Rome

 

I must be going soft. You see, there’s a sharp ridge under one of my little toes where the flesh folds over. It is not a recent thing. It’s always been there. It’s weird! But now, a  puffy little blister has developed on the ridge.

9.6, 8.7, 5.1, 9.5, 15.9 15.1, 4.2, 10.2

That’s not my account number so you can send money for us to extend our stay, but the daily number of kilometres we have walked since we were in Rabat, so that explains the blister. It’s easy to walk here in Rome. There is so much to see. The distance you might drive to visit your distant relative in a distant city is covered wearing out shoe leather. Five kilometres in St Peters, ten in the Vatican Museum, five on the food tour and joining the dots takes another twenty more.

Francesco, our food tour guide around Testaccio, asked us if anyone had been to Rome before.

“About ten years ago,” I said, “but the place seems to be falling apart now. There are ruins everywhere.”

A new metro line station is being dug near the Colosseum and nearby ruins are trussed up in scaffolding preventing them from tumbling from this manmade earthquake. Columns are wrapped like braces on an adolescent’s teeth. 

The Forum is rising out of the ground as columns that were recently found buried are now standing in their original places. As trowels scrape away dirt, another set of stone steps appear. What has fallen apart is rising from the dead.

There is hope for us. We eat a lot and down the fluids. We need to, otherwise our bodies will end up like this photograph of the remains of my foot.