All Roads Lead to Rome

Tien Pham
Apr 8, 2022
2 min read

"All Roads Lead to Rome" is the classic quote that inspired me to set Rome as a must-visit place in my European journey. When in Rome, I felt everything was so different from the places I had been in Europe.

My first impression of Rome was that the buildings were almost painted with bright colors, mainly in orange or red, and looked very old. “Old” here is not the ancient but it is the oldness of the building when it has not been renovated for a long time. In addition, the roads in Rome were not as clean as I imagined. Well, those were not good first impression.

I notice that Rome's commercial activities, especially restaurants and cafes, were concentrated in small alleys where people could walk freely. I saw a lot of small and pretty restaurants in the Rome alleys.

One thing that I definitely must try in Italy is the famous Gelato ice cream. Unlike in my country where ice creams are usually only sold with three basic flavors: strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. There are dozens to hundreds of different flavors of Gelato in hundreds of ice cream shops. I tried many flavors. Indeed, they are very fresh and very tasty.

Here, Gelato is the Italian pride, similar to pizza and spaghetti.

One thing I was very impressed with Rome is that ancient Roman works appear everywhere. Just a short walk, I came across the ruins of a Roman building surrounded by a fence.

I think Italian intentionally did not restore them so that visitors can feel the thousands of years old of the city which was once the capital of the largest empire in the world.

The symbol "SPQR" ("Senatus Populusque Romanus" or "Senate and People of Rome") is everywhere. Did they do it to commemorate the glory days of the Roman Empire?

I stopped at the Mausoleum of Augustus, the first emperor of Roman Empire and one of the greatest leaders in human history. The mausoleum was under renovation at the time of my visit.

The tomb was looted by the Vandals and Augustus' ashes were scattered. However, a fortunate thing is that the shape of the building is still intact after thousands of years and everyone now knows that this place is the tomb of the greatest emperor of Roman history.

Trevi Fountain was my next destination. It was pretty crowded here.

Next I visited the Pantheon. At first, I was quite disappointed because the “humble” exterior of this building looks very rough and old and it is not as magnificent as the Pantheon in Paris. But after doing some google, I was shocked to learn that it is nearly 1900 years old!

I was passing by Castel Sant'Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel) but unfortunately, I didn't drop in. This is because I was so tired after 2 weeks of travel.