Exploring Rome

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Fodor's Exploring Guides are the most up-to-date, full-color guidebooks available.  Covering destinations around the world, these guides are loaded with photos, essays on culture and history, descriptions of sights, and practical information.  Full-color photos make these great guides to buy if you're still planning your itinerary (let the photos help you choose!) and they are perfect companions to general guidebooks, like Fodor's Gold Guides.


What to See
Extraordinary coverage of history and culture
Itineraries, walks and excursions, on and off the beaten path
Architecture and art
Where to Stay
Quick tips in every price range
Where to Eat
Savvy picks for all budgets
The Basics
Getting there and getting around
When to go & what to pack

Rome Is ...Agony and Ecstasy

We expect a lot of Rome -- seat of the empire, mother of civilization, caput mundi -- the head of the world.  It is the city of Caesars, of romance, of the dolce vita, of languorous sunny days, of endless art galleries, of churches and museums, of fountain-splashed piazzas, and of majestic monuments -- a tribute to its golden age of empire.

Rome Is ...Romans

Romans are a race apart -- and one not always highly thought of by many of their fellow Italians. Follow the famous adage and "do as the Romans do," say some Italian citizens, and you may do nothing at all. They are reflecting on outrageous stereotype, of course, but occasionally it is possible to glimpse the
unpalatable.

Image Problem

Romans are said to squander the money earned by the rest of the country; they hand down laws but ignore them at their leisure.  They are the root of all evil and of all Italy's ills. A distortion of Rome's noble SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and Roman Populace) -- sono porchi
questi Romani -- "they are pigs, these Romans" is the Italians' pithy summation of their capital's citizens.  As always, there is an element of truth in these myths.  A smile and a little stuttered Italian may well bring you courtesy, but more often than not, you may despair of the Romans.

Under Pressure

Like many urban dwellers they have adopted harsh measures in the battle to survive.  As the city explodes, concern about unemployment, housing, traffic, and drugs has brought still more exaggerated responses from its beleaguered citizens.  Romans have to deal not only with too many other Romans, but with a flood tide of tourists.  For visitors this can result in a gruff response bordering on rudeness. They excel in the art of nonmifreghismo -- of "not giving a damn," an oft heard piece of slang (non mi frega).

Quintessential Romans

A handful of Felliniesque survivors can be found.  They hark back to an old Rome, when it was a city of 500,000 people -- a city whose facilities matched its needs.  You see them in the potbellied restaurateurs, the dog-walking old women, the grumpily sarcastic bartenders, the fallen aristocrats, the rough-fingered matriarchs of the market stalls and in the loose jowls and hooked noses that could never be anything but Roman.
Rome Is ...La Dolce Vita

For a few heady months Rome was to the 1950s what "swinging London" was to the 1960s -- the world's trendsetter, a place inhabited by sunglassed Latin Lotharios and pouting, lean-limbed starlets.  Convertible sports cars flashed down Via Veneto, and people partied late into Rome's long, lethargic summer nights. Fellini caught it all in La Dolce Vita, and the myth was secured.

The Reality

What really happened, however, was less important than what appeared to happen.  Perhaps a few gilded individuals played the part, or perhaps the Romans did have the knack of the soft, sweet, easy life. Times were good, the sun shone, and Italians had money for the first time.  For most Romans, though,
this dolce vita passed them by.  Even Fellini's film ended in disillusionment, the waters of the Fontana di Trevi failing as the stars met for their famous embrace.  Behind them the lights went off to underline the shallow futility of it all.  Marcello Mastroianni was left high and dry, and the statuesque Anita
Ekberg took her plunging neckline elsewhere.

Lingering Memories

But if the reality was hollow, the images of the era have lived on in the popular imagination.  Modern visitors may be disappointed by the Via Veneto's old stomping grounds, and would-be bathers in the Fontana di Trevi face prompt arrest, but they still look for and find hints of the old days.  These hints exist because Rome has always been made for the easy life.  The sun shines; the settings are romantic; the evenings are long; and Romans, on the whole, are good-looking people who like to see and be seen. Take a table at the Bar della Pace or walk down Via Condotti's parade of exclusive shops for proof that
the dolce vita is still alive and well.