Travel Journal, 127
Acclaimed travel show host, Laura McKenzie has been taking people around the world in 30-minute segments for the better part of 30 years. Just last month, I came across an episode of her show on Rome. She hit the highlights from the fountains to the Colosseum. In a half-an-hour I had seen Rome with sparky music in the background all from the comfort of my couch. And this is a lovely way to see Rome. But it is not the honest way.
Honesty may be the best policy. But honesty can be chaos.
We hit the ground running when we landed at Leonardo DaVinci Airport. I immediately stopped for a coffee and poured an espresso into my soul; this was going to be a wild trip. Our train took us right to the Roma Termini station, within walking distance of much of the sites.
The TV shows don’t tell you of the oceans of people, crowding the train stations and all public places. We poured forth into the streets, thinking we were going to be gingerly introduced to the Eternal City. But we were accosted by all it had to offer. Rome is a maze of streets lined with tan and salmon-colored Mediterranean buildings. A Catholic church sits on every corner, and each of them is older than the United States. Aged and ancient structure is everywhere and everything.
There’s no better place to experience this than Vatican City. The museum in the tiny city-state houses more ancient things than you can imagine. Hallways full of the ancient treasures of this world lead to even more hallways and rooms of art beyond measure. It culminates in the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo painted what could be the most famous work of art ever.
God peers down from the ceiling above; Adam reaches for Him. Frescos of Biblical tales swirl in a kaleidoscope of Christianity. And it all happens while you are shoulder to shoulder with heaps of tourists, trying to sneak a picture without the guards yelling at you in broken English. It’s madness and beauty. Most of the people underneath God and Adam aren’t even Christians. But there’s enough longing in their hearts to know that this mass of Christian art is special. It beckons. They, like Adam, are reaching for God—they just don’t know it yet.
The Sistine Chapel is Rome in miniature.
Rome is just too much, an assault on the senses.
Heavy spiritual Catholicism everywhere.
Tourists pouring from every chink in every wall.
Trash in the street.
The smell of coffee, wine, pizza, and cheap European cigarettes permeates everything.
Sounds of mercilessly old motorcycles and tiny cars molests your eardrums.
Pickpockets wait in not-so-dark alleys.
If you don’t get run over by a Vespa, you might make it to a vespers at one of a million churches.
Suddenly it’s 5 p.m. and every bell rings your mind into a trance.
Ding!
Bell!
Ring!
Dong!
Ding!
Clang!
Bang!
Ring!
Clung!
Ding!
So many church bells, and none of them synchronized, this ringing of the bells rings on for minutes on end—until every thought must be put on layaway.
It’s a sober high, a fever dream of mystic spirituality. But it’s all mixed with pungent secularism.
And it never ends.
English writer and Christian apologist, GK Chesterton, is quoted as saying that the Roman Catholic Church is, “like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.”
I don’t know if this is true. I am no Catholic. But it certainly seems true of Rome itself. It’s hearty like a thick steak you can’t finish, mildly intoxicating like wine, and a hidden mystery—somewhat like a smoke-filled room.
I stood on a terrace, looking out, and it seemed Rome went on forever, for all eternity. With all the harassing senses that Rome imparts, I find I love it. The beauty of the old Christianity cannot be ignored. The crucifix depicting our Lord hangs on nearly every wall. Ancient art infuses a sense of God-given grace. Cobble-stoned streets always win me over. Smiling people serve lovely pasta and pizza in corner cafes. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a bad espresso. I would freely admit to being a hostage of Rome and fully loving my captor—like Stockholm Syndrome. I want to be in Rome and I don’t want to be in Rome.
It’s a paradox. Or rather, Rome is like that old Chapel, filled with sinners and saints, some reaching for God and some not.
But the beauty prevails, despite the chaos.
anthony forrest