The one thing I hadn’t succeeded in doing in my visit to Rome that I had sort of set my mind to was to walk the Appian Way. I had tried it on the first Sunday when the weather was nice but missed the mark in finding it. I do not feel too bad about that as it was a good distance away, not actually on the map I got from the hotel and I was following signs that said Appia but apparently meant Appia Nuova rather than Appia Antica. So that was a failure. The second day I found my way to the head of the road but unfortunately I had already been walking for many hours and though I got in a small distance I was not able to finish it with any gusto so I returned to Rome standard.
Today I was not really sure what to do with myself but when I woke up I was nagged by the idea that I should again try to walk the Appian Way or I would regret it. So after my breakfast I set out immediately. This time I was armed with the knowledge of where everything was a fairly efficient route to get to the park. It is technically a park. In fact I was there by 8:20am. What I had sort of realized but was sort of deluding myself on was how long the park is. I think it measures 11 miles from top to bottom.
In the early going I really needed to visit a bagno and there happened to be a couple sites to visit so I hit both of those. They were both castles in their time dating back to the 2nd century BC or so. Owned by important people and all that. They are ruins now but still the size of the first is very impressive and the latter was still neat. The second had a cat that followed me around a bit and figured she should get some cat dander on me as well. There was a box where she sleeps inside the castle.
If I were J.R.R. Tolkien I would have to give you a step by step detail of 11 miles of course. I think walking over 22 miles not including my in Rome time has sort of worn me out to the idea of actually writing things in too much detail. Suffice it to say the longer it felt like it was getting the greater the pace I took on in an attempt to finish it quicker and get back to Rome to buy some souvenirs. I checked the clock when I reached what I presume was the end of the trail and it was 11:20. Granted on the early going I was walking slower and no matter what I was stopping to take pictures on the way out so the timing is a bit deceiving. The roads on the trail are all very uneven cobbles of different make-ups that cause for some tiring footing at times. I am sure that didn’t help me in either direction. There were a couple points where work was being done on the cobbles and I was forced to walk on the shoulders which were also torn up in those areas. After a very long time the road turned into a trail. In the very latter stages it appeared that the locals dumped their trash there and occasionally someone came and picked it up but didn’t clean every last bit. I found that a bit disappointing.
In any event the trail is basically an ancient highway to Rome from the southeast. Along the way there are all sorts of buildings and parts of buildings that had been unearthed. Some of them were fenced off, some were not. Some looked very fantastic and others were just bits of stone wall. I took pictures of mostly everything that needed to be represented along the way, mainly skipping things that looked too similar to things I had already seen and taken pictures of.
I can say that the weather held out a bit too perfectly as it was sunny and hot the whole time. Most of the people along the trail seemed to distrust someone walking so fast that wasn’t in a running suit but what do I care really? When I reached what I presumed was the end I turned around, put the camera away and just did a speed run back to the top of the way. I checked when I was officially back on Roman streets and it was 1:30pm. I can’t say if I really went the full 11 miles each way but if the pictomap at the point I turned around was accurate to what I think I saw then yes, I did. I will need to check with more detail on picture I took of one of the maps that was in the early going of the road. Like most of Rome they are not generous with You Are Here maps so I really had no idea what sort of progress I was making on my way out the whole time. On the way back I at least had the benefit of knowing what I had already seen. There are tons of bicycles on the road but overall cars are kept from being on there except people how have farms or houses along the way it appears so the traffic was many foot and bicycle. There is the early stretch which is quite scary with the close walls and cars racing through in both sections but after the two catacombs I didn’t actually get to visit (and didn’t bother with this time) it wasn’t long before traffic was detoured away from the course. It did make for a pleasant summer feeling walk. I would have preferred to get going even earlier if I had any idea how long it was going to be.
The thought did cross my mind to try to take a bus on the far end but it didn’t appear there would be anything of the sort available so I just turned around and headed right on back. By the time I returned to Rome my feet were fairly sore and my legs tired and since I had only bought a bottle of water and a wafer cookie package on the way back I was very hungry as well. As soon as I got into the vicinity of the Coliseum I searched for a restaurant and ended up at one named the Coliseum which I am not sure was the best choice overall. I got a beer, a bottle of water and fettuccini with pesto. The pesto wasn’t really all that filled with basil and they had included small tomatoes in the mix but it tasted like pesto overall. They basically scammed me on price by about 2 Euros but I would have tipped them that if they hadn’t so I didn’t leave the tip I had been doing at other places. The food was OK overall but more than anything I think I needed to rest my legs for a bit. The beer was nice too if the more watery Nastro Azzuro? brand of beer around here.
