I scrawled across my postcards from Rome,
“Nothing’s changed!”
It was supposed to be a joke because there’s not a lot anyone can do to a ruin. They’re protected. The whole city’s in ruins. After a mere 20 odd years there’s hardly going to be any tell-tale wear and tear on a piece of crumbling rock that’s lasted centuries.
I wrote the cards within hours of my arrival.
Several hours after posting them I was beginning to change my mind.
Somehow the Rome we experienced as honeymooners was not the Rome of empty nesters.
The ruins were more extensive as massive archeological excavations were taking place so there were many more of them to navigate and this time we were charged and had to stand in long queues.
Pizza, their best selling dish, was $18.00 at least. It was cooked on a cracker crust.
Every bite tasted positively healthy. Pizza should not taste healthy!! It should be doughy and cheesy and oozing with goo!
The Sistine Chapel was so packed we only stayed for five minutes and few pictures of the ceiling. Last time we had been able to lie on the sacred ground and look up for as long as we wanted to. Not a hope in Sistine this time!
Vespas, vespas everywhere! Was the vespa invented back then? If it was we didn’t notice, too busy being mushy.
We made it back to the Trevi Fountain where we’d thrown our coin as star struck lovers. We found it awash with tourists morning, noon and night, all throwing coins. We never did get a decent picture without thousands of other couples making it into the frame.
The cobbled streets were still hard and ankle twisting. I marvelled at how the fashionable young Romans walked in their high heels.
Then there was the drinking water. I promise you all those fountains on the roadside were not there when we were gazing into each others’ eyes in love!
This time there I was filling up my water bottle every hour, it was cool, fresh and free.
Maybe twenty something years ago my new husband would not have let me drink water from a water fountain in the street.
Things really have changed.
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