Day X*
I think if you look at the day you’ll realise that the odyssey is approaching completion.
At this point we are seeing signs for Roma at every motorway junction (although all roads lead to Rome) and Marko has a plan, well he has two plans.
Plan A
Screw Rome, avoid the heat, and go straight to the hotel. Maybe go back in the evening for photos. This is a good plan and no-one does it.
Plan B
(Which is unanimously supported by idiots who have never been to Rome and idiots who have. Including us.)
Rendezvous at a petrol station in the blazing heat, then head for the Coliseum (I’d like you to imagine me making lots of Frankie Howerd jokes at this point which no-one got, maybe would have been funnier if we’d been going to the forum instead) and the endurance test begins.
Millie’s driving. I’m navigating. This is a shit system, I can’t read the satnav so I am just calling the convoy, she’s not as bold as me in traffic.
“Millie everyone is in lane 2, push out.” Everyone then moves into Lane 1 and exits the motorway, with us in lane 2, watching them go. So we loop round and we have lost the convoy, but we manage to pick up the Essex boys (Supra, MX5, BMW E39, Nissan 350z) and head for the Coliseum.
35 degrees.
No AC.
No shade.
A road surface that was last repaired by a man in a toga.
The Supra is not happy on the road surface and nor are we. Navigating through Roman traffic is hilarious on two wheels but this is just butal. We are hot in that way where you have forgotten what it ever meant to be cold, and if we leave a gap more than the thickness of a piece of paper between the cars an elderly Italian man in an immaculate linen suit slots his moped through it like he’s a Japanese motorbike cop doing an autotest (see Youtube).
The CB radios save us from just giving up:
“Close that gap”;
“Block the lane and we’ll all push in front”;
“Millie, ignore the lights just push through”;
“I’ve gone all tingly and I can’t feel my feet”;
“Shit, can someone get some water to Arthur, we might be losing him.”
All the time in 35 degrees.
But we get to the Coliseum, lining up the cars in our little convoy in BLAZING HEAT, in heavy traffic, surrounded by blaring horns and Romans using words that are, I swear, more than a little Anglo Saxon. I reach for the phone to take the photo and the screen says “iphone is overheating”.
Millie’s is the same. The point and shoot is, at best, sluggish and it’s too bright to see the screen.
Time to get the fuck out of Rome, and try not to drive into each other in the process (looking at no-one in particular. Arthur.).
Apparently the Catholic faith have extra books in their bible to the one I remember at school (the “apochrypha”. I know. Actually!) which, presumably, cover building massive luxurious villas in the beautiful hills south of Rome for their clergy to live in. And it’s one of these we are staying in.
Tree lined drive, AIR CONDITIONED rooms, just a perfect way to end the holiday.
Marko laid on a party for our penultimate night (no-one is leaving the next day) and turned up dressed as a velveteen vampire – there’s a rumour that he was briefly in Transvision Vamp as a backing singer but I’ve been unable to confirm this.
Great evening, chatting to folk I would swear weren’t on the trip and others for longer than I should. We all scrub up well.
*Roman Numerals. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?