It’s 2021 and I Visited Rome

I write two different travel related blogs and it has been pretty quiet on the travel writing front for the last ten months or so. Actually I haven’t published anything in over six months. In the mean time, we moved to Toronto and my house has become a jail housing 5 inmates and a dog as we continue to shelter in place, home educate kids again, and do what we can to help slow the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was yet another bleak Canadian winter day in January as I was sprawled on the couch drinking espresso and mindlessly scrolling through endless social media on my phone when a post about Rome’s Piazza Navona piqued my interest. I am not sure why it interested me but then I tried to place what was in that piazza in my mind. I knew I had been there but couldn’t quite place it. I had flashes of eating gelato, looking at a familiar fountain, and that time we ate pasta from takeout boxes in the piazza in the sunshine.

I knew that we had taken a Rick Steve’s audio walk through Rome and endeavoured to find that tour. I downloaded it and started to listen through and look at the accompanying pictures. It turns out that I was actually thinking about Piazza di Spagna. However, listening to that walking tour and envisioning the sites that I had visited in the past did something to me. It kindled a fire in my mind. Of all the things that 2020 took from me personally, the ability to travel, or even visit sites in my own city, has been the most damaging. My home has become a prison and my mental state one of longing for adventure and boredom.

It was probably the combination of soothing tones and Rick Steeves’ dad jokes that sent my mind racing through the streets of Rome. I could see the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps as if I was in Rome, rather than it being nearly five years since I took my twins on their first international trip to the eternal city.

We thought a couple times of trying to go places in 2020, but the risks outweighed the possible benefits and rock bottom prices. Perhaps if I was alone and could just jet of to Tulum and not worry about the consequences, I would have done so. Alas, possibly stranding my children in a foreign land, whilst a pandemic rages, and possibly not having a way home, place to sleep, or food available was an easy decision maker for me.

That day was different though. On that dreary and grim morning I had finally had enough and I left for Rome. I finished the walking tour in my mind while looking at some images on Google Maps. Then, rather than the usual drivel I listen to while too infrequently getting some exercise I found a guided tour of the Roman Forum on YouTube. While a little disjointed and not at all how I had seen the Forum in the past, it was a piece of travel in my mind for 45 min. Perched on my bike trainer, I pedalled my way through the ancient columns and temples in the shadow of the Colosseum remembering the first time my son saw that epic amphitheatre with sheer awe in his eyes.

Whilst on my cycling trip through the Forum I even learned that the word basilica in Roman times meant only a public building. It was often used as a court or place for public meetings. It was not until the Catholic church rose to power that the word was used to represent a church. The cynic in me had no problem understanding that the church would choose this as an all encompassing word that meant both church, court, decision making place etc.

Following my tour of the Forum I was inspired to write about my day. I have no idea why but as it was the first inspiration I had to write in months, I did so.

I suppose that it is a coincidence that we had already intended on making Roman style pizza for dinner. (Okay full disclosure, we were making pizza but Roman or Neopolitan style sounds so much better when trying to paint a picture with words.) I even had a couple of Peroni to wash it all down and if only for a few moments was back in Rome, if only in my mind.

How have you been dealing with the pandemic so far? I’d love to hear from anyone struggling to keep travel in their lives during these unprecedented times. Leave a comment below and let me know. Or just let me know there are still people out there reading about travel in 2021. While you are there give us a like and share the post.

Arrivederci.