Rome

Another reporter: Which of the cities visited did Your Highness enjoy the most?

General Provno: [prompting] Each, in its own way...

Princess Ann: Each, in its own way, was unforgettable. It would be difficult to - Rome! By all means, Rome. I will cherish my visit here in memory as long as I live.

Audrey Hepburn (centre) as Princess Ann in Roman Holiday.

I’m not a man for holidays abroad. I didn’t go on a plane until I was 17, and then I only went because my History teacher strong-armed me into going, reasoning a weekend in Berlin would be useful for my A Level study. I’ve tried to enjoy the travel experience. After teacher training college, I went on a TopDeck coach tour of Eastern Europe. Arriving in Budapest I met the group I would be sharing three weeks with: all bar one were Australians. Now, I don’t want to stereotype a people; I think it’s wrong to assume all individuals share a nation’s characteristics - (I mean recently I met an Australian male that is thoughtful, intelligent and kind. Although possessing these personality traits has meant he’s been branded a traitor, making him turn to Britain for political asylum) - but in some cases generalisations ring true. Essentially, the lads I had to share a coach with were thick slabs of meat, marinated in misogyny, preserved in protein shakes. 

Despite then experiencing the baths of Budapest, the mines of Krakow and the castles of Prague, I longed for the site of the Mothercare warehouse, the building that lies on the horizon of my family home.

For years I didn’t go abroad; I simply took my holidays at home- like a family from the age of black and white or a Prime Minister from the period of media spin. Then a girl walked into my life. Consequently, this year we’ve been to Paris for her birthday; Madrid for a friend’s wedding and now Rome for my 30^th birthday. Paris, Madrid and Rome: my life now reads like a James Bond movie; admittedly a James Bond movie where the hero’s chief gadget is an illuminative Argos watch. Now I’m an expert in foreign travel, I can reveal that Italy and therefore Rome is the best place in the world. Yes, I haven’t been to 190 countries, and yes detractors may say my opinion is therefore invalid, arguing I don’t have the empirical evidence to make such a claim, but what I say to those people is … your mum.

I went on a David Hasselhoff pub crawl in Berlin. This wasn't even the lowest point of the trip.

Rome is a great city. It’s so great that I didn’t once hanker for the sight of the Zone 6 residential car park (where my new home looks out onto). Primarily, I liked it because the whole place felt old. Even though I’m a secondary school teacher, I’ve always had more affinity with the elderly than the young. As a child when people asked me what I wanted to be when I was older, I’d remark: ‘retired.’ Now with the Tory government's purge on pension this life-long ambition is looking slimmer by the day; the dream of having a mid-morning pint and paper in Wetherspoons the stuff of pie and sky.

On the first day in Rome we went to the Colosseum. The gladiatorial amphitheater opened in 80 AD, which makes it older than Jesus and Des O'Connor combined. The building’s façade is simply awe-inspiring. Owing to time’s degradation, its lack of complete symmetry means it looks like a gorgeously incomplete picture puzzle. On the other hand, the interior is less majestic and more suggestive. After pressure from the Papacy to end its violence, the Colosseum was closed. With the building lying vacant, its assets were stripped and used to build houses, workshops and quarters for religious orders. Fortunately, there is enough in its foundations, shape and arrangement for you to imagine what was. A nice fact I heard on my audio guide was that people were seated according to their value to society: teachers, considered learned channels of knowledge, were seated near the front. Today, we would be put in the car park behind a pillar.

Inside the Colosseum. Picture courtesy of Harriet Woodhouse.

After the Colosseum we went to Keats and Shelly’s memorial museum. The building was Keats’ final residence; he died young in 1821. Shelly, a contemporary of Keats, also died in Italy, which is why the museum twins the two’s legacy. The reason we went to the museum had nothing to do with the fact Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon visited the location for The Trip to Italy and everything to do with the fact that I studied Shelly and Keats at university.

The next day we went to the Vatican. I'm an atheist, but owing to my religious secondary education I’ll forever be imbued with Catholicism. Each morning in school I would have to say ‘The Lord’s Prayer;’ each week I would attend ‘Chapel lessons,’ where a man with a goatee taught us PSHE without the sex bits; each half-term I would have to attend mass, where as a non-Catholic I would have to watch my mates get their fill of Jesus whilst I sat hungry in the pews; each year my guilt over my part in Jesus’ death grew – despite not knowing whether I believed in him. I guess what I’m saying is I have all the guilt of a Catholic without the relief of absolution.

The Ministry for Cover-Ups AKA 'The Vatican.' Picture courtesy of Harriet Woodhouse.

 The Vatican is a hell of a show it has to be said. I thought, given the reputation of Sistine Chapel, the Vatican State was just an impressive ceiling on stilts. The Vatican State is more than that: it is a nation within a city. Its museum runs for miles. It doesn’t just house works by Raphael and Michelangelo, but Egyptian artefacts, Etruscan treasures and modern art collections too. Undoubtedly, the finest piece in the Museum is the Sistine Chapel: originally, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the twelve apostles, but got bored of the idea so went rogue and produced the most esteem piece of art. Let this be a lesson to the bureaucrats in middle management: let your employees think for themselves and they’ll work wonders.

Following the Vatican, we went to get ice cream from the world famous, Giolitti. Apparently, Gelato isn’t like typical ice cream: it contains less butterfat and is frozen for a shorter period of time. Forget the Blumenthal science though and just enjoy the Nigella sensation of eating the gorgeous thing. I went for two scoops- one Bailey’s and one lemon – with pouring cream on top. They say, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ Those people haven’t tasted gelato. Everything I’ve eaten since has tasted like a big bag of lemons. I wished I’d never had that gelato. Will life ever taste as good again?

The best ice cream in town.

Finally on the Friday we went to the park. For the first time in twenty years I went on a bike ride. The last time I went on a bike ride I fell in a bed of nettles and cried until I was admitted to hospital with dehydration. Aware I was fearful, Harriet supported me by ignoring to tell me the rental man had given me a girl’s bike, then laughed at my feeble attempts to get the pedals turning. Over time though I rediscovered the joys in cycling: there really is nothing better then feeling the breeze on your bald patch and the wind in your sails.

The proverb runs, 'all roads lead to Rome;' going up the M25 this morning for a day of work-time drudgery, I thought, 'if only.'