How has Rome changed in last 30 years?

Old Jul 27th, 2015, 09:01 PM
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How has Rome changed in last 30 years?

Did you visit Rome in 1985 or thereabouts? What's changed in the last 30 years since then? I'd love your thoughts on what's different now. Thanks so much for any thoughts, big and small!
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Old Jul 27th, 2015, 11:12 PM
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From my point of view, I'd say the key changes are:

- Above all: the transformation and funding of museum curatorship and the boom in classical archaeology. Most major classical sites are a million times better captioned than 50 years ago (the base of all my observations here, but the bulk of the innovations postdate the mid-80s). There's been a tsunami of new technology re-interpreting the past 500 years of excavations, and of money to display the results - in new museums, refurbished galleries and technology-enabled displays. This is, IMHO, especially true for sites and artefacts outside the conventional "Gracchi to Nero" period, and for interests (like the role of women or the significance of trade) outside the subjects once taught in university classics courses.

- The new cosmopolitanisation of Rome. Pilgrims are more likely to be Asian or Eastern European these days: locals more likely to be African or Asian immigrants. And there are a lot more visitors: some of Rome's major sites - especially St Peter's, its square, the Foro Romano and the Colosseum - were built for massive crowds and handle them well. Many others - like the sites off the Appian Way, or most minor churches and galleries - still get far fewer visitors than they can handle. But:

- Much of Rome doesn't respond well to the growth in visitors. The Sistine Chapel is perpetually mobbed. Once-charming side streets are too. By the standards of First World major cities, Rome's public transport is a preposterously overcrowded medieval disgrace, though its cabs are cheap enough to be a usable substitute for 20th century tubes or buses.

- Many of Rome's churches scrub up fantastically. Churches that gloomed for Europe half a century ago are beginning to make you realise why the religious innovations of the Counter-Reformation enthralled people far more than the soul-less rationalisms of Northern Europe. Rome's Baroque churches now make the spirit soar like a Mozart symphony.
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Old Jul 27th, 2015, 11:56 PM
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I first went to Rome in 1976. The biggest change when I returned in recent years is the organization for visiting things and the sheer number of people seeing them. In the 70s, there were no tickets required for most things, so no lines and compared with now, hardly anyone there. You could simply wander at will into places like the Colosseum and there would be a couple dozen other people also wandering around. While I don't remember about a ticket being required or not, the Sistine Chapel was nearly empty back then.

Another big difference is that many things like the Sistine, have been cleaned. Seeing that cleaned is amazing! The whole city seems much cleaner now.

More local people speak English.

Busses, etc. seem to run on time now. It was pretty loose in the 70s, depending on the driver. Routes changed and drivers took breaks as they saw fit.

Another big thing is money, of course, the Euro.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 12:28 AM
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After avoiding Rome for 40 years, I finally visited for the first time last year.

It must have been an amazing place in the late 50s without mass tourism.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 03:35 AM
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Sections of Rome like Trastevere are now pure tourist party areas. I wonder how many come just for the party.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 03:51 AM
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The mid 1980s - I remember brown air pollution settling over the city and very few blue skies.
Piazza del Popolo was a big parking lot. It is now mercifully free of cars.
The main attractions (Colosseum and Trevi Fountain as examples) were covered in grime and soot.
The traffic was madness - it still can be but some areas are mercifully now free of cars - like the lower end of Via del Corso on a Sunday.
Castel Sant Angelo in front of Ponte Sant Angelo and the river is now closed to traffic. A beautiful pedestrian zone.
I was very young back then but that's what I can recall immediately.

I would say Rome is much better now. Much cleaner.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 05:05 AM
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slightly off topic, DH and I visited Venice, Florence and many points in-between for the first time in 1980 - so 35 years or so ago.

I've been to both quite often over the last 10 years and am continually struck by how busy they are compared to our first trip, and I have little reason to suppose that Rome is any different. Much more traffic [even on the Grand Canal] nowhere to park [in 1980 we parked for free outside our hotel in the middle of Florence] and far, far more people.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 05:35 AM
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Can't speak to as far back as 1985, but end of communism in eastern bloc meant millions now able to travel to Rome, and likewise the expansion of a middle & upper class in Latin America and in China means millions more able to afford to visit Rome. Add to that cheap flight phenomenon, and Rome is Just bursting to the seams with visitors, especially Catholic pilgrimage sites. Also, in my most recent visit to Rome, I was surprised at the number of service workers (hotel receptionists, wait staff in restaurants) who were not Italians but young workers from EU states of the former eastern bloc, many of them hired for their fluency in English (and their acceptance of low wages, no insurance, benefits, etc).
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 05:45 AM
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From another angle: The Lira to the Euro.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 06:06 AM
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Also, in my most recent visit to Rome, I was surprised at the number of service workers (hotel receptionists, wait staff in restaurants) who were not Italians but young workers from EU states of the former eastern bloc, many of them hired for their fluency in English (and their acceptance of low wages, no insurance, benefits, etc).>>

not dissimilar to Venice except that most such workers who are usually to be found in cafes and bars appear to be Chinese and have not been chosen for their knowledge of english.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 06:16 AM
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ann points out a big change: immigrant service workers. And that leads to a discussion of a larger change: diversity and globalization.

