Why I will go back to Rome

It has been said that all roads lead to Rome, but once a traveller has wandered the city of Caesar and the Vatican, is there ever a desire to return?

We consulted with recent clients and it appears that they wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Rome. As you might expect, a city of such magnitude and cultural importance has so much to offer that one visit is really only the briefest of introductions.

“There was so much we missed,” says Leonie Weston of Australia, who took a semi-private 10-day vacation package to Rome in July 2012. “We took the most popular tours, and as first-time tourists that is what you do, but the longer you are there you realize how much more there is to discover!”

What struck Weston most, she says, is that when they would ask their guide Francesca how old something is she would reply not too old, maybe 300 years or so.

“We would realize that these ‘new’ buildings are older than our relatively ‘new’ country. Something that I felt, rather than learned, was that I don’t think the people of Rome, and the other cities we visited, realise what magnificent cities they have. When you come from a country as young as ours I am more and more overwhelmed by the history of Europe as a whole and Rome and surrounds as a whole.”

Weston’s most memorable moment is walking out of the underground station and seeing, right in front of her, the massive Roman Colosseum she had previously seen only in history books and photographs. She loved how the guide Francesca would incorporate her own ideas into her dialogue: “You could tell she loves the city with a passion and is very proud of it, as she should be.”