View this beautiful video of Rome and Maestro Franco Zeffirelli’s tribute to the eternal city with stunning cinematography accompanied by the magnificent voice of Andrea Bocelli. Omaggio a Roma.
Rome
Rome Hotels Need to Raise Standards
Passion for Italy has a policy of visiting and checking out our accommodation personally before we send our clients there. Unfortunately the standard of Rome hotels is always disappointing to me. Have seen literally hundreds of hotels, bed and breakfast, and apartments in Rome sometimes I am literally shocked to the eyeballs at the quality.
I feel like saying to them – you expect my clients to pay $400 a night for this pathetic room in which one cannot hardly fit two people??!! I wonder if they notice the look of shock on my face. In other towns of Italy i have a look of shock due to the magnificence and beauty of the rooms but sadly never in Rome.
This is one case in which the world should not do as the Romans do. Yes I know over 20 million tourists pass through Rome each year and the Romans in the hospitality industry are very spoilt. They don’t have to work hard for the never ending supply of money that comes their way. The Vatican and their 2000 year old antiquity are literally pots of gold that draw the tourists. Rome is the most visited city out of the whole world in tourism – they have it made – lucky them.
However in saying this their quality of rooms that are on offer is always disappointing to the average tourist from America, Australia and England where the standard of hotels is greatly higher. Some of the four and five star classic double worth over 400€-500€ per night are not better than a superior room at a three star hotel for half the price. Romans are too tight to bother renovating!! Tired old rooms fifty years old with worn carpets are the norm.
What I don’t like is the snooty attitude that the staff develop towards guests that almost make one feel that how dare they stay at their hotel. It is almost like they are doing you a favour by allowing you to stay when you are paying through the nose for a bed for the night. There seems to be no value for money concept with the Roman hotels.
I am of the opinion that Rome should come up to the standard of the rest of the world with their standard of hotels or lower their prices are they are an absolute rip off.
Yes I know it is a matter of supply and demand and the tourists demand and the Romans supply – anything and it is accepted due to large amount of bookings needed but still – why does the world accept such low quality. It is because the city is magnificent but the hotels are not.
Out of the hundreds of places in Rome I have seen there are only three places that I can honestly say, are worth the price and the service. One is a very small residence and one is a bed and breakfast with very large suites and one is a hotel that is not in the centre.
The hotels – alas – I must keep searching. I would like one day to be able to walk into a hotel in Rome and think wow this place is magical instead of cringing. I don’t like my clients being ripped off. Raise your standards Romans to the level of the magnificence of your city.
The Great Artists of Italy
As I work and travel around Italy every year, I have visited many of the major museums in Italy. On my first visit to the Galleria degli Uffizi in Firenze over 25 years ago, having never formally studied Italian art history, I was simply overwhelmed. It was all too much for me. So many paintings of such great artists – I thought how can I get to know them all. Youth is impatient – I wanted to know them immediately and as I had completed a science degree I thought – oh no I should have done an Italian Art history degree!!
It has taken me many years and many trips to Italy’s famous museums to learn about Italian art and of course educating myself from many great Italian art books. I pick them at second hand book sales and now have quite a collection so if I need to know something about an Italian artist I go to my books. It has developed into a passion for genius. I have such respect for their genius – that some humans have been able to obtain such mastery in their field!! I want to fall down on my knees to pay homage to them.
The great Italian artists were all genius!! Michelangelo, Bernini, Caravaggio, Titian, Piero della Francesco, Da Vinci, – there are so many… When I gaze at Michelangelo’s “La Pieta” in St. Peter’s Basilica in Roma, it brings tears to my eyes. He was such a deep, sensitive man to be able to express the grief of a mother in stone – it always stupifies me every single time. “La Pieta” is such the perfect name for this statue as well. It evokes so much compassion.
A tragedy that it is now under glass and that it moved a man so much that he had to attack it with an axe many years ago to try to kill it to stop the emotion that was coming out in him!! I consider La Pieta the best sculpture in the world for all reasons as well as those principles according to sculpture. I have seen many all over the world but for a piece of stone to move one so emotionally says it all – the perfect sculpture in such an amazing place!!
Snow in Rome – Neve a Roma
During the January freeze in Arcidosso, Tuscany, my brother Oscar and I kept asking members of his beloved host family, whether it would snow the next day. We joked about the possibility of Australians doing a snow dance and they said maybe later in the winter it would come and we would sadly miss it.
We both prayed for snow as it is a novelty for us Brisbanites and we wanted to see the town blanketed in white like some photos we had seen. Oscar parted for Australia soon after and the cold continued for me down in bella Roma. I therefore continued my quest for snow and questioned some Roman friends whether this was a possibility….
Many laughs were had and some said maybe in the mountainous surroundings but never really in the centre. However, two years previously the Romans had some light snow/sleet and a day of quasi-snow and before that it had only snowed extensively in the cold winter of 1984/85.
