I never dreamt that I would one day walk the streets of Rome, feel the history soak into my skin and the rough streets beneath my canvass shoes. It is a place that puts into perspective the span of one life, that draws out notions of families as generations. Under this summer sun the stones are hot everywhere except the narrow streets where only at noon can the light strike them at all. It is a place of such ambience that my heart beats in contented rhythm and every one of my body movements as a slow relaxed flow like the Tiber.
In the distance is a bridge of many stone arches, each of them perfectly formed. Though the night is deepening their reflections still ripple in the Tiber, bringing to mind a fine Monet painting. This is Rome under the stars, the business of the daytime giving way to the relative peace of nightfall.
In this city that has existed for three millennia, history crawls from every crevice and crack. There is architecture so enchanting as to bewitch this lonesome traveller, draw me in until I wish I were lucky enough to call this place of sandy hued rock and brick plazas home.
The flower festival in Rome is tiny bite of heaven. The air is delicious and every display a vivid feast for the eyes. Each side of the street run rivers of people, their shirts and clothing reminding me of gelato colours. The buildings are so different from back home, all of them built to last hundreds of years, more than a thousand is common. They line the street not like soldiers but more like beloved grandfathers of this country where even the language is beautiful.
On the street corner is a gelateria shaped like a fancy chocolate box. A line of locals and tourists alike stream from the open window, the newest customers walking away with every colour of ice cream on the fanciest of waffle cones. The scene is enough to draw a smile from my tired lips, it's right out of some children's book, the hues so perfect. The ground is made up of deep grey bricks and the buildings are the warm tones of sandstone. Against it the gelateria is pinks, blues, greens - almost bringing to mind a nursery for a baby.
The streets of Rome remind me so much of Oxford, their narrowness and the tallness of the stone buildings. They sprung up long before the invention of the car and will be here long after we've done away with such things. One day the air here will again be pure and scented more by the cooking of pasta sauces than the petroleum burnt in traffic jams.
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