Eight elusive Roman treasures still haunting my bucket list

I know Rome well. From my first visit on a school trip, when I ditched classmates more interested in shopping to scramble over the Palatine Hill on my own, I've always wanted to scratch beneath the standard bus-tour itinerary and touch history. Back in the early '00s I spent a whole week there on my own, dedicating myself to niche sights and small attractions unlikely to captivate fellow travellers. 

But Rome is a big city, with prodigious layers of history. It would take a lifetime to see it all. Here's my "bucket list" of eight places I'm keen to go but haven't managed to see in the Eternal City. 

SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO

From its fabulous Medieval origin story of the exorcism of Nero's ghost to a line of popes who decided to endow the place with masterpieces, this is one of Rome's blockbuster churches. But Rome has a lot of blockbuster churches. Santa Maria del Popolo is the only one with two big Caravaggios facing off in all their dramatic glory. The Cerasi chapel features the Conversion of St. Paul on one side and the Crucifixion of St. Peter on the other. The bad boy of Baroque art rolled out all of his dramatic tricks of lighting and perspective to dominate the small space and pull you into the scene. Presumably you hardly notice the knockout-in-any-other-space Assumption of the Virgin by Carracci over the altar, the frescoed ceiling, and the opulent, gilded plasterwork. But I can't tell you, because every time I have tried to visit the church it's been closed for renovation. Now it's closed for Covid safety. I live in hope.

THE DOMUS AUREA

I suspect the Emperor Nero would have had a soft spot for Caravaggio, given their shared reputations for wild excess, violence and love of art. The last Julio-Claudian emperor built a palace called the Domus Aurea for himself that he set out to make an architectural and artistic wonder of the world. Its marble walls were studded with gold and gemstones and it had a famous dining pavilion with open sides and a rotating dome. It was lost for centuries before being re-discovered in the Renaissance. Much of the classically-inspired style of the time comes from artists ... including Michelangelo and Raphael ,,, who lowered themselves into the underground chambers, copied the decorations they found there and used them prolifically in their work. It was only opened to the public in 1999, and then floods in 2006 closed it down for more years. It now appears to be re-opened, and is run as part of the archeological park that includes the colosseum, but the "buy tickets" link leads to a 404 message.

PALAZZO FARNESE

Many a visitor to Rome has stood in the Campo dei Fiori and looked up into the windows of the French Embassy ... aka the Palazzo Farnese ... slack jawed at the glittering interiors on display. It is a famous treasure house of art, particularly noted for its ceiling fresco cycle on the Loves of the Gods by Annibale Carracci. The facade has been copied repeatedly by architects around the world. And opera fans know it as the place where Scarpia attempted to seduce Tosca before she killed him. In recent years the French have started to offer guided tours, but they are extremely limited and must be booked in advance through the official web page. No options work for my next trip, so my wait continues.

THE MUSEUM OF ROMAN CIVILISATION IN EUR

EUR is a business and residential district built by Mussolini in anticipation of a World's Fair that never happened. Its collection of distinctive buildings in Fascist neo-classical style has always intrigued me and would definitely be worth a wander on a day when you didn't have other things on your Roman priority list. (I haven't had one of those yet.) The key reason to make the trip is a model. The most famous display in the Museo Della Civilta Romana shows the Rome of 300 AD in astonishing detail at 1/250 scale. Though few tourists make it to suburbia to see the physical model, they'll see it repeatedly throughout their visit. It is the source for all of those guidebooks and display panels that show you what the ruins you're looking at used to look like. Ridley Scott even used bits of it in Gladiator. Sadly, the museum has been closed for renovation since 2014, though news reports say the work itself didn't start for another three years, and no date has been announced for re-opening. (I suspect you're noticing a pattern of inaccessibility here.)  

