Eternal Rome's changed a lot in a decade. Mostly for the better.

Rome may be an Eternal City, but it's not an unchanging one.

It's been exactly a decade since my last visit. The years before that had seen me there frequently, taking in everything from quick business trips to in-depth art historical studies to one very special visit for the canonisation of the nun responsible for establishing my school.* But less familiar places have beckoned in recent years, and I'd consigned Rome to memory.

Last weekend, the grand old lady and I got to know each other again. And just as when you see any dear, old friend after a long break, changes jumped out. Some good, some bad. Here are the main things I noticed after a decade away.

It's clean!
The Rome of my memory was crumbling and past its prime, most of its major sights blackened with the accumulation of the urban grime. Rubbish clean-up was haphazard, public green spaces were rarely maintained and graffiti abounded. Sightseeing was hard work, and always tinged with sadness about how the place and its treasures were deteriorating.  Clearly, government has been working on this. And it shows. The Piazza del Popolo, Trinita dei Monti, the Trevi Fountain and numerous once-dingy baroque church facades are now gleaming white. The restored Ara Pacis in its sparkling new museum was the highlight of my trip.  The Forum is much improved with manicured green space. Pavements are even. Graffiti still exists (it wouldn't be Italy without it), but it's much less prevalent than it used to be. Facades of most buildings ... both public and private ... seem freshly painted and in good shape. Roof gardens are now crowning glories of of pastel-kissed beauties, rather than aberrations in a landscape of decay. Taking a tram beyond the city centre, however, showed that this beautification is limited; more about that in my upcoming rugby coverage. In the primary tourist areas, this is as good as Rome has looked in my lifetime.

But good lord, it's crowded!
Just like any major European capital, I suppose. It's the inevitable result of all those cheap airfares, the opening of the Communist economies, the rise of Asia and the advent of younger generations of Americans not content to wait until retirement before seeing Europe. Groaning under the weight of tourism, historic districts feel more like DisneyWorld than working urban centres.  Fortunately, once you step off a beaten path, there's peace. Go up onto the Palatine, visit the Capitoline Museum rather than the Vatican, wander the side streets between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. When it comes to the postcard-familiar viewpoints, however, be ready for body-to-body jams, made even less appealing with street hawkers who are far more aggressive than they used to be. Sadly, it takes some of the wonder out of the experience.

There's security everywhere
Some of this might have been a consequence of an international rugby fixture. A sold-out 70,000 seat stadium, well over half the audience visiting from England, was no doubt a tempting target for terrorists. But it felt like much of the security is now business as usual. It's most noticeable at the Vatican, where Bernini's exquisite colonnade has become the framework for airport-style scan stations required for anyone entering the church. Police cars were abundant, while soldiers in camouflage with impressive guns stood in front of military vehicles watching over key areas. This being Italy, everyone's uniforms looked great, and they were carrying them off with the usual "I've just stepped off the catwalk" swagger. It's still a bit disconcerting to be so obviously guarded. A consequence of our times.

A lot less traffic
Rome has finally done something about its traffic problems. It used to feel like any wander about town was taking your life into your hands, as speeding cars dodged and dashed, scooters zipped dangerously close to the pavements and crossing any road pitted you in an adversarial contest against drivers who paid no attention to any rule of the road.  These days, many key tourist areas like the Via Condotti have been restricted to taxis, and there seem to be many more one-way streets. The huge avenue through the forum was completely pedestrianised (I'm guessing this was only a weekend thing) which gave the whole area a carnival feel. Even on Monday, traffic seemed light. The cacophony of horns had noticeably reduced, and people seemed to be paying attention to traffic lights. I don't know how they've managed it, but it's much improved.

The Filipinos have arrived
Anyone who got to know Rome in the '80s and '90s was warned against the pickpockets merged in with beggars and street people, usually in Romany gypsy garb. Given the current refugee crisis, I expected those problems to be worse, and homeless numbers to be swollen by Syrians and Africans. I don't know where the government has moved them, but we saw fewer homeless people than in London. A few packs of gypsy women were holding their grimy children out and appealing for coins around the Vatican, but otherwise any homeless or refugee problem wasn't much in evidence. The ethic group that surprised me, however, were the Filipinos. As a steadfastly Catholic country, they've always been here as nuns, priests and pilgrims. Now, they seem to be taking over the service industry. Much of our top-notch hotel staff  was descended from those islands, Filipino waiters worked tables across town and I spotted Filipino chefs working in more than one kitchen. Given their global reputation for excellent customer service, and for immigrating around the world to find work, their presence wasn't a surprise. I always found my Filipino school friend's reverence for family, food and religion to be very Italian, so I can see the cultural fit. But seeing them in customer-facing jobs that, in my opinion, Italians had always held back for la famiglia was a surprise. What it says about Rome's economy, and changing attitudes towards immigration, I wasn't there long enough to be able to say. But it's a fascinating development.

