« Dumbing it all down: getting high-end clients. | Main | IBA in Singapore: $7.50 Pepsis, "groupies", way too many dudes. »

October 23, 2007

Just Rome

When in Rome, do as many Romans as you possibly can.

--Hugh Grant

Rome. I don't like working here--charitably put, work-life balance is totally out of balance in some regions of Italy--but I love being in Rome. You can play all day long in and around the The Forum and Palatine Hill, where antiquities are still being found. You can stroll the City. There's this guy with a shop at the Piazza Navona--2000 years ago the Piazza was a Roman circus (i.e., track) you can still see if you try--who sells me these unique old prints, beautifully framed, that I bought for my father in Cincinnati and my alleged girlfriend in LA. I go to that shop on every trip. The Tiber River is gorgeous and, like the Seine in Paris, steeped in history, and a bit melancholy and mysterious.

Lots happened here, folks, and it's as if the rivers can remember it all.

Many of the West's great ideas and institutions, including what became English law, were conceived or preserved by Rome. And the obvious comparison with the U.S. is exciting: the Romans were competent if grandiose empire builders who got most of their better instincts and best artistic traditions from a very different land (the U.S. got theirs from Europe; old Rome's debt was to Greece).

But you can't see, experience and "do" Rome on one trip--same thing with New York, London or Paris--and you shouldn't try. Here's what happens when you do. See at The Exploration of Undiscovered Worlds--Or Just Europe and Myself this recent post "Rome" by an anonymous traveler who otherwise seems to know what he/she is doing and just visited Rome and then Paris back-to-back. My advice: Learn a little more about Rome first, dude/babe, and then "live in it", taking small bites. And, hey, at least you liked "Paris", which you even enjoyed during the strike last week.

Posted by JD Hull at October 23, 2007 12:43 AM

Comments

Post a comment




Remember Me?