Returning to Rome After a Decade: The Eternal City Through Changed Eyes
Ten years. That's how long it had been since I last walked the cobblestone streets of Rome, breathed in the scent of espresso and exhaust fumes, and craned my neck to marvel at architectural wonders that have witnessed millennia pass by. This second visit to the Eternal City revealed a Rome that was both achingly familiar and surprisingly transformed.
The More Things Change...
Some elements of Rome remain delightfully, stubbornly unchanged. The traffic still flows in what I can only describe as "structured chaos"—a beautiful ballet of cars, scooters, and buses weaving through streets that were never designed for modern transportation. Drivers communicate through an intricate language of horn honks and hand gestures, somehow making it all work in a way that would terrify urban planners but seems perfectly natural here.
What has changed dramatically is the sheer volume of people experiencing this chaos alongside you. The numbers are staggering: the Vatican City alone now welcomes 27,000 visitors daily. Walking through popular areas like the Spanish Steps or Trevi Fountain feels less like sightseeing and more like navigating a human river. The Instagram effect is real, and Rome is feeling its full force.
Technology as Travel Companion
Perhaps the most personal transformation in how I experienced Rome came through the smartphone in my pocket. Ten years ago, we stuck to well-trodden tourist paths, guided by paper maps and guidebooks. This time, armed with GPS and translation apps, we ventured into neighborhoods that felt authentically Roman—places where laundry fluttered from windows above narrow streets, where elderly men played cards outside corner bars, where the only tourists were the occasional lost soul who had wandered off the beaten path.
This digital confidence came with a price, though. Constantly pulling out phones to check directions or snap photos made us obvious targets for Rome's notorious pickpockets. The art of theft here is as refined as any Renaissance masterpiece—practiced hands that can liberate wallets and phones with surgical precision in crowded metros or tourist hotspots. Vigilance became as essential as sunscreen.
The Shadows Between the Monuments
Rome's beauty has always coexisted with urban realities, but the contrast felt sharper this time. The increase in homelessness was impossible to ignore. An alley near our accommodation had become an informal encampment where people slept on one side of the street and used the other as an open-air bathroom. Walking through was unavoidable, and the experience was a jarring reminder that even cities built on eternal glory grapple with very temporal human struggles.
The smell lingered long after we'd passed through, a sensory memory that competed with the aroma of fresh pizza al taglio and morning cornetti. It's the kind of reality that doesn't make it into travel brochures but shapes the complete picture of any honest travel experience.
Evolution of the Tourism Machine
Even the mechanics of being a tourist in Rome have shifted. Where our first visit included the convenience of tour buses collecting us directly from our hotel, this trip required meetings at scattered offices throughout the city. From these urban starting points, guides would either walk us through historical sites or drive us to destinations in smaller vehicles.
While less convenient, this change offered unexpected benefits. Walking to meeting points led to discoveries—a hidden church here, a perfect espresso bar there, a view of the Pantheon from an angle we'd never seen before. Sometimes inefficiency breeds serendipity.
The Eternal in the Temporary
Rome remains magnificent. Standing in the Pantheon still sends shivers down your spine. The golden hour light hitting the Colosseum still stops you in your tracks. The city's ability to make you feel simultaneously significant and insignificant—part of an unbroken chain of human experience stretching back millennia—remains undiminished.
The structured chaos continues. The beauty endures. The challenges persist. And somehow, that's exactly what makes Rome eternal—not its perfection, but its ability to remain vibrantly, messily, magnificently human across the centuries.