All Rogues lead to Rome - and there are plenty of them

Rome – why not see it all in a day?

We get the bike out and go into Rome today, and yesterday; expecting multi-lane highways and wall-to-wall traffic, instead I get pot-holed uneven single lanes, sensible drivers, slow speeds. The roads to Rome are as dreadful as the characters trying to rob you.

There was the usual discussion the night before – “would it not be more sensible to use the trains?” So I had checked the times with google maps. The campsite does a shuttle bus to the nearest station, 5 minutes, then a 20 minute ride to a central-ish metro, then a 10 minute metro journey – about 30 minutes + waiting time. The bike journey takes 20 minutes.

We park our bike in the Via del Corso, two blocks away from the Trevi fountain. I figure this will be a good place to start. Opposite where we park we find the Piazza Colona, almost deserted. 

Around all the monuments in Rome there are warnings about what you are not allowed to do, on threat of a fine. These include, sitting, eating, drinking, littering, or causing any damage.

Anyway, I must not be cynical - here's the colloseum.

And here is what I am thinking when I see it, what happened to the rest? And where they fined or prosecuted for the bit that fell down. This one is my own rather naff version of a reconstruction.....I think the main bit of damage has already been done.

So we walk on down to the Trevi fountain. I remember this from my childhood. A visit to Rome with family, and I was aged 10. It was 1968, we saw the Pieta before a lunatic smashed it with a hammer – maybe he is the reason for all the warnings about fines and prosecution? 

And I remember the Trevi as a place full of statues of horses and gods, and water gushing forwards into the circular pool, glittering with a thousand coins. Tourists throwing coins in over their shoulders, looking away from the fountain, for luck. What a disappointment this turns out to be.

Today the whole thing is behind scaffolding, plastic sheeting, and glazed barriers. There is a walkway that allows a sort of two-abreast traffic, while the tourist police mutter, “Keep moving please, no stopping allowed” so Carol takes a photo of the scaffolding, and a bit of the sculpture. No water is flowing anywhere.

There are a few tourists doing the coin throwing in front of a small pond with a photo of the sculptures behind the pond – they might as well be at home doing this, and they can collect the coins later for the parking at Waitrose. Still, there are no sensible tourists. The collective herd makes its way towards the Piazza Venezio and then the Roman forum and the Colloseum. We pass thousands of Arabs selling umbrellas, sunglasses, strange plastic stuff that squeeks when thrown on the floor, ugly paintings done with spraycans, and bottles of water.

Two Arabs try to palm a St Christopher onto Carol; there seems little doubt there will be an attempt to extract five Euros minimum for this, and possibly steal my wallet afterwards, so we duck and dive through the throng towards the Piazza.

The tourist police are busy blowing their whistles when anyone is tempted to sit on the stairs, and generally keep people moving. If you look closely in this picture you can see one person sitting on the steps, but the whistle blows after the shot is taken and she is moved on!

There is no traffic in central Rome now except for white official taxis, tour buses, and police cars. Even motorcycles are kept away from the central section of ruins and fountains. We parked as close as we could get, which was a lot closer than we could have got by car or by train. There are loads of police around preventing people from driving into the now pedestrianised old city centre.

I get a little tired of men dressed in silver being statues now, and all the salesmen selling tat, so we duck into a gallery showing an Andy Warhol exhibition for a bit of peace and quiet. This is a little gem, a great collection of over a hundred Warhols, ranging from Campbell’s soup cans, both painted and pencil drawn, to the iconic Liz Taylor, and a shot blue Marilyn. 

Apparently a fried of a friend came to his studio, and asked Warhol if she could shoot his Marylin’s, several of which were stacked against a wall. “Sure...” said Andy, expecting a camera; instead she drew a gun and shot Marylin in the forehead, dead centre, through all canvases. The Americans are allowed to bear weapons, it's in their DNA. Hence the term – “Shot Blue Marylin”, and the white marks that bear witness to a repaired canvas. 

There are Mao Ze Dungs and lots of polaroids, and some large paintings or silk screens I have never seen in the books. The effect of piss on a copper based paint. Warhol trying to be as superficial as possible, and make previous artists work look even easier.

Warhol himself was shot by a fanatic, and said that before he was shot, he wasn’t sure if his life was real or just TV, but after being shot, said it was "obviously just television."

I like the fact that I have now seen the art that started pop-art culture, stuff that didn’t really need explaining, that didn’t have any real depth.

After this I was certain there was a Roman Caesar taking a selfie with a mobile phone rather than holding a scroll of great state importance. In a way the great big statue is a selfie, isn't it?

We had survived a day in Rome, riding a motorcycle in and out, eating pizza in the narrow alleys, and exhorbitant coffee in a café. We hadn’t been mugged, robbed, duped, or bumped by any cars, fined by any policeman, and we hadn’t got lost.

Maybe we should quit while we are ahead?