But the illegal handbag sellers have gone
Another large immigrant group was traditionally West African. They'd be organised into gangs to sell suspiciously accurate copies of designer handbags. I used to think they were some of the best organised people in Italy. I remember watching in admiration as a white van dropped a group of them off on the Via Veneto. In less than 20 seconds they'd be unloaded, scattered to assigned points, and the van would have disappeared. No doubt to return to some assigned pickup point later. Each man had a bed sheet he'd spread to form a backdrop for his wares, which he could fold by the corners, thus being able to disappear with his stock at first sight of authority. They clearly had a sophisticated system of communicating about police, and always seemed to be one step ahead of them. The word on the street was that these weren't fakes at all, but percentages of normal production skimmed off manufacturing lines by a well-honed mafia retail organisation. I confess to buying more than a few of these items in the old days: I loved bargaining with the guys, the good deals fit my young professional budget and the bags were lovely. Clearly, the authorities have broken the trade. A few of the African sellers are still around, but now they're doing a range of folding wooden fruit bowls. They may now be legal, but I suspect their margins aren't what they were. The bowls just don't have the cachet of a Prada bag at 90% off.  The hottest item for street vendors these days is the selfie stick. One assumes there's been some sort of immigrant turf battle, because this trade seems to be controlled by Indians and Southeast Asians. The African handbag hawkers would never bother you if you didn't make eye contact. The selfie stick vendors are irritating pests who surround you, follow you along and keep badgering, no matter how many times you say "no". The trade is particularly fervent around the Vatican, in front of Castel Sant'Angelo and in Piazza Navona. I'd suggest this needs to be the police's next focus; it's by far the most irritating part of being a tourist in Rome these days.

St. Peter's suffers
Even with the additional crowds and the irritating selfie stick vendors, on balance Rome has improved impressively. We had a great trip, and most things were better than I remembered. The one glaring exception was Vatican City, where crowds, security and the realities of modern tourism have

combined to destroy the old magic.  The crowds are jaw-dropping; the queue to get into the Vatican Museums had reached the two-hour point by mid-morning on a Monday. The people hawking Vatican tours and shortcuts to the Sistine Chapel are as numerous and irritating and the selfie stick men. The frequency of papal appearances may be a good thing for the faithful, but it means that the piazza in front of the basilica is now cluttered with the detritus of modern event management. In addition to those security stations, there's the permanent papal pavilion, a network of crowd management fences, giant television screens, speakers and lighting. This piazza is one of the grandest architectural statements in the Western world, carefully designed by Bernini to evoke the sense of walking into the welcoming embrace of mother church, while a host of saints smile benignly down upon you. The modern clutter destroys the effect. Inside (once you've made it through the scanners) the crowds are as bad as you'd expect; made worse by the fact that they now fence off the entire area under the dome and most of the area beside and behind the main altar. Once, even huge crowds could disappear into the vast space, giving you the delightful experience of not realising its true size until you spotted someone in the distance and the scale kicked in. Now, everyone's kettled at the bottom of the nave like a London mob. Not only does it ruin the perspective, but you can't get close to many of the wonders of the cathedral any more. No chance to look at Bernini's greatest works at anything but a distance. The only redeeming quality: you can now get some gorgeous, people-free photos. But it's a woefully unfair trade for the complete destruction of reverential, mystical awe this place was built to convey.

Of course, the thing that's changed most in 10 years isn't Rome, but me. In that decade I've gone from being an Italophile who spent repeated holidays in that country to a more adventurous traveler. Our Northwestern Girls' trips have been seeking out new adventures since 2005, and I acquired a partner, then husband, in 2009 who prefers France and Germany to Italy, and opened up the possibility of couples-based, romantic travel. I've reached a point in my career that means I don't have to pinch pennies when I travel as I once did, and my perspectives on food and wine have broadened considerably. Of course, my energy levels are diminished and I no longer have the desire (or ability) to go clambering up bell towers and church domes. I've changed, Rome's changed, but overall ... I think we're both the better for it.

*Philippine Duchesne made it to the ranks of sainthood in July 1988. She was a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart and, fairly late in life, achieved a long-standing dream to travel to the Americas to teach American Indian children. She's now considered the patron of perseverance and adversity. Her shrine and burial place are in St. Charles, Missouri, and she was a tremendous role model growing up.