Recession waala Roman holiday

Has the downturn clipped your wings? Time to email those friends you went to uni with and be inventive if you really want to go abroad

While the world is learning to deal with the consequences of recession only now, I learnt my lessons a year ago, when I took off to Italy for two months with a bank balance that no immigration officer would appreciate. A complete budget trip. And the first destination the most expensive city in Italy Rome.

When travelling in Italy, the highest expense is usually accommodation; the second on the list is transport and next is food. Yes, the three basic travel necessities without which, well, you can't really travel. But that's when caravans come into play...and fantastic Italian friends who own them. Lucky that I was, the Italian friend I was travelling with had one herself. It was the first time I had ever seen something like this. The roof of the van opened up to become a bed for two and the back seat collapsed to make a single bed. The compact van could accommodate three whole people three full-size, non-anorexic adult people and it also had a kitchen, complete with cabinets, a portable refrigerator, a gas cylinder, sink et al. I could hardly get myself to believe such genius. We could sleep inside it, cook inside it and well, drive the blessed thing from one place to another.


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No hotel bookings, no restaurant bills and considering petrol is cheaper than public transport in Italy minimum travel expenditure.

While I was still getting over this marvel, my Italian friend and other Indian friend (who decided to come along... the van was for 'three' after all) had already started filling the van up with travel necessities. Along with half the kitchen and one-third of the garage equipment, in went household basics that ended up way beyond just basic.

It began with bed sheets, blankets and pillows, and went on to cushions in case we didn't feel like using pillows, a tent in case we didn't feel like sleeping inside the van, a hammock in case we didn't feel like sitting on the picnic chairs and finally durries in case we didn't feel like chairs or the hammock! How could we eat without a table? So in popped a picnic table, with it a variety of table cloths to suit the mood of the day and even a candle stand "to make the table look pretty". I kept insisting that we should travel light, but soon realised that it really doesn't make a difference when you're not carrying all that weight on your own back. This is what new-age backpacking is all aboutu2026 you travel and your caravan does all the backpacking.

Soon, we were off on a never-ending eight-hour drive. Italian friend was behind the wheel with Indian friend and me sitting beside her mulling over maps that we, never in our Indian lives, were trained to read. After two coffee breaks, a lunch break and a whole lot of map deciphering, we drove into our campsite Flaminio Camping Village. Here is where we parked our beautiful caravan for the next three days and set up our little travel home.
We were provided a nice green patch of land to park our vehicle and camp around. For 10 euros per person per night and another 12 euros for the caravan we got sparkling clean toilets, hot shower facilities, electricity, water and even a swimming pool to jump into.



When in Rome, do as Mumbaikars do

The place was an absolute steal but with only one little inconvenience. The campsite was located in the extreme outskirts of Rome. Travelling to the city centre meant a 40-minute journey that included changing one city train and two metros. It was like travelling from Belapur to Churchgate. Only, the condition of the city train was worse than the ones on Harbor Line. The station from which we boarded our train looked like it belonged to Malgudi. The last train back was at 11 pm after which there were no trains until 5 am, so we had to be very careful about time. And on our way back we were told we had to ring the bell to get off, as the train would stop 'Only on Request' at our dear old Malgudi station.u00a0

A Roman church to die for

After spending all of next day lazing around in our travel home, we made our way to the city centre. Anything that charged an entry fee was not on our list for the evening. We weren't in the mood for site-hopping nor were we in the mood to see Rome the usual way.

Our first discovery was the Capuchin Church and it couldn't get more unusual than this. Enter, and all you see are bones. The church was decorated with human bones that belonged to over 4,000 Capuchin friars and poor Romans who died between 1528 and 1870. Bones were nailed into walls in intricate patterns of flowers and leaves; they hung from the ceiling as beautiful lamp shades and piled up to make patterned walls on either side.
Photography was prohibited so they sold postcards to make up for the free entry. There were a total of six tiny chapels, where each chapel was decorated with a certain type of bone: the Crypt of the Skulls, the Crypt of the Pelvises and the Crypt of the Leg and Thigh Bones. But the spookiest of the chapels was the one with three standing skeletons dressed in robes, looking back at us through their hollowed eyes. It wasn't so much the skeletons that were spooky but their sense of humour that stayed with us awhile. A placard next to them read out (in five languages and in big print): "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will beu2026"

