Rome, London, Home – Over Too Soon

Little shopping street, very quaint

Sculpture by Bernini, Bridge of Angels, Rome

Bridge of Angels, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican

Ruins of ancient temples, Rome

I still haven’t figured out how to juggle doing things with writing about them. The last two weeks have raced by – we’ve been doing plenty and then collapsing in the evening, or organizing, or packing. We’ve been to Rome, London, New Jersey, and now back in Montreal – happy to see family and friends, but sad our trip is over.

I’m not going to write the details of what we saw in Rome and London – I’ll leave that to Madison.  She’s great at researching, describing, and photographing each of the sites. Suffice it to say we walked and walked and walked and walked some more, ate amazingly well (whoever thinks London’s food is boring, boiled, and expensive needs to try some of the places we found), and swore we would return to each city. At one point we considered changing our flights and staying in Rome longer – who needs to see London?!? I had been there several times for business and it was, well, you know, English. Familiar, almost. But we didn’t and, I’m happy to say, I saw a whole new London this time. In London, we considered cashing in our return ticket and staying longer there!!!

But….we didn’t and so we saved dozens of sites and tours for another visit. Always good to have something to look forward to.

Each time we left a place, we were sad to leave so soon. How could the next place come close to being that interesting? Yet each new place was just as compelling as the previous one. Not one dull place on our itinerary.

As the “guide” of this learning experience for Madison, I always try to absorb each site at two levels. I can’t help seeing it as a tourist, as a first time viewer, often overwhelmed by the age of something like the Colosseum or the vast riches of the Vatican or the beauty of the art at the National Gallery in London. I also try to look at how it’s connected to all the other sites we’ve seen, cultures we’ve (superficially/briefly) experienced and life back in Canada. It’s easy to be the tourist – so many of the places we’ve seen are so out of the ordinary, so spectacular, that I feel I must almost physically move to another space to reflect on them as a part of the whole experience. What is the Colosseum beyond its own history in Italy? – what are the connections to what we’ve seen in Barcelona, Jerusalem, elsewhere? If travel were easier and cheaper (and safer, in some places), it would be great to follow a question we have about what happened in one place to its geographic roots. But we could only hope to remember/record these questions and pursue them some time later.

Of course, there’s always the internet, but, guess what?! Internet “tours” aren’t the same as or anywhere as powerful as standing in the real place, feeling the stones that people put in place thousands of years ago, connecting to history so physically. Obvious? Maybe, but I think we sometimes forget the power of the real thing. Of course, cost can’t be ignored, but I think too many people don’t travel for reasons other than cost.

With all this insight, what might I have done differently if I were to plan a trip like this again or if I could plan it my own way?

• First, I would buy only one way tickets to our starting point (no planned return ticket) . Of course, right away this adds to the cost. I won’t say in my ideal trip that money is no object, but let’s say I’d be a bit more flexible – that cost would be weighed more against value and the value of not having a return ticket would, in my eyes, be high.
• Next, I would only arrange housing for the first couple of stops (so, yes that means I’ve travel arrangements to at least one more location) and then be more flexible after that. It takes an enormous amount of time to find good housing and flights, so, yes, I would end up spending part of our trip time on travel arrangements (which I ended up doing anyway).So, to offset that, I would…
• Spend more time in each place. Six days in Barcelona wasn’t bad, a month in Israel was amazing, a week in India, in a suburban hotel, took more work to get out and see the world, but 5 days in Rome and 4 in London were much, much too short. So, at least a week, if not 2 or 3 or more, per place. More time means having some time to reflect, write, connect.
• More apartments, no hotels (although our London hotel room, with its bunkbeds and kitchenette, was fairly reasonable and extremely well-located). Kitchens are very convenient (really, who needs to eat 3 meals in restaurants) and having a “home” base rather than just a homebase was comforting.
• Big unexpected expense – going from the airport to the any city. In London, we finally got smart and used public transportation – the Tube (our hotel was a block away from Earl’s Court Underground Station). Much cheaper than other means of transportation, plus no stairs at either end in this case (elevators, escalators, ramps) meant no difficulty moving our luggage. (Stairs in other places were an obstacle, and, after a red-eye, not the most inviting challenge to face.)
• Less luggage. Although we used everything we brought and we had to cover a variety of weather conditions  (almost snow to dry desert heat to humid tropical heat to rain) and circumstances (business, casual, beach, modest attire, etc), I would still like to travel much lighter, but, in reality the weight of the luggage only matters when moving from place to place, and it was good we had what we needed, when we needed it. I guess “need” is the operative word here. Books, travel or otherwise, added a lot to our load – perhaps having audio travel books plus great maps would’ve helped. A lighter laptop would’ve been good, too. (New limits on luggage and charges for excess also come into play here – we were each allowed 2 bags because we bought our tickets early enough to qualify for that. That’s not the case anymore on BA.)
• Good internet everywhere. We had internet everywhere, but, sometimes, the good was missing. Also, often only one person or device could get on the internet at a time (mainly an issue in hotels). Really, does this need to be the case? Of course, if good internet wasn’t available and I really felt that we needed to go to that country or region, it’s location over access in my opinion. There are alternatives to getting connected (internet cafes, cafes with internet, etc) but not alternatives to that place.
• Use more public transportation. I liked the exercise from walking, but sometimes it would just be too much. By the time we got to what we wanted to see, we were too tired to enjoy it. Of course, all the extra walking, especially in Rome, meant I deserved those lovely pasta dishes that were so yummy. Ahh, the food in Rome…..I’ll dream of that. (In Rome, we stayed in a B&B near the Vatican – B&B Bibi e Romeo -  and our very helpful host suggested restaurants popular with locals. What food!!!)

So, those are my take-aways in terms of logistics, but some of these impact the learning efforts, too. We ran during the last few days, so it was harder to reflect on what we were seeing in Rome and London. It’s hard to discipline yourself to not try and see everything, which would be superficial and physically exhausting. It’s important to find time to not be going somewhere but to just be being somewhere.

Looking forward to using all these tips some time soon……I hope….

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