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Rome - (Roma)
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Rome is a city of split personality, part New York frenzy, part archaeological
dig. Tiny cars and motorbikes zip amongst ponderous large tour buses and
pedestrians cross the street at their own peril. Apartment buildings are built
right into bits of existing ancient city walls. Like the great Italian cities,
it has a river cutting through its middle, the Tiber.
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It's a big city with big city woes: graffiti mars the modern urban landscape,
for example, and the occassional beggar can be spotted at St. Peter's Square.
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But it still has a strong aura of its previous power as the center of the
civilized world. The remaining pieces of the Colosseum and Roman Forum stand
impossibly after thousands of years, defying the passage of time. The baroque
masterpiece of the Trevi Fountain speaks of the riches once concentrated here.
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When walking down a Roman street, suddenly the dome of St. Peter's Basilica
rises before your eyes. The dome is omnipresent in the city, it makes you want
to follow that image to the cathedral and splendid square. The square however
is not square at all. It's almost key-shaped, with the rounded head of the key
near the cathedral itself, with a long narrow portion reaching out from Vatican
City to the rest of Rome. It has been compared to a symbolic embrace of
Catholicism. In the center of the square stands an Egyptian obelisk, yet
another symbol of the Roman Empire's power.
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And of course, there are the Romans, who seem to live at fast forward, except
for at dinner and in love. Public displays of affection are the norm. In the
beautiful Villa Borghese park, couples laid together in the grass beneath the
trees embracing and kissing without a hint of embarassment or modesty. And they
loved community, they seemed to seek each other out, gathering wherever there
were open spaces.
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Dinner, like in the rest of Italy, could be a three-hour commitment with
several courses, several different drinks, starting with wine and ending
with an espresso, whose only purpose could be to keep you up for the rest
of your evening, whatever those plans might be.
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Rome was an intoxicating introduction to Italy and Europe, and sharply
different from her sister to the north,
Florence.
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More Photos
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Click on the pictures to see a full size version and caption.
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