The Easter weekend has seen us flying to Rome. To get some sunshine, eat some pasta, get some culture and history. We should have known better. We should have known that Rome gives not in “some” measures like a frugal Scandinavian, but in the passionate manner of a Latin lover. We, the locals of Norway, got at times overwhelmed by this generosity. Along with the sun – the storm was given to us. Along with some life – the crowds were given to us (it was, maybe, a stupid idea to go there for Easter. But I am the kind of person who better regrets what I’ve done than what I haven’t done :)). Along with some pasta – the almost religious food experience was given to us. And along with some history – the whole city gave itself to as like a living museum. On every turn and every corner there would be: another beautiful church, another ancient monument, another glamorous shop and another tourist ice cream parlor. Really, Rome was not saving on its welcome gifts.
As I am still full of different emotions and few eligible stories to tell – I will share pictures. Another word can be said about taking photos. I took some thousand of them – and it was just a tiny fraction of what I could take. Next time, if I want to take all the photos I want, I need to go there at least for a month – and spend it walking alone some hours a day. I wonder: how can you live in such beauty? In the end, you must get used to it all and stop noticing, no? Anyone here with the experience of longtime living in a beautiful Italian city? How does it feel?
Today I will be sharing doors. Rome has so many beautiful doors, that coming back to Oslo feels like going to visit a poor relative in a village (sorry, Oslo). To be honest, I had to refrain myself from taking a million door photos. I know, some here would love it, but I was trying to spare the nerve of my fellow explorer. Once, as we were climbing the stairs behind Vatican to go over some hill, I stopped midway and asked for a photo with this green door. While I was shooting my photos of it, a girl came and said hi and started opening it. Oh, hello, neighbor. Sorry, we gonna take some photos of your door. She was saying something nice with a laugh, and I wondered: how is it to live behind a door that is, maybe, photographed many times and is spread over Instagram or blogs (and stay sane about it)?
Enjoy my little door collection and let me know if some door has stolen your heart (among some here or any other place). While I will turn on Eros Ramazzotti (which Spotify proposes to me in Spanish. No, I want Italian!) and cook a home-made ratatouille, trying not to cry over the humble ingredients I got here at my poor farmer relative’s (sorry again, Oslo). Today we are not talking about Italian food, so get over it, girl!
May you walk in beauty!
Me Exploring 
Ahhh, doors on a non-Thursday! 😀 Either they couldn’t wait or you’ve got so many door photos that you’re good for many Thursdays to come. (I believe you do. I know how this goes.) I’m glad you ended with the pink wall. It reminds me very much of the wall on that photo which I dedicated to you back then in my post. That one was taken in Trastevere too.
To answer your question: when one lives in Italy for five years (not in Rome but in the countryside of Tuscany), one gets EXTREMELY spoilt in all regards. One doesn’t go out (apart from a short giro with the dog) if:
– it’s a little drizzly
– it’s a little covered
– it’s a little windy
– it’s too hot
– there are no visitors who would require it
– one’s got a door post to prepare
– one’s got poems to write
– one’s got one million films to see, books to read, places to visit (wait! I do that sometimes too!)
– all in all: Rome is eternal, they say, Etruscan ruins won’t go anywhere, and doors won’t escape either. 😉
I’m glad you got to see some of the beauty around here for yourself, and even if we might never be in the same city at the same time again, I didn’t know it but we were…
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Ooh oh, I didn’t think of Thursdays… Or I thought – but then I forgot again. Oops… But so far I have material enough for 10 posts about Rome, haha, so I could be pretty active (if I choose :))
Omg, it sounds like you ARE really spoiled by living in Italy. In Norway all those weather conditions are very good for going out 🙂 It is never too hot though, haha. But drizzly and windy, come on, this is natural state of things here. And I love being outside, so I learnt to go out in any weather, staying in only when it drops below -10 (wow, sounds like I picked on that polar explorer attitude. Wiiii!). Mmm, I wonder how spoiled I could be now in Italy… 🙂 But you are a busy poet, why would you care to go outside?))
Thanks gods, Rome is eternal, and I hope to come back more and more. Hoping that tourist crowds will be smaller on other days than Easter – but not sure. Mass tourism seems to have killed the cities like Rome.
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Mass tourism is truly a city killer. I see it in my town of birth too, Ljubljana in Slovenia. As it is, Rome is huge and there are so many places where most tourists don’t roam to. The route I often do with my visitors (Vatican-Ponte Sant’Angelo-Piazza Navona-Pantheon-Fontana di Trevi-Spanish steps) is truly overcrowded and it feels like Venice: not recommended to have a drink or bite anywhere for fear of exploitation. But Trastevere, for example, somehow swallows the crowds better, or I was just lucky every time I was there. I always had a good feeling there. Also because it reminds me of Old Ljubljana.
