‘All roads lead to Rome’, apparently. Thus saying apparently comes from a medieval French theologian and if you look at Roman maps (or what passed for maps in Roman times), all roads did indeed run through Rome. With its undeniable history, and the longevity of said history, Rome is jam-packed full of historical, archeological and cultural heritage. It’s everywhere you look.

And I mean everywhere.

Which leads to the whole swivel head action. I couldn’t help myself.

We spent the day walking and gawping and taking pictures. And trying to contextualise what we were seeing. Impossible.

Crossing the Tiber to reach Circo Massimo? An old bridge, maybe even Roman?

The Circo Massimo lies between the Palatine and Aventine hills. Said to be the first ‘formal’ stadium for public events (possibly one of the Tarquins, which is pre-Republic), it was used for horse and chariot racing, plus other forms of entertainment. It also became a place for public/political rallies. It’s now a public park, running beside the edge of the Palatine Hill and overlooked by the ruins of the enormous Domus Augustana (which you can just see on the far right of the picture).

From there we walked past the Colosseum, and what struck us (other than its sheer bulk) were the crowds. Lots and lots of people.

The above queue, that ran about a quarter of the way round the outside, was for groups (with pre-booked tickets). The queue for the ticket office was even longer and we abandoned trying to find the end of it.

The crowds put a bit of a damper on the whole head swivel thing, so we walked to Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore via the park around the Domus Aurea (which was full of archeoogical ‘bits’).

Santa Maria Maggiore is the oldest and largest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It dates from the 450s and was built on the site of a temple to Cybele. When we arrived, there was a service on and it was full of people taking part in the service, gawping at the service, taking pictures of the service…

It’s had a lot of ‘improvements’ over the centuries, including the baptistry above. It’s all a bit bling and it was very crowded. The service (for All Saints) barred any wandering around so we braced ourselves for more crowds as we walked back towards the river and hopefully lunch.

Some of the buildings are lovely, some aren’t – mostly everything is picturesque.

Walking past Hadrian’s Market, the tension between antiquity and modernity was clear – note the air-conditioning units in the windows of a building that was built well before electricity was invented!

And then we reached peak head swivel territory. It’s because there are layers and layers of history, all one on top of another. One minute you are walking along a fairly normal road, and the next minute you see this below you:

The Pantheon is one of the architectural wonders of Rome. It had the only unsupported dome in Europe until the 1600s (seriously) and it remained the largest unsupported dome for a long, long time. We thought about going in but the crowds…

The salumeria across the square (the blue building) captured my attention so we went there instead, dropping a large sum of money on salami and cheese (a significant sum) in the process.

Lunch (another recommendation from the Sonder team) required walking through Piazza Navona, which I expected to be heaving: it wasn’t as bad as I had feared.

Piazza Navona was built on the site of another circus, the Stadium of Domitian, which is why it is so long. It has some important fountains, including one by Bernini, and provides some exceptional head-swivelling opportunities. Catching the figures from odd angles proved entertaining.

Is it just me, or does that fish look oddly positioned? Just me? Moving on then.

Risotteria Melloti was small, charming and packed. Thankfully, they let us have lunch without having booked, although we had a strict time limit.

We both had rice (surprise). The risotto with purple cabbage, leeks and pancetta was pale pink, fragrant with buttery leeks and the pile of crispy pancetta on top released gentle trickles of glistening fat. It was delicious.

Roger had the risotto with minced pork and veal, cinnamon and rosemary. It was meaty, perfumed and equally delicious. The house red was indifferent.

Although neither dish would win any prizes for appearance, they really were flavourful and the rice had the perfect balance of resistance and creaminess. Despite the time pressures, a great lunch with lovely people serving.

And before you ask, no pepper grinders in sight.

In the evening we walked up the river to the Castel Sant’Angelo, originally Hadrian’s Mausoleum (yes, the same Hadrian who built the wall). It was an impressive sight at night.

And then we drank an amazing bottle of Negroamaro from Puglia, while eating our stash from the salumeria. An excellent end to a good day, evening my neck feels a bit sore.