No Touching the Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is a picturesque masterpiece located just minutes of walking distance from Barberini Station in Rome.  The fountain has appeared in quite a few movies and is featured in just about every single tour book known to mankind that covers anything remotely Roman.  Honestly, if you are in Rome, you better see this location, as you will never live it down if someone finds out that you missed it.  

Photoshop Much?

Photo Credit 1

One of the best things about this area in my opinion is the streets.  In my most uneducated opinion, the streets in this quarter feel older and more lively.  Even thought there are almost a million options on how to move around this area, I would highly suggest taking the time to wander from Barberini Station and enjoy taking in the old shops.  You will pass leather shops, gelato parlors, delicious coffee-houses, and all the sounds and smells that go with them.  The streets are narrow, the cobble-stones are a patchwork of two-by-two inch squares that have been tessellated together since before time began.  While a trip to the Trevi is an amazing highlight to this section of Rome, you should never underestimate the beauty of the surrounding area when you travel.  

See, Quick Walk!

After arriving at the Trevi, you quickly realize a few things.  The first is that any picture of the Trevi Fountain was taken on an extremely nice day, and that they must have cordoned off the tourists.  That shit is crowded!

Off Hours

Photo Credit 2

After a few minutes, you just have to decide to leave the manners at home and shove your way to the front in typical tourist fashion.  When a person travels thousands of miles to toss a coin in a fountain, no freakin' tourist is going to stand in your way.  I am only glad that I ventured to the Trevi Fountain before selfies came into vogue, I cannot even imagine how much worse it must be now.  

After shoving your way to the front, you make a harsh realization - any picture that you have seen was taken by a crane and a wide angle lens.  

  No Photoshop :(

Besides the obviously amazing view of some extremely naked people made out of marble playing with some sea-creatures and horses and shit, the thing that really stuck out to me are the signs that are located around the fountain.  Touching the water is a crime.  You will get fined close to a gajillion euros and probably be publicly ridiculed or something else as deemed appropriate by the police officer.

I wanted to touch the water.  If there is one thing that I cannot handle, it is being told not to do something that silly.  You can throw coins into the fountain but you cannot touch the water?  Obviously it is not a bacteria worry.  I highly doubt you are going to contaminate the water supply of Rome by touching the fountain...

I was going to respect the wishes of the all-knowing sign.  I mean, when in Rome, right?  Then I noticed these assholes...

Hand Clearly in Water!

Yeah, I touched the water.  I am such a rebel.  I would have been able to resist had it not been for that person in black.  Seriously.  What the hell were they thinking?  Violating the sign?  Causing others to do the same thing?  If this case were to go before a judge, it would have been thrown out solely because that asshole made me do it.  I am who I am, and I could have done nothing else. 

Photo Credit 1: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/toss-your-coins-in-the-trevi-fountain-rome-mark-e-tisdale.jpg

Photo Credit 2: http://www.tropicalisland.de/italy/rome/trevi_fountain/images/FCO%20Rome%20-%20Trevi%20Fountain%2004%203008x2000.jpg

Why Ostia Antica is Epic

About a thirty minute train ride from the main train depot in Rome, lies an almost unused station.  This station is a stop or two before a much nicer and well policed station for Ostia, which is an awesome little tourist/beach area that allows for people to take a quick dip to escape some of the summer heat.  If the beach is the playground for any sane person during a hot Roman summer, Ostia Antica is where the history nerds conglomerate.  While most of the train system in and around Rome leaves a lot to be desired, Ostia Antica station takes the cake.  Nothing says public transit like crumbling bricks, random dogs, and an abundance of plants growing where they probably were not intended on the architectural proposal.  

Besides the absolutely crappy greeting, you are met with one of about two people you will see on your day trip to this location.  The first will be an overly surly ticket taker.  This person only exists to charge you a small amount of money and get mad if you do not have the exact amount needed.  They have realized that they have reached their pinnacle in life and have decided to take it out on the dozen or so tourists that venture into their realm daily.  The second is the depressing graduate student who hovers near the entrance offering tid-bits of knowledge to try and get you to buy a tour.  I am sure the tour is very enlightening, but when you have to start a conversation with some sort of teaser and then leave a person hanging for the answer unless they pay you, you are just an asshole.  It felt like those infomercials out of Starship Troopers that always ended with "would you like to know more?" 