A week or so later, the same friends that quaffed at my suggestion of snow, expressed feelings of concern that snow would fall heavily all over central and northern Italy the following night. I scarcely believed them and the Roman weather forecast but the secret Australian wishes for snow were granted that very night in early February…
An eerie silence fell upon Roma at midnight as the flakes began magically appearing out of the surprisingly dark sky. I happened to be at my favourite nightspot ‘Circus’, with a few Romans game enough to be out and about that night. The excitement was contagious as the snow continued with many of the locals in disbelief of the fact.
Some had never seen so much snow fall in their lifetimes as the famous cobblestones disappeared with layers of beautiful and huge flakes!
By the time it was time to finally close and leave the warmth of the bar, Roma was “sotto le neve” or literally under the snow.The walk home was taken carefully not to fall and break something and also with awe and wonder at the serenity of snow capped churches and piazzas.
A walk through a white-out Piazza Navona was something worthwhile to remember and the experience was completed with a tip toe home to sleep in Trastevere with that beautiful squeaky sound of snowflakes compounding under your feet. Biggest Roman snowfall in over 40 years, and the entire country was shutdown with snow even gracing the shores of southern Puglia. Unheard of, I was lucky to witness the spectacle.
By Edward Close
Epiphany Fair in Piazza Navona ,Rome
On January 5th, the Piazza Navona in Roma, opens up to a fair of toys, sweets, and other presents among the beautiful Bernini fountains. Nearly two weeks after Christmas, celebrations are still in full swing as the Piazza becomes a huge open air market for stocking fillers for La Befana (the Italian equivalent of ‘Santa Claus’) when she visits on the night of the 5th January.
Specialties include toffee apples, traditional giant doughnuts, candy canes, sweet ‘carbon lumps’, and virtually every other type of sweet imaginable. Chidren can play on the giant Carousel, traditionally placed in the centre of the Piazza. On the night of the 5th, La Befana herself pays the children a visit before flying off on her broomstick to visit all the children of Italy while they sleep, leaving each one gifts and sweets.
The story of La Befana has religious ties, and describes an old woman who was known for spending her days cooking and cleaning her small home, who on the verly first Christmas, was visited by the three wise men was had stopped by her house to ask for directions to Bethlehem. The old woman took pity on the men who were tired and still had a long journey ahead of them, so asked them to stay the night.
During dinner, they told her that they were going to visit the Christ child and asked her if she would like to join them. She declined, as she still had dishes to wash, floors to sweep and chores to do. The next moring, after the men said their goodbyes and went on their way, the old woman suddenly regretted her decision to stay behind and so ever since, on the 5th January- the eve of the Epiphany- she has gone to visit every home with children to leave behind a small gift, hoping that one of them is the Christ child.
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A Week in Rome
Most of our first week in Rome was spent walking to the Vodaphone shop in Via Corso to try to get the two internet pens to work!! One for me and one for the children to stay in contact their friends -being teenagers, facebook had become very important. If anything is remotely difficult in Australia then the same is enormously difficult in Italy in another language.
Technological language is another language in itself and can lead to hair being torn out!! I was so frustrated in my efforts that I bought another internet pen from Wind phone company too but that too did not work for a week even though the charmingly handsome salesboy promised me that it would. They just neglect to tell you the finer details like… you have to activate the thing first before you use it!!!
I find the young salespeople in the shops in Italy very unhelpful and Romans are so ‘over’ tourists as their city is the most popular city in the world filled with millions visiting this city more any other.
Always be extremely polite to a Roman if you are asking directions, because if you are rude then, they will actually give you the wrong directions on purpose!! So still at the end of the week, we had three internet pens with none working… We were returning to Roma again so I was more concerned about introducing the children to Italian life and the food and flavours and choosing wonderful things to cook at the Campo di Fiori Food markets although we did walk to all the famous spots.
However you should always make hay while the sun shines, as I was not to know that next time we would return, it would be raining and rain in Rome is a disaster as it is difficult to walk.
Rome fills me with a feeling of awe and respect for the marvels of human culture and history. To build those magnificent buildings and move those ancient columns in 57 AD – the Pantheon is simply incredible and yes I know they had thousands of poor slaves that always died building these huge constructions ….!!! but they are all just so inspiring that they always give me hope just to know that we are capable of many incredible things.
There is so much history, so much antiquity – I love the way you walk around the corner and boom !! – there is a magnificent structure standing there over 3000 years old and on another corner another from 1000 years back!!! The streets are like walking through one huge museum. St. Peter’s Basilica just takes my breath away. I have been so many times but always the same feeling. A feeling of majesty and just Wow…..!!!! simply incredible!! I want to kneel down and bow in respect to the great Bernini and Michelangelo – their sculptures move me so much.
I could go there every day and never get tired of looking at all the beautiful coloured marble – thousands of different colours – the beauty of our earth to produce such magnificent stone and then to have it turned into flesh – stone made into flesh, like blood made into wine!! Such homage to God and the artists spent their lifetimes creating it. What immense projects they pursued. Maybe they thought that this would get them into heaven.
Little did they realise that they were creating heaven here on earth for thousands and thousands to admire for millenniums. I am sure that Bernini would have said when he arrived at St. Peter’s pearly gates in heaven he would have said,” ‘Humph!! This is nothing compared to what I built for you back at the Basilica!!!”