Roaming around Italy’s capital city – my week in Rome

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius.’

I think it was seeing the film ‘Gladiator’ which first set me thinking about a trip to Rome (if you’ve not seen the film, hire it out – it’s fantastic!).

I have always been interested in history, but when I first saw the scenes in the Colosseum, with the cheering crowds and the gladiators fighting to the death on the blood-soaked sand under the baking Mediterranean sun, my imagination was fired!

I decided to combine my trip to Rome with a 1 week language course, and it now ranks as one of my most enjoyable holidays!

I settled on a 1 week Semi-Intensive course of 15 lessons per week with Italian host accommodation.

This worked out perfectly! Firstly, the lessons were grouped together in the afternoons which meant that I had the mornings free to go out exploring (seeing the Forum, the Pantheon, the Vatican and of course the Colosseum) before it got too hot and too busy with tourists.

The accommodation was also a good choice. My ‘Italian host’ was actually two ‘hostesses’, sisters who were at the university and who had a room free to accommodate a lodger. The advantage of this type of accommodation is that you are completely free to come and go as you wish. The sisters gave me a set of keys, showed me where everything was and then left me to it!

Although I had the option of self-catering, as I was only there for 1 week, I decided to eat out every night and in Rome, there is no shortage of inexpensive but good quality restaurants (surprising for a capital city!).

The sisters lived in an apartment, which was near the Colosseum, just 20 minutes walking distance or a 10 minute metro journey to the school (this is apparently typical for most of the school’s accommodation in the city).

The school itself is located in the very centre of the city so is very easy to get to. Rome has only two metro lines which form a big ‘X’ across the city. Where the two metro lines intersect is at the main ‘Termini’ station. The school is then just a couple of minutes walk from there.

In my class, there was a real mix of ages and nationalities. I was one of only 2 English students. There were also students from Japan, Brazil, China and Germany! At 27 years of age, I really was in the ‘middle age’ category with students both younger and older than me.

Even though I was a complete beginner, the only language spoken in class was Italian. However, our teacher was really fun and very animated meaning that even though we did not understand all the words, from the teacher’s gestures and expressions, we could still understand the meaning.

In fact, this really was an effective way of learning the language and it is surprising how much learning is done subconsciously. After 1 week, I had learned how to count, recite the alphabet, introduce myself and ask/answer some simple questions. Definitely good value for money!

Rome is certainly somewhere I will return to. After watching the BBC’s historical epic ‘Rome’ last year and also having read ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’ (both partly set in Rome), I realise that there is so much that I still want to see and with flights costing so little, there really is no excuse not to return!

Scott