Roman Holiday

"Vatican City, the smallest sovereign state in the world, is a walled enclave in the city of Rome,writes Dr. Shahid Qayyum

Rome, the capital of Italy, is a multi-faceted place. From the erstwhile Roman Empire to the present day capital of modern Italy, Rome has been among the big names in must see places in Europe. It has been in literature in the form of all time famous maxims: 'Rome was not built in a day', 'While Rome was burning, Nero was playing his fiddle' and 'When in Rome do as the Romans do' and on the Hollywood film scene with block busters like 'Fall of the Roman Empire' and 'Roman holiday'. Roman English is also in common use. Rome is not burning any more and the infamous Nero is long gone. Unlike the Mughal and the Soviet Empires the Roman Empire re-emerged from the ashes and the Roman holiday is very much on. A trip to Italy, in this context, will be long remembered.

Rome, a bird's eye view

Far from stereotypical Mediterranean, Italy's climate varies from place to place. We landed at Rome International Airport under a heavily overcast sky. It was actually a light drizzle that we encountered on arrival from Athens and that reminded me of a friend who had visited Rome a couple of years ago but could enjoy it only from his hotel window. He believed in the famous verse:

Aaye kuchh abr kuchh sharaab aaye

Being averse to sedentary life style and drinking, I was really worried about the impending continuity of the inclement weather in the next few days. Though the sun remained under the cloud cover during most of our stay in Italy, to our good luck, the rain did not disrupt our programme any further and we moved around at will.

A Republic since 1946, Italy consists of the mainland Italian peninsula and two large Mediterranean islands namely Sicily and Sardinia further south and enclaves the sovereign states of Vatican and San Marino, the later, lesser known to the outside world, being the 5th smallest state both by area and population. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the victorious Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II was the first of the rulers of the Ottoman Empire to assume the title 'Caesar of the Roman Empire'.

We had planned a trip to about half a dozen European destinations in slightly less than four weeks time and had to budget-plan our outings. A friend very kindly handed me a book 'Europe 20 Dollars a day' (It was an old addition, the latest being Europe 50 Dollars a day) and this book really proved very handy with the minutest of the travel details and tips. We booked a place in a pension, French style boarding house, at competitive rates, on the National Street, mid way between the city centre and the Rome railway station. There could not have been a better location to see the historic city.

Sprawling over seven hills, the city of Rome has River Tiber flowing through the city centre. Incidentally most of the heritage sites were located close to where we were staying and when the tour operators gave a strike call, on the fateful day we had reserved for the city tour, we made good use of the book mentioned earlier. Taxis with English speaking cabbies were very expensive so we used public transport for site seeing. The bus tickets were not sold on board but had to be purchased from the 'T' shops (tobacco shops) in the side streets. Language being a big barrier I was fooling around looking for the 'T' shop when an Italian lady came to our rescue. Attracted to my wife's Pakistani dress she told us that her spouse was from Bangladesh and offered any possible help which we gratefully accepted. Her guidance was of extreme help and from then on we went around the metropolis with utmost ease.

 Piazza Venezia, the main city square, and former dictator Mussolini's official quarters were just fifteen minutes walk from the National street. It was where Poet of the East Allama Iqbal had met the then strongman on his European tour. There were three concrete maps drawn on a wall near this imposing building and they showed the expanse of the Roman Empire in three different eras. It looked as if half of the world, at one point, was under the Roman rule. What a glorious past!

Coliseum, the largest amphitheatre in Europe, which could accommodate 5000, was close by and a monument to see. Trevi Fountain, frequented by tourists in colossal numbers, was a place where one could wish, by throwing a coin into the water, for anything, except the proverbial free ride horses( for the beggars to ride). Following the tradition we too wished for the moon and got rid of some coins in the process.

Walking on a footpath one fine morning in the city centre we heard police  cars with screeching tires and blowing sirens and assumed that some film shooting was going on. It was only the following day we came to know that some outlaws were being chased by the law enforcing agencies and a German tourist was killed in the cross fire. It was really hard to digest that such things could happen in a European capital in broad day light.

Vatican City, the smallest sovereign state in the world spread over an area of 44 hectare (108.7 acres), is a walled enclave in the city of Rome. It houses St. Peter's church and Papacy. Created in 1929, the papal city state has its own postal services, a heliport, radio station and a publishing house. It issues its own coins though, like in Italy, Euro has replaced the age old Lira. Its population is just over 800 persons but millions of visitors throng the place every year. Vatican has the highest per capita crime rate in the world including purse snatching and pick -pocketing. At the church entrance it was interesting to see a notice reading; 'Please cover your legs and heads before entering'. Such rules always sanctify the place.

Pisa was our next destination. We undertook a four hour long train journey to the city of the famous tower through the picturesque landscape with the Mediterranean Sea on one side and vast fruit orchards on the other. Large motor car carriers were seen plying in large numbers on the express way with locally manufactured cars loaded on them in tiers. We took a bus from the railway station to the leaning marble structure which is a free standing bell tower of the cathedral of the city of Pisa that would have collapsed long ago had it not been for the support of the millions of visitors who get themselves photographed with the tower as if they were preventing it from crumbling to the ground. We too did our bit towards supporting the sinking monument and took photographs as a testimony. I once saw a cartoon in the famous Punch magazine which showed the under construction (then vertical) tower of Pisa with scaffoldings all around and the architect telling his colleague: "There is a small defect in the foundation but rest assured nobody is ever going to notice it".  Fifty-six meters high, this 12th century building leans at an angle of just 5.5 degrees but at the top it measures 4.5 m from where it used to stand vertically.

Historically Galileo did his experiments by dropping two cannon balls from the top of the leaning tower to augment his theory of speed vs. mass, the Nazis used it as an observation post during WW II and Mussolini ordered it to be returned to its normal vertical position albeit without success. In 1964 the Italian government decided to keep the tilt for the promotion of tourism and kept it closed for the visitors for almost a decade to reinforce its foundations from sinking further. The heavy bells, seven in number, were removed to shed the extra load and it was declared stable for another 300 years.

The vehicular traffic in Pisa was somewhat more disciplined than that of Rome. An article in the Readers Digest titled 'Driving Italian style' eulogized that driving reflected the character of a nation and the painting supporting the article was no different than the one we see every day in our motherland except that the vehicles on the roads in Rome were cent per cent mechanized, unlike Pakistan where stone age animal driven carts are still plying side by side with the modern automotives. The city fathers in Rome are trying to devise ways to overcome the traffic congestion and parking problems by disallowing the unauthorized traffic from the central part of the city during work days from 6 am to 6 p.m. We in Pakistan too will have to think of sorting this problem out sooner than later.

Latin, the original language of the Empire, was changed to Italian in the middle ages. Italian is a confluence of various regional dialects and in that respect has some theoretical semblance with Urdu, which itself is a conglomerate of different expressions. The Islamic community has grown significantly since the ‘not very distant’ past due to immigration from North Africa and the Middle Eastern countries and Rome can boast of the largest mosque in Europe built in 1995. We also came across Arab vendors selling their merchandize, especially semi precious stones, on the foot paths in Rome. The string of these multi coloured gems lent further hue to the already colourful side walks.

Our memorable trip to the historic city came to a close and we boarded Alitalia for Orly international Airport, Paris.