I first visited Rome and Italy as a very young person in the 1970s. It was like going to a different world -- the food, the language, the customs, the general attitude. Now, to my disappointment, a lot of Italy has become globalized and accommodating to tourists' tastes.

I point to something I call the Gelato Effect as an example. At one time in Italy, if you went to a gelato stand, the serving was about the size of a golf ball. Now, when Italians figured out what sells to tourists -- more is better -- a typical serving is about the size of a baseball.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 07:35 AM
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Chinese staff common in Paris as well, chosen for their ability to speak Chinese. Many Chinese tourists head for Venice and Paris as priorities.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 08:12 AM
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I first visited Rome in 1971 as a college student, traveling solo. At that time the Colosseum was surrounded by a traffic rotary. You risked your life getting there, but it was free and open 24 hours. I remember seeing a drunken sailor throw a beer bottle at a cat there one night.

The Forum was unfenced as well. I often stopped by in the evening and sat on a column, contemplating the ruins in my best faux-Gibbon manner.

The Piazza Navona, the Pantheon and even Trevi fountain (though busy enough that boys threw magnets attached to strings to pull out coins) were uncrowded.

My pensione near Termini was, if I remember well, about $10.00 a night. (Down in Calabria, at that time, my hotel was about $8.00).

I didn't return until 1986, by which time the Forum had been fenced in. They charged admission, but allowed free access to wander over the floors of the ruins and other areas now fenced off. There were a great many more visitors, including a seemingly permanent contingent at Trevi fountain. There were restoration projects underway and many monuments were in better condition.

I've been back many times since. The city is cleaner, more expensive, and wildly overcrowded. As flanner noted, the explanatory signs are much better at the archaeological sites (and more sites are opened). Maybe I'm just getting older, but later in the evening some places, the Piazza Navona for example, seem a tad seedy.

One constant -- the ragged women cradling babies at Termini, piteously begging. I fear the first baby I saw is now an old hand at begging herself. It made me sad when I was younger but I think I always suspected it was a scam. I saved my money to buy roasted chestnuts which I offered to the prostitutes (in lieu of business) I passed on the way back to my pensione.

I love the city and expect to return.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 08:42 AM
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I was in Rome with my high school Latin class in the mid 70s. I don't recall memorable experiences, mainly because we were under the control of several nuns and were not given much opportunity for interaction (or fun).

However, I recently looked at photos and noticed that, in the pictures of my classmates and me,it is easy to see the Colosseum, Trevi, Forum and other backdrops with few other people intruding in the shot.

Of course, there were a lot of people at the Easter Mass celebrated by Pope Paul VI. So, as far as things that have changed, there have been a few more popes since then!
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 09:04 AM
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" most such workers who are usually to be found in cafes and bars appear to be Chinese and have not been chosen for their knowledge of english."

My recent experience in both Venice and Rome has been that most apparently Chinese service workers speak remarkably good Italian and appear to have spent a substantial proportion of their lives in Italy. Many seem either to own the cafe or whatever, or to be closely connected to the owner.

Local propagandists now claim that most births in Prato, near Florence, are to mothers born outside the EU - who in Prato are almost all Chinese. So a substantial proportion of apparently Chinese young people in central Italy are Italian.

There's absolutely no reason to expect their English to be any better than the usually dismal level taught by Italy's public education system.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 09:22 AM
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There's absolutely no reason to expect their English to be any better than the usually dismal level taught by Italy's public education system.>>

the remark about english was specifically in response to what SL had said, flanner.

As for their knowledge of Italian, I don't remember coming across any whose Italian was noticeably better than mine - make of that what you will!
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 12:02 PM
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This is all wonderful feedback on what's changed for the good, the bad and just part of global change.

Thanks so much!
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 12:07 PM
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For what it's worth, there's a heck of a lot more pizza in Rome then there used to be. What happened to all the rosticcerias?
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 12:43 PM
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That's really odd Ann.

During our visit, didn't feel the same about service workers.

Not like visiting London which is like visited a foreign country, my O level French comes in handy when checking in in London.

The only thing that annoyed us were the inane tour parties wandering round. Cycle tours in the small backstreets were also insane, over 40 mountain bikes pushing through crowds is just silly.

Other than that, last year both Venice and Rome were a revelation. After having avoided them for years in favour of quiet corners of Italy.
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Old Jul 28th, 2015, 02:12 PM
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That's really odd Ann.

During our visit, didn't feel the same about service workers.>>

I didn't "feel" about them in any particular way, dickie, but there is a distinct Chinese presence in Venice which I find confusing. They certainly didn't annoy me except when I found that both my Italian and my english were better than theirs with the consequent problems with communication.
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