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Yeah, unfortunately the cities like Venice and Barcelona are the victims of its own success. And now as tourism becomes more available, the more places become overcrowded. I wonder if travel bloggers of instagram are doing it right: they make people wanna come, by their desolated photos taken at 5am, and then people come to take the same shot – with hundreds of others. WTF?! i suppose we need to build separate theme parks like “total Europe” or “all of Italy” and send them there. Leaving the cities to those who really want to appreciate them, not just take a hundred of selfies. Grrrr 🙂
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Hahahha, that’s a great idea. 😀 Seriously though, isn’t it sad that we, the people, are being divided like that? Into those who Want, Collect, Brag, and those who appreciate, feel, cherish. So sad. 😦
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Or is it a generation gap, lol? (or maybe, we even mix? At times I am collector, at times I am an appreciator? Don’t you think?)
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I’m all in favour of mixing, I hate all kinds of divisions. Generation gap, hm… Might be. I’ll be 50 in a few years. Imagine that, slowly. 😀
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Me too. Let’s mix with the young and promising then 😆
Omg, 50 is a huge date. My man turned it last week – on the brink on midlife crisis already. So we agreed on Porshe 😆 what are your plans?))
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That green door with you is so very Italian! It must have been quite an experience to be in a city bustling with people unlike Scandinavia.
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Thank you! We complemented each other, the door made me more Italian 🙂 Oh, you are so right. It was quite mind-blowing to be suddenly in the place with a lot of noise, emotions, traffic, devil-may-care attitude and tourist crowds. I never felt more Norwegian than in Rome, haha.
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Wait till you visit India. LoL! Roma with a “booster” 😜
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Omg, I just cannot imagine it. I need to go to Italy for some practice first :))
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Great 😃👍
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I’m all for the pink lovers door!!!
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High five! Pink houses and doors are my favorite too 🙂
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So much love for doors!! ❤ I agree Rome is a paradise for photographer's. Love your pics.
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Thank you for the lovely comment! Doors are an eternal source of beauty – and Rome too, totally true, it is a paradise (for photos) 🙂
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Absolutely agree. In fact the other day I shared a green Roman door on my Instagram 😉 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bhox9P0hyq9/?taken-by=italophilia
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Nice. The city has enough pretty doors to fill any Instagram account 🙂
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Ohhhh… to be in Rome. With regard to the doors, I love every one of them (minus the graffiti, of course). I wonder, too, what it would be like to live surrounded by such breathtaking beauty. I would feel similarly about Paris (so amazing and beautiful but so different from Rome!) or the French or Italian countryside. One can dream.
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High five! I think also that I will be gasping with awe if I could live in Paris. Italian and French countryside make me dreamy too 😉 But surely you get used to any place and in the end, maybe, you spend more time on your Instagram than watching the life around, hehe. It takes some mindfulness skills, also living in the most beautiful of places, or maybe just because of it. We humans can get used to anything and really fast, both to the bad and the good things.
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Well said!
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Merci 🙂
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The doors of Italy are some of my favorite things to look at while walking around the city. They are all so different but equally as beautiful. There is even a @doorsofitaly account on Instagram that I think you would love. I have to admit living here makes me kind of take the beauty I see everyday for granted but this post reminded me to keep my head up, instead of down at my phone, to embrace the beauty around me.
http://www.lacasabloga.com
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Oh, thank you for the hint! I love door accounts :))
So far I have seen, the French and Italian doors rule – so much simple elegance in them.
Can you imagine that before coming there you thought you would adore every bit of this city – and then you become like “oh another church, another fountain”?))) I just wonder how it feels… Maybe, I would be lucky to discover smth like this for myself once 😉
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Nice one, Marina! Hope you had a great trip? It’s funny how you’ve become so Norwegian 😉 Hehee. Actually I’ve started to get really anxious in crowds and noisy the past few years, probably due to Nordic living! (Or maybe it’s age in my case, haha!)
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Thank you, Snow! It was a great trip, a bit mind-blowing though :)) I am truly Norwegian now, haha.
I’m reading the part about Finland in “the almost nearly perfect people” (hilarious book) and he quotes a lady from some place in Finland who says: “I don’t like coming to Helsinki, so many people there”. Haha, I can imagine what happens in the rest of Finland if Helsinki is a mess for them :))) Norwegians said to me that Oslo was too stressy when I was moving here. So in a way I am prepared to the crowds, lol. But in reality – not so much)) You get really comfortable and relaxed living in Nordics. Everything is so near and takes so little time.
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