Anticipating the Via Appia Antica
Around the corner is November, and with it winter. The eleventh month is the time of year when central European skies turns leaden and the temperature here in Munich drops too far, too fast. For exploring Rome, though, November is a splendid month — not too wet or windy, not too cold or dark. This is important because it's one of those cities that demands to be walked and that's what I'll be doing there at the weekend.
There'll be a stroll to the Parco della Musica near the Flaminio sports stadium to see the new multimillion-euro Auditorium designed by Renzo Piano, as well as a ramble through the Borghese Park just above Piazza del Popolo to see the remaining colour on the city's trees. And then there's going to be a serious walk along the Via Appia Antica, starting at the entrance of Parco dell 'Appia Antica. This combination of ancient Roman street and pastoral landscape with its ruins from centuries past may move me to declaim those lines from Thomas Babington Macaulay's, Lays of Ancient Rome:
"Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old."
