All Roads Lead To Rome

Rome, like most obsessions, began long before I arrived. It began in Manila, in the comfortable tyranny of routine, where I booked a ticket last Christmas on a whim. It was an impulsive act disguised as foresight. I avoided traveling to Rome during my birthday month; August in Rome seemed an unnecessary test of endurance—heat, crowds, the theatrical exhaustion of peak season. February felt more appropriate. 

The journey was a distance exercise. Three hours to Singapore. Five hours of waiting beneath the polite efficiency of Changi Airport. then thirteen hours were suspended between time zones, meals served and cleared, cabin lights dimmed and revived while crossing different land masses and seas. Travel, at that length, becomes less about movement and more about surrender. By the time we descended into Fiumicino, I felt neither triumphant nor romantic. I was only aware of the miles behind me.

Airports are rarely the place where a city declares itself. Rome did not. Passport control was perfunctory. Luggage arrived without drama. I chose the airport train line aptly named Leonardo Express to Roma Termini, seduced by the promise of simplicity. From there, a metro to Manzoni, a short walk to my hotel, and a cappuccino as a reward. It was a plan designed by someone who had not yet lifted two suitcases a Roman staircase and cobblestone streets.

Termini is not a graceful introduction. It is functional, indifferent, and layered in stairs. I carried my luggage up and down in search of the correct platform, aware that fatigue sharpens irritation. At Manzoni, the final stretch, just three hundred meters, became an ordeal. The cobblestones, so admired in photographs, resisted the wheels of my suitcase with quiet defiance. They rattled and snagged, reminding me that Rome was constructed long before rolling luggage was invented. Then it began to drizzle, lightly but persistently, as if to underscore the lesson.

I arrived at the hotel before noon, damp and prematurely humbled. Check-in was at three. Of course it was. I left my bags and stepped back into the street, determined not to resent a city I had only just met. The neighborhood revealed itself in modest increments: narrow streets, aging façades, the low murmur of Italian conversation that seemed less spoken than released. I ordered a cappuccino at a nearby café and sat with it, watching. Travel, I have learned, improves when one sits still.

Halfway through the cup, my phone vibrated. The room was ready, and with no additional charge. Whether this was kindness or recognition of my disheveled state, I did not inquire.

The shower was warm, deliberately so. I have never understood the appeal of scalding water after travel; it punishes rather than restores. Then, I slept for two hours. It was an unplanned, unembellished sleep that erased the fatigue more effectively than any espresso could.

In the afternoon, I walked to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is one of Rome’s four papal basilicas, though labels matter less than atmosphere. Inside, gold ceilings and mosaics carried the authority of centuries. The basilica did not overwhelm; it persisted. I understood that this would be the rhythm of Rome. A visit from one church to another, and among many, each demanding attention, none asking for it.

From there, I continued toward the Colosseum. The walk took twenty-five minutes, long enough for anticipation to gather but not spoil. And then it appeared. It was less pristine than the photographs, more arresting for its imperfections. The Colosseum has endured what most structures cannot: empire, neglect, adaptation, and war. It has been repurposed, plundered, admired, and misunderstood. Yet it remains. Standing before it, I felt not exhilaration but recognition. As someone who used to voraciously read history books when I was a teen, seeing it right before my eyes was nothing compared to what I had encountered in books countless times. Now it existed outside the page, solid and unyielding, yet humbling at the same time.

The sky was gray, bleak, and unsettled. Rain clouds hung low and hovered without urgency. The cold suited the structure; sunlight would have made it theatrical. For a brief moment, the sun slipped through the arches and columns, illuminating the stone in gold before retreating again. It was enough.

By evening, hunger directed me to Ai Tre Scalini. I ordered chicken in tomato sauce with red bell peppers. The flavor was unexpectedly familiar, reminiscent of chicken afritada from home, though stripped of certain embellishments, such as green peas and potatoes. It was simple, direct, satisfying. I ate without ceremony. Italian food, at its best, does not astonish; it reassures.

They say all roads lead to Rome. What they omit is that many of those roads are uneven, resistant, and indifferent to comfort. The cobblestones do not smooth themselves for visitors. The stairs do not rearrange for convenience. Rome remains as it has chosen to remain.

My first day was neither seamless nor dramatic. It was damp, mildly exhausting, and deeply affirming. The long passage from Manila, across airports, skies, and miscalculations, resolved itself not in spectacle, but in presence. I had arrived in Rome not as a conqueror of distance, but as its quiet witness.