Here we go again

Man, I do not miss international travel: I was under some illusion that airports remained relatively quiet after covid, but come 6am in Gatwick airport I am standing in a queue for security going back as far as baggage drop off. In true air travel style, I sat right in front of the screaming (kicking) toddler and quickly realised that nothing had changed apart from the comical reminder to remove your face masks in the event of using the emergency oxygen masks... But despite all this, I couldn’t be more grateful to finally be fulfilling a year-long plan to go to Rome.

For the next month, I will be staying in a lovely artist’s apartment in the eastern Nomentano neighbourhood. For 28 days, I get to call my own little corner of Rome home. The neighbourhood is quiet and has not one, but two pizzerias within 20 metres of the front door (will have to try both for quality testing’s sake). The apartment is dotted with artwork, books and antique furniture- complete with ancient Italian plug sockets which I tripped out within 3 hours of arrival… Looking around the room now, I somehow can’t believe that I have landed in such an amazing place: a year late, with no plans and no understanding of the Italian language.

While I am out here, I am lucky enough to take work with me and WFR (Work From Rome) for the first week and a half, and then take annual leave and some generous Easter bank holidays to cover the rest as time off. Otherwise, I have nothing planned, hence the new blog name ‘Rome Unplanned’. I am taking each day as it comes knowing that in this city, I will never be short of things to see. If you do decide to follow my adventure, you can expect pictures of all the classic tourist hotspots. But I want to spend the majority of my time here finding the hidden gems of Rome, of which there are more than I can count. More than anything, the reason for my trip is to ‘live like a local’; you can guarantee I am going to get lost and make many (hopefully amusing!) mistakes, but I’m also hoping to find a routine, meet new people and commit myself to learning a bit of Italian. Either way, it’s sure to be an amusing month, so why not follow my documentation of it?