Rome for free

The city sure has its share of magnificent tourist attractions, mostly free, and once you hit the city centre most of the historical sites are at walking distances from each other. We decided to play it by ear, walked through the winding Roman lanes and ended up at one of the many Piazzas that are all over Rome. A grand flight of stairs in the middle of the piazza told us we were at the Spanish Steps. Six in the evening and the sun was still quite sunny. Ice creams for two Euros each and we sat licking away on one of the 138 steps that belonged to the longest and widest stairway in Europe. The area around the steps was filled with designer boutiques, restaurants, bars and Bangladeshi immigrants selling roses. Women were dressed in nothing less than Gucci and Versace and it was more like Milan and less like Rome. Soon, the ice creams were done and so were we.

The Bong connection

We wandered some more with Bangladeshi rose sellers following us and insisting that we head towards Trevi fountain. And so we did. It's true, the Roman tradition of throwing a coin into the fountain to guarantee a return to the Eternal City, I can vouch for it. I had been here back in 2001 with my parents and had flipped a coin mindlessly with no intention of coming back. Here I was, at the same spot, ready to test tradition again.

It was the perfect place for people-watching. Relationships, emotions, love, smiles and, of course, a ton of plastic smiles. And capturing all this at 10 Euros a photograph were our Bangladeshi friends who were equipped with cameras, printers and 10-minute delivery services. The Indian in me had to know more. I struck conversation with 40-something-year-old Mr Das in Hindi and it revealed that he had come to Italy by boat 18 years ago. His parents were back home in Bangladesh, he lived with a bunch of other Bangladeshis in an apartment and was doing very well with his photography bizness. Somewhere in our conversation I mentioned I was Bengali thinking he would be more comfortable talking in his mother tongue. 20 minutes later the conversation ended with him asking me how old I was, if I was here with my boyfriend and, finally, if I would like to marry him and settle down in Italy.

Music, art and fine-dining

We were on our feet again. We first walked past the Pantheon and then walked all around the Piazza Navona. Its magnificent fountains were surrounded by musicians playing their song and artists sketching out their precision. Instead of sitting at the restaurants around the Piazza (which we couldn't afford to do anyway) we chose to sit by the artists and give them their due. The notes from the strings brought alive the art in the air.

If we could we'd stay here all night. But it was getting late, we were yet to eat dinner and we remembered that we had to catch the train back to Belapur. Looking for an affordable restaurant when you're around the city centre is quite impossible and we were mentally ready to go back to our campsite and eat boiled pasta. But a glass of wine with our dinner is all we wished for and soon our wish was fate's command.

We passed a tiny restaurant squeezed in the peeling walls of a bylane right behind the Pantheon. They called themselves 'Coffee Shop', offered full course meals and nothing but espresso on their coffee menu. An unassuming little place run by a typical Italian lady who cooked the food herself. She was proud to introduce her son to us, a fresh graduate of hotel management, who, she said, was in the process of revamping the cafe completely. We tried to disillusion her from revamping it (considering we threw a coin in the Trevi fountain and would probably be back soon and if this restaurant too turned unaffordable, we'd have to eat boiled pasta for dinner). But once dinner arrived nothing mattered. The meal was overwhelming. The ravioli, lasagna and spaghetti, which the Italian lady took the liberty to order on our behalf, tasted like I was eating pasta for the first time. The secret fresh homemade pasta. The joy on our face shone even more when a special white wine was served complementary to us. By the time we finished our meal, we all knew how close we had cut it to catching our train. Off we were, at first walking and soon sprinting across the streets of Rome towards the metro station. We caught the metro just in time and also the subsequent metro as well as the last city train that dropped us back to Malgudi.

The next day was the last Sunday of the month, the only day when the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel had free entry. That would make the Colosseum visit the only place we would have to buy a ticket. And we were told that 20-something Indians could very well pass off as high school students in Italy and get student discounts. With that in mind we pushed open the caravan roof, opened up the backseat and blew off the candles on our picnic table in the hope to wake up looking like we were ready for school.