VIA APPIA

The Appian Way connected Rome to the port of Brindisi, jumping off point for the Eastern Mediterranean. It was one of multiple major arteries leading in and out of the city, but a quirk of history means this is the only one that still exists for picturesque stretches as Roman road bordered by Roman monuments. Those monuments are often impressive tombs. Romans forbid burial inside their cities, tending to commemorate their dead along the roads just outside city gates. What was then on the outskirts of the city is now a regional park ... the second-largest urban park in Europe ... that protects landscape and ruins around the road up to the 10th Roman milestone. It's a well-known though rarely crowded spot for a walk. Traffic is still allowed on part of the road but there's not supposed to be much, and it's closed to motor vehicles on Sundays. I did come this way to visit Christian catacombs as a child, but I've always dreamed of a leisurely meander to check out the tombs. Though this Vespa tour looks like a more stylish and efficient way of getting around.

PALAZZO MASSIMO

Some of the choicest pieces of art from ancient Rome have been collected and put on display in this relatively new museum, a branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano created from a derelict palace at the turn of this century.  From the website, it looks like this is probably the best concentration of Roman sculpture outside the Vatican museum; in fact they share a few, since most great Roman statues were copies of Greek originals. But the main attraction for me are the frescos from the house of Livia. I've only seen examples on loan to a travelling exhibition in Paris, but never seen them all or in their home city. I do know they set decorative trends for nearly a century, and are gorgeous. To be honest, I never even knew where they lived (and suspect they were in storage for a long time). This is probably my easiest visit to accomplish next trip, as both the museum and our hotel are near the main train station.

CINECITTA

The largest film studio in Europe, Cinecitta's early days gave us classics like Ben-Hur, La Dolce Vita and Roman Holiday. In the modern era the studio has continued with film (I'm highly amused that Gangs of New York was made here) but also branched into TV. Both Rome and The Young/New Pope series were filmed here on sets that delivered a completely convincing Ancient Rome and Vatican City. The Cinecitta studio tour has multiple routes for exploration including views into the production process and a costume collection. But I suppose most visitors are here for the sets: ancient Rome, the temple of Jerusalem and 1400s Florence. There's also the re-creation of an American S-33 submarine used in the film U-571, which I suspect will be of more interest to my husband than to me. (Although having looked up the film and seen that it stars both Matthew McConaughey and Bon Jovi in the full flower of youth, I could be persuaded to watch the movie.)

QUARTIERE COPPEDE

This 31,000 square metre suburban district was designed by a single architect, Gino Coppede, in the early 20th century. Given the photos I've seen, he's Rome's unsung version of Gaudi, and much of the highly-decorated Art Nouveau/historic mish-mash here reminds me of bits of Barcelona. Or Disney fairy tale film sets. While I know I would enjoy a wander around, my real ambition is to find a wonderful VRBO apartment in the district and stay here for a week or two. During which I would concentrate on getting through the list above, while also visiting old favourites.

Ten quirky Roman sights beyond the average tourist list

We are 17 days away from our next attempt at international travel. While the risk of a major trip to Egypt and Jordan was not worth taking, a rugby weekend in Rome looks far more manageable. And, crucially, far easier and less expensive to cancel at the last minute if we must.

Italy is always an uneasy holiday venue for the Bencards. For me, it is a spiritual home where I feel more alive. It is rich with memories of childhood and exquisite family holidays, brimming with the art and food I like best. It is the only place in the world I have any chance of comprehending and making myself understood in another language. Though my husband is not quite the Italophobe I jokingly paint him, the country’s romantic appeal is mostly lost upon him. If left to make his own choice he would generally prefer to be anywhere else north of the Alps. His tomato allergy doesn’t help. And, crucially, for a man who can get by in four languages and, before meeting me, never really vacationed in a place where he couldn’t chat with the locals, not understanding what’s going on around him bothers him profoundly. 

