A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend two consecutive conferences in Rome. While both conferences were excellent, they didn't allow for opportunities to see much of the city except for views from taxis or buses on the way to dinner. Alas, hotels for the respective conferences were both at least 20 minutes from the city center, so I couldn't even sneak in a bit of touristing on Sunday afternoon when I arrived. I don't consider viewing the interiors of subterranean conference rooms for hours on end to be true tourist activity. If that is the case, though, I am a HUGE tourist!
There were four moments of slight tourism, however. The night of the first conference, come colleagues of mine from the US and some clients were to have dinner in the city. Me and a bunch of guys, so I knew it would be a fun evening. The guy who arranged the dinner is known for his skill at selecting excellent restaurants, both for their ambience and service as well as the food and beverages. This was no exception. We piled into two taxis and headed into the city. The restaurant was located down some narrow cobblestone back alleys that I guess qualify as streets in Rome, but somehow the cabbie managed to get there.
Great evening. Until we left the restaurant. There were, not surprisingly, taxis waiting outside in the alley to whisk us away and the guys thought it would be nice to walk around a bit. Uhhh.... I forgot to mention that I was wearing my favorite new pair of shoes -- some hot dark red (think metallic clearcoat paint on a vehicle -- that pretty!) Christian Louboutins that, while remarkably comfortable, have a very narrow and somewhat high heel. Combine those shoes with the idea of walking in the dark on uneven cobblestone streets that are just begging to catch that heel and either damage it or send me sprawling when it latches on to said heel and I keep walking. Not good. And then the guys couldn't quite figure out where to get a cab. Not such good times. But the food was good. And the shoes survived and still look great! (I would have included a photo here, but I figured that might be totally disrespectful to Rome.)
The second adventure was the following night when we sponsored a reception at the residence of the Charge d'Affaires of the US Ambassador to Italy (or something like that). Three buses transported us from the conference hotel to the residence. Or, in the case of the bus, KINDA to the residence. The bus was attempting to turn into a very narrow street and simply could not make the angle without running over a small car parked on the street. After about 10 minutes of sitting there, the bus started backing out into two lanes of oncoming traffic. Delightful. But having seen Rome traffic and its lack of structure, I guess this is something approaching ordinary. So the bus heads another way and I figured it would approach the venue from another direction. Um, no. Instead, it drove away and just let us out with no further directions. Uhhh.... So we had to walk about five minutes from there up to the point where the bus had backed out (why it couldn't have simply let us off there is a mystery), and then another 5-10 minute walk to the residence. Fortunately someone in our bus knew which way to go! Equally fortunate is that I had changed into cobblestone-ready shoes.... I'm not entirely stupid.
The third event was a brief wander around parts of the city with one of my colleagues from Poland who had been to the city before. We had a couple of hours after the end of the first conference before we had to start focusing on the second conference, so one of my colleagues from Poland who had visited the city before was gracious enough to wander around with me for a couple hours. Not nearly enough to see all the sights, but we were able to go through the Basilica, which was my primary objective, and also saw some other places.
One of the noteworthy areas was the Spanish Steps. The steps themselves were somewhat unremarkable. What was interesting was that they were totally crowded with, um, Spaniards. And other Barcelona soccer fans. Turns out that Wednesday was also the evening when the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United would be played there in Rome. The city was full of fans, with an apparent strong majority of Barcelona fans if the jerseys were any indication. (We were also close to fame the night before as we had dined -- post cocktail reception -- at an outdoor cafe from which we watched the arrival of the bus of one of the teams and the crazy fans who were waiting for it.) I watched the game with the large gathering at our hotel that night. Barcelona won rather handily, 2-0.
The last night I was in Rome, we hosted at dinner at what I can only describe as a beautiful, old Italian villa overlooking the city. We arrived just before sunset, the weather had cooled off a bit, and it was just beautiful. The photo doesn't do it justice.
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