!
Dark blue, bright blue, dark, light and
medium grey, white, brown, and so on! I thought I saw a nun in red,
but I have been informed it was probably a cardinal. (Who looked
like a nun?) Either that or a very brightly dressed woman.
I have been informed the color relates
to their order, but I am mostly entertained by the sheer variety.
One Final Byte: Nuns are the happiest
tourists of them all.
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