Experience has taught us that a bit of travel planning is essential for marital harmony. If we each set out our priorities before a trip, and are honest about what we don’t want to do, life is more comfortable. I’ve also learned that my husband is far more likely to be captivated by the odd or quirky than anyone’s traditional Top 10 list. And so, to help with our preparations, here’s the first of two round-ups of Roman sightseeing possibilities. Below, my choice of the 10 best things to see that are off the usual tourist track. I’ve visited them all, but my husband has not. Next time, I’ll offer my wish list of things I still haven’t managed to see but want to explore.

1. THE OTHER THREE PAPAL BASILICAS

Everyone knows about St. Peter’s, but there are actually four papal basilicas in Rome. A papal basilica is differentiated by a holy door only opened in Jubilee years, a baldachin (decorative canopy) over the high altar and a restriction against anyone but the pope celebrating mass at that canopied altar. The three basilicas that most people miss are St. Giovanni in Laterano, St. Paolo Fuori le Mura and St. Maria Maggiore. Though all were “improved” by the same counter-reformation trends that made Rome’s churches a festival of the Baroque, the main fabric of these three is much older. All have the original footprint of the vast rectangular Roman civic buildings early Christians adopted as their first major churches, and a wealth of early Christian mosaics. They are unlike almost all the other churches in Rome and feel profoundly ancient. They aren’t close to each other, however, so seeing more than one of them in a trip would require dedication. If I had to choose one I’d opt for Santa Maria Maggiore, which has the most early Christian stuff plus a collection of impressive tombs. Though if you want really quirky, go to St. John Lateran and then pop across the street to the Scala Sancta. This marble staircase is supposedly the one Christ ascended for his appearance before Pilate. St. Helena brought it back to Rome. It now has a wooden staircase sheathing its precious original substance and pilgrims ascend on their knees, praying at each step. I am glad I did this when I was 11 as I can’t imagine my knees holding out for the whole climb these days.

2. SAN CLEMENTE

This church is a variation on the theme above. It is also an early-Christian, basilica-shaped building with fantastic early mosaics. It’s a lot easier to get to than the three above, being just a gentle stroll from the Colosseum. But what really differentiates it is what lies below. You can climb into the basement where you’ll see the foundations of the first church, which dates to the late 4th century. Then you get to scramble down another level, and you find yourself in the excavated remains of a Roman street with the foundations of an apartment block and a temple of Mithras, with intact altar surrounded by stone benches for the celebrants. (See photo above). There’s no better place in Rome to appreciate the city’s layers of history and probably no better-preserved Mithraeum. (London’s version, despite its curators’ high-tech attempts to bring it to life, looks sadly underwhelming in comparison to this one.)

3. OSTIA ANTICA

Pompeii is world-famous and the reason most tourists make the effort to get to Naples. Few realise there’s an ancient Roman cityscape almost as well-preserved that is easily accessible by a suburban train from the capital city. Ostia was the port of ancient Rome. Throughout imperial times this was a bustling, affluent and cosmopolitan town of up to 100,000 people. With political instability in the 5th century came a lack of engineering will to keep the waterways open. The port silted up, people moved away and nature reclaimed the abandoned site. These days you can walk down empty city streets where many buildings have preserved ground floors. There are several bath complexes with impressive mosaic floors in situ, and lots of architectural detail to stumble upon in shops and villas. At the town’s centre is an impressive theatre and a marketplace surrounded by offices of all the traders who were once based here, their businesses advertised in mosaic in front of their thresholds. The best part … at least when I visited … is that there’s hardly anyone here. For at least a third of my visit I was wandering through ruins entirely alone, creating the sense I was discovering the place for the first time. It’s magical.

4. THE CAPUCHIN MUSEUM AND CRYPT

The most macabre, bizarre sight in Rome and not to be missed if there’s a shred of Goth in your soul. When the capuchin friars moved in to their new church of St. Maria Della Concezione dei Cappucini in 1631, they brought 300 cartloads of remains of their deceased brothers through history with them. And this being the height of the Baroque era, they decided to not just bury them, but use their skeletons as building materials for a wildly ornate decorative scheme in the basement. Femurs, tibias, skulls, vertebrae and the like were separated like piles of Lego, coming back together as columns, arabesques, flowers, domes, circles, etc. And just so you don’t forget what you’re actually looking at, some of the brothers’ skeletons remain complete, dressed in moth-eaten robes, glaring down at you through empty eye sockets to remind you that the glory of the world is fleeting. 

