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All roads lead to and from Rome
Kootenay Crust
By Ian Cobb
We needed to find somewhere to live in December.
Our winter ‘home,’ necessary due to our destroyed home being re-built, was unavailable. We checked into long-term Air B&B rentals in the Cranbrook and Kimberley area and were blown away by how expensive they were – in the $8,000 plus a month range to provide the space we required.
Then Carrie saw something about AirB&Bs in Nice, France, where one could score an apartment for $2,500 a month Canadian thanks to great discounts due to ‘long stays.’ While that sounded ‘nice,’ we didn’t want to go there. We checked into Italy – specifically Rome – and found it would be cheaper – as in a lot cheaper – to spend a month there thanks to prodigious long stay discounts.
After poking around we found a one-bedroom apartment in the Navigatori neighbourhood of Rome, about four km from the Colosseum.
As we have spent the past 18 months since the July 2024 fire that took our home re-purchasing the myriad of household items lost to fire, smoke and water, we built up mega points on our credit cards, which translated to ‘free’ flights from Calgary to Paris to Rome.
So off we went Dec. 1, to live in Roma for six weeks.
The apartment (Sonia Appia Antica House) is not only nicely located a short hop from the Appian Way, a massive park that stretches from downtown Rome southward, and close to the gems and treasures of the Eternal City, it is clean, well apportioned, in a friendly neighbourhood and owned by a lovely couple (Sonia and Luca) with two of the sweetest wee children you can imagine.
It has been a helluva year – wading through insurance, house construction details and all the usual life matters we all contend with, including ensuring Carrie’s dad is looked after and comfortable. Our trip to Italy was only made possible because a niece had a basement apartment available for the time we are here and Pops is hunkered down there – looked after and well.
Our time in Rome has been one of stages. It took a couple of weeks for us to unwind from the stresses and challenges of being gypsies, living in a winter rental then back to the property to live in a RV beside a house being built in slow motion stages (no disrespect meant to the builders; it just feels that way), then back to the winter rental again for the final leg of construction (knock on wood, we hope).
The third and fourth weeks have involved finding our feet and way around this amazing city – finding hidden treasures, learning vast amounts of history and culture and Italian along the way. We average more than 10,000 steps a day and physically, we haven’t been fitter since we were here in May and June 2024.
We were still processing our experience and going through the thousands of photos we captured when our house burned a month after returning home.
This trip is a cathartic return to the starting line; a shot at starting over.
We work in the morning when folks back home are still deep asleep and then go exploring in the afternoon. Yes, we missed family at Christmas, but it was easy to be distracted away from it all.
On Christmas day we tried to venture to the Appian Way – Rome’s first ‘highway’ built about 2,300 years ago. But it was closed; everything was closed Christmas Day, and Boxing Day (St. Stephen’s Day here) but we ventured forth and found really cool stuff as we always do – such as the place where the Scipio family (as in Scipio Africanus etc.) is buried and the St. Sebastian gateway that once opened to allow Legions to march out to face Hannibal and Spartacus and other enemies and challenges to the empire.
We walked past Domine Quo Vadis, built at the site where Jesus apparently appeared before Peter who was fleeing for his life from the Romans and told him to quit being such a quitter and go back and face the music, which he did and was quickly killed, hence his martyrdom.
Inside the church are the footprints of Christ (a copy of – the ‘original’ is safely ensconced in a nearby more secure basilica). On Christmas Day we stepped inside to witness pilgrims kneeling before the footprints, weeping and praying. You don’t see that every Christmas.
That is Rome in a nutshell; it’s why it is called the Eternal City.
When we came here in 2024, we saw the ‘big’ sites – the Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Circus Maximus, Vatican Museum and a few other attractions.
We’ve been filling in the other attractions by the day this time and it’s safe to surmise it would take a year or more of daily trips to see the bulk of the things to see and experience.
As a history buff I am left gobsmacked every time we venture out. Just in the last few days we’ve seen the Mouth of Truth, waited two silly hours to look through the Aventine Keyhole, walked Circus Maximus, sauntered through Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, where Pope Francis is buried, as well as other Popes and Bernini, checked out Piazza Navona and Piazza del Popollo, walked along the Roman Forum and around the Colosseum lit up at night, as well as past ancient temples, famed shopping streets (Via del Corso) and revisited Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.
At the Trevi Fountain I saw a bright red ball cap in the sea of humans and bristled at the thought some boneheaded American would MAGA out in such a place. I cast my camera at him with a sneer and saw the hat said, “Canada is not for sale.”
I looked him in the eye as we passed and said, “Damn right we’re not.” We stopped and chatted with this fascinating old soul and learned he was Scots born but spent his working life in the USA as a presidential photographer, shooting every president from Reagan to Biden. He had nothing good to say about Trump, as his hat gave away.
When learning we were from British Columbia, he said, “One of the most beautiful places in the world.”
We concluded another magical day walking back to the Monti neighbourhood, close to the Colosseum, where we stayed on our first trip to Rome and enjoyed a couple of drinks at Finnegan’s Irish Pub – my home away from home. Think the Whitehouse in Windermere but in the heart of Rome and filled with Romans and folks from all over the world.
Just another day in Roma.
We said a happy goodbye to 2025 in our comfy Roman apartment, with steaks, octopus salad and baked potatoes with a drink on our deck, thinking about our loved ones and friends back home, with smiles.
About an hour before midnight the explosions began. The entire city exploded to life with fireworks. It sounded like a war zone – bang, pop, boom echoing off the apartment and office buildings and the sky shimmering multi-coloured in all directions.
Our final two weeks in Italy will roll past quickly and soon we’ll be home in the cold and back watching our home come together one work-day after another.
The road from Rome to the East Kootenay will be bittersweet but we will be grateful for the time we’ve spent here, re-discovering the breadth of life’s magic and wonder emerging from the blackened remains of trauma and despair and frustration.
It’s been a process but where better to experience it than one of the world’s greatest cities and nations, where all roads lead to and from.
Happy New Year everyone; may 2026 be happy, healthy and whole for you. Buon Anno from caput mundi!
Lead image: The Appian Way leading south from Rome. Once a road built to help expedite Roman Legions southward, it is now a popular walking and biking trail lined with catacombs, mausoleums and a myriad of historically significant sites. Ian Cobb/e-KNOW photo
