Ruminations on Rome (2)
My long weekend in Rome with my sister Silvia got off to a slightly anxious start when she was three-quarters of an hour late meeting me at London’s Heathrow Airport. She had major problems with her train from Leicester to London and then her mobile refused to send or receive either calls or texts. Of course, nothing could be done about the train issues. We managed to sort out the mobile issues with an extremely complex technical process known as switching it off and switching it on again.
The afternoon flight to Rome’s Fumicino Airport went smoothly and we had a car waiting to take us to the River Palace Hotel in the heart of the city. We arrived in early evening, so we immediately went out for dinner and found an excellent place called “Canova” where I had veal in lemon sauce and Silvia had fettuccine with prawns and courgettes. I finished with a gigantic ice cream dessert so I’m going to bed happy.
The hotel and the restaurant are both close to Piazza del Popolo, described by the guide book as “Rome’s elegant public living room”. It started life as a trapezoid piazza in 1538. Then, in 1589, Sixtus V ordered the installation of a 3,200 year old obelisk, the 25 metre (82 foot) high megalith from Heliopolis honouring Ramses II. Finally, in 1811-1823, Guiseppe Valadier turned the square into its current Neo-Classical look and oval shape. It must be great for political demonstrations and speeches.
Back at our hotel, we started to learn of the horrific terrorist attacks in another European capital city as the news came through of the huge death toll from a variety of terrible incidents in Paris. We live in a different world now and nowhere is truly safe.