5. THE MUSEUMS ON THE PINCIAN HILL

For a less gruesome take on the Baroque, head to the Galleria Borghese. This is one of the world’s great small museums: the collection is small enough to get round without feeling overwhelmed, but it’s jammed with masterpieces. It’s best known for having Bernini’s most famous sculptures and an impressive group of Caravaggios. It’s all housed in an eye-wateringly opulent palace that would be worth the trip even without the art. A short walk away is the National Etruscan Museum at the Villa Giulia. This is another aristocratic villa once built as a suburban retreat at the edge of Rome, now quite central. And like the Borghese, it’s worth visiting just to nose around the impressive building. The Etruscans are a bonus. Rulers of central Italy before the Romans turned up and muscled in on their territory, the Etruscans influenced the Romans but are distinctly a people apart, with art that’s more reminiscent of ancient Crete or Egypt. This is a fascinating repository of beautiful things from a mysterious and little-known culture.

6. TRAJAN’S MARKET

Almost all visitors to Rome will have seen this amphitheatre-shaped complex of ancient commercial buildings from the modern road that cuts through the Imperial Fora. Few would have gone in. This is essentially the world’s first multi-story shopping mall, with a design so practical it’s still used by urban planners today. (Though they may be unaware of the source.) Though heavily skewed towards shopping, the market held a library, concert halls, offices and spaces to hang out with your friends. The world’s foremost expert on the place happens to be a professor I studied with at Northwestern, Jim Packer, so I’ve felt a special bond since he introduced me to it. Like Ostia, it’s a place you can get up close and personal with the Roman world without lots of tourists bothering you.

7. TIVOLI

Trajan’s Market is vast and imposing, but it’s insignificant compared to the villa his successor Hadrian built at Tivoli. Anticipating Disney’s International Showcase at Epcot by almost 2,000 years, Hadrian made his holiday retreat from the capital a city-sized sprawl of architecture collected from around the Empire. There’s Greece here, Egypt there, a nod to the Near East over that bridge. It’s a glorious place to wander around, but it presents you with a major challenge. It takes most of the day to see it properly, and it’s just one of three notable attractions in this town 40 minutes northeast of central Rome. If you prefer gardens, or fancy yourself a hydraulic engineer, you’ll head for the Villa d’Este, where owners from the Renaissance through the Baroque shaped the steep inclines below the house into some of the most outrageously opulent water gardens ever seen. There’s also the Villa Gregoriana, a park full of managed, romantic wildernesses created around the ruins of yet another rich family’s country retreat. (I’ve never found time for that one.)

8. PALAZZO DORIA PAMPHILJ

Most tourists wandering down the Corso, Rome’s main commercial street, walk by the rather plain gateway of this palace without realising it’s a tourist attraction, much less one of the most lavish aristocratic palaces in Italy filled with one of the world’s most valuable private art collections. To tell the truth, I find the interiors a bit gloomy, but the sense of discovering a hidden treasure is better than the decor. I also love the way it’s occupied by a modern family still involved in its maintenance and management. The current owner, Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilj, is a long way from your average Italian aristocrat. He travelled the world and ran a restaurant in Brazil before inheriting the house. He’s a gay rights activist who, with his partner and their adopted children, has been instrumental in advancing changes in Italian law and perception. And as the son of an Englishman … his Maidenhead-born father married into the family and changed his surname as the palace and title went down the female line … he takes an English aristocrat’s approach to managing the estate. He narrates the audio guide, rooms are available for private hire (a former employer of mine used to use the place for customer events) and upstairs apartments are let out at a peppercorn rent to artists and writers. Other space is given over to the centre that supports positive relations between Anglicanism and the Roman Catholic Church.  

