5 Reasons why you need to visit Rome before you die

While living in Milan a few years ago, I was lucky enough to befriend a photographer/architect that was living in Rome and when he invited me to come stay with him for a few days to shoot an editorial, I was packed and ready to go before the conversation even ended. I had a very romanticized idea of Rome, reading about it in books and learning of the great empire that it once was throughout school, so to say my expectations were high was understatement. Even with high hopes, and spending most nights sleeping on my friends apartment/gallery/bar’s floor, Rome blew all my expectations out of the water. On my first visit I spent four days running around the city in borrowed Prada suits with my friend and a community of creatives ranging from photographers, models, artists, cinematographers and a couple of highly educated tour guides, most of which were transplants from places like California, Spain, or England. We literally got toured around the city while they photographed us doing normal tourist stuff and learning the history of nearly every pillar and ancient stone along the way. Even without all the information and the fancy suits and whatnot, Rome is extremely easy to fall in love with and I’ve compiled some reasons why. 1.Rome was founded in 753 BC by Romulus. That makes the city around 3000 years old and one of the oldest, constantly populated cities in the world. Roman legend says that Romulus had a twin brother called Remus. As babies they were abandoned in the area which later became Rome. Legend says that a she-wolf found the boys and raised them as her own. Later Romulus fought and killed his brother and became the first leader of Rome. Thats right, the city was founded by a man that was raised by wolves and killed his own brother, do I really need to continue this list? 2. The Trevi Fountain Every night at the Trevi Fountain about 3,000 Euros are swept up from the bottom of the basin. The money is donated to Caritas, a catholic charity, who uses the money to provide services for needy families in Rome. The Trevi Fountain stands a massive 85 feet tall and is almost 65 feet wide and spills about 2,824,800 cubic feet of water every day. In 1730 Pope Clemens XII held a contest to design a new fountain, Nicola Salvi won the rights to design the fountain, but some theories suggest he wasn’t the first choice, but one of the cheapest 3. The Colosseum Originally it was known as the Amphitheatrum Flavium and you can still see this name on the Colosseum today. Even with a massive earthquake in 847 collapsing a giant portion of the southern side, The Colosseum is still an astonishing marvel. In 80ad the very first games were held in the Colosseum by Emperor Titus, lasting for 100 days and there were over 3000 gladiator fights during them. One of the entrance gates on the west side is known as The Death Gate because this is where all of the dead gladiators were taken off the grounds. 4. Obelisks of Rome Probably one of the most crazy power moves in history was the taking and relocating of the Obelisks of Rome from Egypt. In 30BC, after defeating Antony and Cleopatra and conquering Egypt, Augustus broth Heliopolis to Rome, the obelisks dedicated to the Pharaohs Rameses II and Psammetichus II, not just dedicated to the Pharaohs themselves, but rather their..uhh..downstair members. Yup, giant column like statues that represented the pharaohs junk were moved nearly 1500 miles across the Mediterranean Sea. Thirteen of the statues are still spread out through Rome even now. Talk about a cock block. 5. The Vatican Rome literally has a state inside of the city. the Vatican city is the worlds smallest sovereign state and ruled by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Every corner of the Vatican is decorated with amazing artistic triumphs, including works by Michelangelo. The Vatican is so amazing in fact that for nearly 60 years in the 1800s, Popes had refused to leave the city. If you can deal with the constant lines and tourists, its definitely worth checking out or at the very least mailing yourself a postcard with Vatican City postal marks.

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