After you meet these two people, paying off the first and ditching the other like a chump, you are free to do anything you want.  There are no rules.  It is basically free access to an open archaeological pit, where everything is still exposed, the ruins date back 2,000 years, and no one is there to yell at you for running.  If you have ever been scolded in a museum or display for wanting to touch an object, this place is your chance to get even.  Touch everything!  Climb shit!  Sit on everything!  Why not?

Totally Touched Everything!

Sure, you should probably not touch everything, but no one is going to yell at you!  It is your chance.  This is your moment, live!

Just do your best to not go too nuts on touching things.  There are a multitude of reasons to keep your hands a bit in check.  The first is that you totally can wander into an old Roman communal bathroom.  I do not care if it has not been used for 2,000 years, no way in hell I am going to be touching that!  I highly doubt they had bleach back then.  The second is that most countries really lack in a few safety codes.  Now of course, you are walking around old ruins, so parts of them might be a bit dangerous or just on the slightly unstable side normal.  Much like the author of this blog.  Slightly on the unstable side or normal.  Sorry, I digress...

  Seems Safe...

Also, take note of the fact that open archaeological pits do exist.  Yes, they are calling for you to play with them.  Enjoy.  

Also Seems Safe

Besides all of the amazing things you can see explore, you can also get some feel of how people lived a few thousand years ago.  Explore an amphitheater, walk through a few houses, explore some alleyways, and realize that people back then were not much different than we are today.  Smellier, yes, but other than that, just the same.  Also, just like today, people loved leaving major appliance that they were no longer using in the front yard...

First Century Slobs

So, the moral of the story is this, clean up your damn yard.  Two thousand years from now, do you want your house to be remembered by some asshole college grad students for being the place that has two rusted cars, and an old washing machine in the front yard?  If you are reading this blog, that answer is obviously yes.  Welcome to the club.

Red Light District in Rome

Jet lag encourages stupid behavior.  After traveling from California to New York, not sleeping for a night, then on to Heathrow, and finally to Rome, we were tired.  Damn tired.  We also had no clue what we were doing, spoke no Italian, and in retrospect were completely unprepared for our two week trip to Rome and the surrounding countryside.

We had had almost no sleep for at least two days, and made the mistake of landing sometime in the mid-morning.  What a bad decision.  Now, when faced with situations like this you can make one of two choices:

Choice number one: Pass out for 24 hours of dreamless coma-like sleep

Pros: 

Rest

Wake up at 2am and talk to vagrants outside the hotel until sunrise.

Less chance of hallucinations

Cons:

You paid for this trip

Dammit, each day costs money!

Less chance of hallucinations

Choice number two: Suck it up and get caffeinated

Pros: 

More cost-effective than methamphetamine

Explore a new city

Teach your mind/body who is in charge

Cons:

Less rational

Poor decision making skills

Less effective in ordering caffeine due to language barrier.

Of course we decided to explore.  We made the fateful decision to jump on a bus and just end up wherever we got off of the bus.  

When someone who looks like this is making decisions, you can be sure that you are in for an adventure.

  Classy

So, here we are on a bus, barreling through the streets of Rome, without enough combined brain-cells to figure out where we are headed.  Seems like a fantastic idea, right?  Of course it was!  We end up at the end of the line, the station that no tourists should end up at.  I am sure anyone who has gotten off public transportation in the wrong neighborhood can understand... you need to find a new bus, and fast. 

That being said, we also discovered Rome has a rather large transient population, and in our beleaguered state, we are sure that we looked like mobile A.T.M.s.  The best part of the whole situation is that we would have had no clue how to even yell for the police.  I am pretty sure that if I were to just start yelling something in Spanish, but with a Marlon Brando sort of accent.

 Please-o, No Stab-o!

Photo Credit 1

Granted, most of Rome appears to be a very safe and well policed city.  This might have been more due to the fact that we were there when a President of the United States of America was going to be meeting with the Pope, but who knows?  

Needless to say, as you are surely able to guess, we managed to extricate ourselves from certain missing kidneys and wallet lightening, and somehow find a way in our sleep deprived state back to our hotel area.  I sure would like to say that we can attribute our escape to some knowledge of ninjitsu or other amazingly effective martial art.  It is probably more likely that no one wanted any of our organs.  I am glad that this has become a noticeable theme while traveling, hopefully one that I am able to retain for many years to come. 

There must be some form of black market for ginger kidneys?

Photo Credit 1: http://winecurmudgeon.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Godfather-Marlon-Brando.jpg