9. TRASTEVERE

This eclectic neighbourhood sits behind the Vatican and across the river from most major tourist sites, so has traditionally gotten little tourist footfall. (Though this has changed in recent years.) The winding streets are a delightful hotch-potch of architectural remnants, with Medieval walls and Roman columns often turning up in the facades of more modern buildings. There are loads of interesting shops and restaurants that all feel profoundly local. It’s a great place for a gentle wander.

10. VILLA FARNESINA

Aside from eclectic wandering, this is the main reason to venture into Trastevere. Yup, it’s another lavish villa built by a famous Roman family with papal associations. And while the whole thing is very nice, those in the know seek it out for just one thing: a spectacular ceiling. Everyone flocks to the Sistine Chapel; I’ll take Raphael’s loggia here any time.  Originally open-sided and perched above the Tiber, the loggia served as a summer banqueting pavilion for the outrageously wealthy Chigi family. Legend says they served dinners on gold plates and once empty threw them into the Tiber below to show off their limitless resources. But the family money came from canny banking and they were no fools; they strung nets below the loggia to capture the whole dinner service for washing and re-use. Obviously, a family that fond of display was going to invest in some serious interior design. Enter Raphael, also busy at the nearby Vatican for the Popes. Here, unleashed from religious restrictions, he created a wonderland of gods and goddesses in the pursuit of love. The colours are vibrant, the perspectives bewitching, the action non-stop and some of it lascivious in the extreme. It is one of the most beautiful rooms on the planet. (The Farnese, whose name brands the palace now, didn’t buy it until it was almost 60 years old. They are more directly related to another magnificent fresco cycle, which will show up on my next list.)

Death on the Nile: Four tough travel lessons from the pandemic

 Travel during a global pandemic demands steely nerves and deep pockets. I've exhausted both. 

Tomorrow afternoon, I should have been sitting beside the Nile, dressed in flowing white linen, sipping a gin & tonic and contemplating the extraordinary two weeks ahead. Instead, I will be spending yet another cozy Friday evening in front of the TV chez Bencard. The story of why and how this happened reveals a lot of things I wish I'd known sooner. I'm sharing to help you avoid the stresses.

We'd put our deposit down on a Nile cruise, with an extension to Jordan, as an indulgent Christmas present to ourselves in 2019. We planned to travel at Easter 2021. While that seems like an extraordinary amount of time between booking and travel, it was perfectly logical. Viking Cruises' luxurious Nile boats are small ... ours had just 24 cabins ... and the Nile cruising season is limited. Options tend to book up more than a year in advance. When pandemic swept across the world in March of 2020, we were relaxed. The trip was a full year away. That seemed safe. The start of a vaccination programme before the end of 2020 gave us increased hope.

We all know how that went. As the 2021 Lenten season drew to its close I was chatting with Viking regularly as we played an amicable game of chicken. If they cancelled on me, I'd get a cash bonus as an apology and could take my money back or roll the reservation. If I cancelled first, no extra cash compensation ... but I'd nab a prime spot ahead of all those other people who would soon be re-booking all those cancelled cruises. And there was a cabin available on the same boat for the 2021 Christmas cruise. Just a little more expensive because it was peak season. That seemed safe.

We travelled internationally in September and were hopeful for December, but Omicron swept through the UK and infection rates exploded. I got COVID on 11 December and had to isolate until the day before we were supposed to leave. And I wasn't feeling great. Viking had room on the same itinerary on the same boat available a month later. More expensive, naturally, because the only cabin available was the nicest one. That seemed safe.

This is where things started to come unstuck. Medical fact says there's no safer time to travel than after recovering from Covid. You're surging with antibodies. Mine were enhanced with three doses of vaccine. The Covid recovery pass which, in a blaze of technological efficiency not typical of the NHS, appeared promptly and automatically on my NHS app was supposed to guarantee my transit even if I tested positive on a PCR test. Which I probably would. 

