Nothing More Eternal Than Rome's Attraction

They call it the eternal city and it is. Rome, capital of a nation, once capital of an empire, centre of world Catholicism and location of the treaty that brought about the EEC, is a place that has influenced history more than almost any other city on Earth.

In its origins, it was not entirely eternal, though human settlements existed across the famous seven hills earlier than the legendary date of the city's foundation by Romulus and Remus on April 21st 753 BC. But Rome truly began to become significant in 506 BC, with the formation of the first republic. The centuries afterwards saw the gradual expansion from city state to empire, with Carthage and Hannibal's elephantine efforts seen off before it expanded across north Africa, parts of Asia and Europe, the last of these extending as far north as Scotland.

Although Rome gradually declined and finally fell in the fifth century, the legacies of language, culture, religion and architecture remained. The last of these is in plentiful supply for visitors staying in cheap hotels, with the Coliseum, home of the gladiators, standing almost as proudly today as it did all those centuries ago. From high in the stands, it is almost possible to imagine the great and the good in their finery and the crowd chanting for somebody called Maximus, while few sights can be more atmospheric than the building under floodlight at dusk.

Walking around the city, the visitor will encounter many more timeless buildings. The Pantheon with its imposing classical pillars, Trajan's Column, the Pyramid of Cestius and, underground, the Catacombs all offer a history close enough to touch.

Since those days, of course, Rome has undergone many architectural phases during its various periods of rise and fall, from the renaissance to the baroque and later the fascist. All this adds up to a fascinating encounter with layer upon layer of successive cultures, each that bit different from the last, offering fountains and statues, bridges and monuments.

For all the grand range of architecture, the location to which the most visitors to Rome are drawn is the Vatican, centre of Roman Catholicism and home of the Pope. The Vatican itself has the remarkable status of being a separate nation state, the smallest in the world, complete with its own embassies and consulates abroad, including Italy across the city.

To the Catholic, the Vatican is a place of reverence, not least when present at a papal mass in St Peter's Square. But to any visitor it is a place of grandeur, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica providing awe-inspiring art and architecture while the museums and libraries house numerous works by great artists and authors.

Rome's beauty and grandeur sit alongside a rich cafe culture and culinary tradition, as elsewhere in Italy. The Dolce Vita image from the 1950's may have been a passing phase in reality, but hints of it linger still. Rome is still a place where style, romance and a bit of the good life can be found.

Such relaxation is not always easy to find, of course, in a city of 2.8 million residents, with plenty of bustling crowds, air pollution and traffic lights treated as an optional extra. But such is the way with all capital cities and the solution is usually the same. With the biggest railway station in Europe (the Termini), trams and a modern underground system, Rome can be efficiently navigated by public transport.

There are other ways round as well. The ultra-fit can take in all the sights in the city's marathon, held every March. With so many cobbled streets the course is not a fast one, but it twists and turns through the historic streets, crosses the Tiber numerous times and skirts both the Vatican and the Coliseum.

Visitors preferring to watch sport instead have ample opportunity to do so. Rome hosts rugby internationals and stages home games for football rivals Roma and Lazio in the 1960 Olympic Stadium.

To top any trip to Rome, of course, tradition has it that one should throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, which guarantees a return visit, though few visitors to this beautiful and historic place would not want to come back in any case. One thing is for sure, the Eternal city will always be there waiting.

This article is provided by Hotels Hotels Hotels suppliers of cheap hotels in Rome

Updated: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:19:00

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