Once done eating it was about 2:20pm and it was my mission to buy some souvenirs in the form of t-shirts and the like. All the shops are owned by Asian people of some sort. I think one shop had an Italian woman at the desk. Most of the stuff is basically the same from shop to shop and not one place sells teddy bears of any sort. I would think it would be a natural to have a Roman Centurion or Julius Cesar bear to sell, but no, only cheap crummy looking puppets of Pinocchio which there was no way I would buy. I managed to buy a few things in a windy course that took me up and down the Vias Cavour and Nationale. By then I was spent for much more walking and even if there were more shops down further I couldn’t put the energy together to get any further away from the hotel than I got. I do hope the airport has a thing or two worth buying in the international terminal. I didn’t really seem much in the terminal I used when I flew to Sicily but also I had no time at all. I am also hoping that I can actually get in the plane on a gate rather than a bus to stairs outdoors. We’ll see.
After the shopping I returned to the room to rest because it was about 4:45pm. Still too early to get dinner in most places around here and I needed the time off my feet anyway. I started out by writing the best majority of this before just relaxing a bit until it was time to eat.
For dinner I had intended to go back to La Mensa di Bacco again because of all the restaurants around here I liked them the most. Unfortunately I had not noticed that they are closed on Saturday so when I got outside to look for them they were all chained up. I was a bit disappointed about that but I chose a secondary place I had eyed most of the week but not gone to yet which was called 27 Tudini Gabriele & Tomoko. I would assume that they cater to Japanese people based on the Japanese tour that went in and the fact that they had a Japanese menu. They were a bit expensive but had a couple distinguishing features, the main one being a fairly extensive artisanal beer list all from Italy. From that I chose a beer that was an Italian version of an American pale ale. I shudder to think how much it cost but it was actually pretty good as in I would drink it again if for a more reasonable price. For dinner I skipped primi and went straight to having the roast chicken, which turned out to be two legs and some red and green peppers with a very nice yellowy-orange sauce. I cannot say what the sauce flavor was supposed to be but it was enjoyable. I accompanied that with some roasted potatoes that had maybe a touch too much rosemary on them. Overall it was easy to get rid of the excess rosemary though and they were cooked correctly and quite tasty especially when rubbed through the sauce from the chicken. After eating I was deciding if I wanted dessert for a couple minutes but instead opted to get a grappa as I had not had one yet in Italy (mainly because it was hard to identify them in restaurants). It was a clear grappa that was a touch rough but really not bad. It was definitely not the best grappa I have ever had though. After I was done with that it took the waiter forever to get my bill but it appeared that he was really overwhelmed with tables and I wouldn’t have held it against him too much if I hadn’t needed to use the facilities fairly badly. Since it was a few moments from the hotel I paid and rushed back to do so.
I came back to the room and finished up this while watching some Europa League Soccer. I never did mention the thing that irks me about European sports. The real issue I have is that every single jersey design is basically an advertisement for some sort of product rather than the team. Some, like the hockey team ones were a mess of ads rather than any sort of team name or logo. In many respects their jerseys are the equivalent of NASCAR paint jobs. It doesn’t matter what sport you are talking about. This becomes an issue when, say, your favorite team takes on sponsorship from a product or company you dislike I would think. How can you support your team by wearing their gear if you hate the logos plastered all over it? At least that would bother me. It would be like if the Patriots got rid of their team logos and replaced them with Vonage logos or something. Yeck. Anyway, the next thing to mention is about European league football. That is soccer. I am sure that they have resources the world over to get the best players out there to play professionally. The problem is there are so many teams in so many countries on so many different levels of the sport that it is honestly very watered down talent in I am sure more than 75% of the games you can watch. I am sure that what they are airing here in Italy is not remotely the premier teams with the premier players. I have seen British Premier League soccer and know there must be versions as good in many other countries including in Italy but they must play so infrequently you are more likely to get bad football than good. It makes it all the less interesting for a person who is not really truly a fan of the sport. I am American after all. It doesn’t make sense to not stop time when play stops and then arbitrarily add on an amount of extra time based on guesswork. It is also tough to watch guys get barely touched and flop around for 5 minutes like they were shot by a gun. It gets much worse when teams don’t even really have the ability to accurately pass and there is no speed whatsoever to the game. I think, world sport or not, the world could use a lot less professional soccer teams and maybe we might find it more enjoyable. I might anyway. But enough of sports.
Day 16 is my return to home. I am set to get up early. I already purchased my ticket for the Da Vinci Express. I am basically packed already. As vacations go this one has seemed like 2 full weeks. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I did like Rome a lot after all though. My legs and feet are tired…
It may take me until next week to get all the pictures posted. I hope folks can be patient.
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