Turns your PCRs are likely to turn up positive for up to 90 days after having Covid. Long after you've recovered and are non-infectious. (And doctors advise that the older you are, the longer it's probably going to stay in your system.)  I thought my recovery pass would make travel trouble free. Reality? It's worthless.

As anyone who's attempted international travel since the pandemic knows, there are no international standards. Every country has its own rules, and they can shift at any moment. PCR tests are the closest the world seems to have come to agreement. Negative: you may pass. Positive: you're in trouble. 

Having returned to health but assuming I'd test positive, I started looking for assurance that my Covid pass would see me through Heathrow, Cairo and Amman. Despite the medically-proven fact that you could be fit to travel yet testing positive, I found nothing in writing to assure me of this. Only bellicose warnings that a positive PCR spelled doom. I tried to connect with human beings. 

Nobody seems to work at BA any more. Their customer service line doesn't even offer a chance to stay on hold to wait for assistance. Redirect to digital or go away. No reply to my tweet and the only answer to my email was a re-direct to the web pages I'd already poured over that contained no answer. How about the Egyptian consulate? Web site under construction. No answer on the telephone number found on Google. No reply to the email. Viking, the only player in this game who regularly answered phones, couldn't give me clear answers at first but eventually got back to me with the cold, hard truth.

They understood Covid recovery passes, and I'd be safe once I was within their hands. There was a good chance BA would let me out. But there was a high probability neither Egypt, nor Jordan, would budge off the simple black and white PCR rule. Egypt was even in the habit of doing spot PCR tests and sending those who came back positive into a government quarantine hotel for 10 days. Which I am fairly sure would bear no resemblance to my stateroom on the Viking Ra. Finally, I had the clarity to understand that any attempt to travel would be high risk and unwise. 

It was just a shame that Viking's representative hadn't realised that when I called from my Covid sickbed to reschedule the Christmas cruise. I suspect Viking management had spotted this fly in the ointment, as well, since they offered me a full roll-over of my payment into credit for two years, even though by their terms and conditions I was so close to departure they could have kept my cash. 

I should have been heartbroken that after three attempts, the land of the pharaohs was out of reach. Instead, I was flooded with relief. Uncertainty, angst and the fear of losing our payment hanging over my head no longer kept me up at night. We'd been isolating for more than a month to try to stay healthy for travel. We finally ventured out to the cinema for date night. A long list of complications fell away.

The lessons learned from this two-year adventure?

Lesson No. 1: Assume that a diagnosed case of Covid means no international travel for 90 days. Sadly, that means that every time you're stepping out your door you're endangering your ability to travel. I'm hoping regulations change soon, since I have a trip to Rome scheduled 61 days after diagnosis. So I haven't completely lost the stress. Therefore...

Lesson No. 2: Limit international travel to spur-of-the-moment opportunities. Given that one of my keys to happiness is holiday planning, it pains me to type this. But it's reality. You're far more likely to complete a trip you book a week or two in advance. We plan to start using our Viking credit by waiting until European restrictions loosen and then calling to ask "do you have any open cabins for anywhere in the next few weeks?" Given the number of cancellations travel companies are dealing with right now, we're hopeful.

Lesson No. 3: In times of ongoing uncertainty, take your cash back. In hindsight, I should have waited for Viking to cancel the first time, taken my cash and forgotten about Egypt for several years. I hope never to live through something like this pandemic again, but if I do ... money will triumph over hope.

Lesson No. 4: You get what you pay for. We all know this, but it's even more relevant in a crisis. Yes, Viking Cruises are expensive. But they've proven their worth. At every step there have been humans to talk to, when others have abandoned their customers to self service. Their advice was thoughtful and informed, and their policies generous. The past two years have built my fidelity to their brand. Stay tuned for a report from one of their ships, somewhere, someday...