ROME - What Remains

What Remains

It has been ten years since we went to Rome, and I've forgotten a lot of the details.

I couldn't tell you the name of every restaurant we ate at or reconstruct exactly what we did each day. But perhaps that's the interesting thing about remembering a place after so much time. What remains are the things that made you feel something.

And Rome made me feel the weight of time.

There is a strange sensation that comes with standing somewhere knowing that people have been standing on that same ground for thousands of years. Places where people lived, ruled, fought, celebrated and died. Places where decisions were made that eventually found their way into history books on the other side of the world.

In Rome, history doesn't feel neatly contained behind museum glass. You walk through it.

Colosseum

Of course I remember the Colosseum.

There are certain places you've seen so many times in photographs that you think you already know what they'll look like. Then you stand in front of them and realise that recognising something and comprehending it are entirely different things. The Colosseum was like that. Standing there, looking at something built almost two thousand years ago, it was difficult not to think about everything those walls had witnessed. The sheer amount of human life that had unfolded there before either of us existed was almost impossible to comprehend. For a moment, ancient Rome wasn't something I'd learned about.

It was right in front of me.

A Coin in the Trevi Fountain

We did all the wonderfully touristy things too.

We went to the Trevi Fountain, stood amongst everyone else doing exactly the same thing, tossed a coin over our shoulders and made a wish. I can't remember what I wished for. Maybe that's for the best.

We stood on the Spanish Steps with gelato in our hands. We wandered over cobblestones and through streets lined with buildings that made even an ordinary walk feel like magic.

Looking back through the photographs, there is a lot of gelato.

Actually, there is a lot of food.

Rome, Through Food

Some of my clearest memories have nothing to do with the places you're told you absolutely have to see in Rome.

I remember sharing a pizza with Nico and sitting there watching life happen around us.

There was nowhere else we needed to be in that moment. Just the two of us, a pizza between us, and Rome carrying on with itself. I remember tiramisu (amazing but the best I'd ever had was still in Amsterdam!) Pastries. Coffee. Gelato after gelato.

Looking at these photographs ten years later, I realise how often I photographed food, long before it became such an enormous part of my working life. I wasn't analysing it. I wasn't developing recipes or thinking about technique. Haute didn't exist. I simply appreciated the art of it

There is something quite lovely about being able to look backwards and recognise a part of yourself before you knew where it was going.

Getting Lost

Oh, evenings in Rome are just super romantic. This may actually be the Rome I remember most. The sun would begin disappearing between the old buildings, throwing warm light down the narrow streets and alleyways. We'd walk with very little idea of where we were.

At night, we'd get lost trying to decide where to have dinner next. They were all sp quaint and cozy. Intimate. There was something wonderful about having nowhere particularly important to get to and making the biggest decision of the evening where we were going to eat.

Perhaps that's why those ordinary moments have survived when so many of the details haven't.

What Remains

Ten years is long enough for a lot of a trip to disappear. I've forgotten restaurant names. I've forgotten the order in which we saw things. There are photographs I look at now and have to think for a moment about where we were. But I remember standing beneath the Colosseum and trying to comprehend all that was in front of me.

I remember throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain. I remember gelato on the Spanish Steps. I remember sharing a pizza with Nico and watching the world go by.

I remember the sunset finding its way through Rome's alleyways.

And I remember being happily lost at night, looking for somewhere to eat.

Maybe that's what travel eventually becomes. Not an itinerary. Not a collection of landmarks. Not even the photographs.

Just a handful of moments that, for reasons you couldn't have known at the time, refused to disappearppear.