Roma, Italia: Tastes, Sights, and Sounds

By Catherine Salgado on February 27, 2020

Rome, Italy is one of the most ancient cities in the world which has remained of great economic, civil, religious, political, artistic, and/or philosophical importance for thousands of years. The city founded in 753 B.C. is still a vibrant, colorful, and fascinating place both for tourists and for those who live there more permanently. Only a week and a half into my three-month study abroad semester in Rome, I have already had countless unforgettable experiences that appeal to the eyes, the ears, and the taste buds.

Rome offers a huge variety of tastes, many of which are not necessarily what American tourists expect. We come to Italy thinking vaguely of wine, olive oil, pizza, and pasta, but the cuisine may be astonishing. For one thing, it is rather uncommon to find pizza in Rome (at least in my experience) with both red sauce and cheese  You have pizza either with sauce or with cheese and other toppings. The pasta, too, comes in many more varieties and is served many more ways than in America. Pasta might be covered in cheese, mixed in with anchovies, or combined with sausage.

The food, however, is so much more than pizza and pasta. The little restaurants, the ones you can barely squeeze into, are really interesting.  I found a restaurant not far from the Trevi Fountain which served sandwiches which tasted amazing—I have no idea what the meat and sauce and bread actually were, but they were unique and they tasted delicious. Not long ago a fellow student found a 24-hour bakery tucked away in the basement of a building on a less-frequented street. For 60 cents, you can get a massive crème-filled pastry dusted in powdered sugar, freshly baked that morning. In a coffee shop specifically run for the priests and nuns studying at the Gregorian University, the cappuccinos are the perfect balance of frothed milk and rich coffee.

The sounds of Rome can be both pleasant and jarring, but either way, they are always central to the Rome experience. Walking the streets, a babel of languages—Korean, French, German, English, and Italian, to name only a few—is constantly around you. Vendors call eagerly to you in a variety of accents, some of them thrusting their wares almost into your face in their aggressive eagerness to attract your attention. Music floats out of restaurants. Sacred choirs, children or nuns or trained choristers, sing beautiful, ringing songs which cause the ceilings of churches as large as St. Peter’s or as small as S. Sebastiano al Palatino to reverberate. Tour guides are everywhere, ready and willing to tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the statues, buildings, paintings, and landmarks surrounding you. Finally, if you are a theater lover, you could go see and hear an Italian opera at the Teatro nell’Opera or one of the other major theaters in Rome.

As for the sights of Rome, whole books, of course, have been written about them. You can see the remains of the Colosseum, the massive amphitheater which saw so many ignominious deaths and exciting victories. You can see the awesome St. Peter’s Basilica, with its countless massive statues, paintings, and Greek and Latin inscriptions, including Michelangelo’s famed and moving presentation of the Blessed Virgin mourning her dead son, the Pieta.

You can wander the Forum, the center of city business during the glory days of the Roman Empire. You can stand in the Sistine Chapel, with outstanding artwork surrounding you completely and arching over your head. You can admire the Arch of Constantine, the Spanish Steps, and the graceful Fountain of Trevi. The feasts for the eyes, in fact, are endless, whether you are exploring the hundreds of churches or the dozens of museums.

Rome is truly the Eternal City, not only because of its thousands of years of being an epicenter of world influence and significance but also because it would take nearly an eternity to appreciate and experience its offerings fully!

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