Rome and Rome Tours

In today's installment scribblage will be pretty random. Code is taking over and I have little time to commit to warbling in order to benefit blog fans out there in the netland we used to own. So, on to several things Italian, and more specifically, Roman. Thou shalt not seek to offend. 100% of Italian male students resident in San Lorenzo sport a beard and truly believe in Communism as a solution for Italy's woes. It is inordinately tough to differentiate between a young Muslim on his way to martial arts lessons down the local mosque and a Political Science undergraduate from Ancona. The worst pizza on earth can be had at L'Economia on the main track down from Piazzale Tiburtino. Formula Uno is better, if you can stand several hundred Italians bickering about nothing in particular, centimetres from your paid platter. San Lorenzo is replete with Chinese bars, several of which are packed with elderly Italian men and north African males who drink themselves into a stupor on a daily basis. What would you like for breakfast, Sir? Peroni, per favore.

You can laugh at expat Brits spending upwards of 800 euros a month on beer, buy crap vinyl, and get a decent tattoo from Welt at Yama in Monti, but don't big it up too much despite the shite you may have read about "hidden Rome" in the New York Times. The Colosseum has become a fun park, in fact, so have most of Rome's best known monuments. Tens of thousands of ingrates wake up every day and head into Rome with the sole intention of scamming tourists. Lazio are top soccer dogs in the capital. There are over 50 illegal unlicensed websites selling Vatican tours and Rome tours online. They are "abusivi", and their illegal, unlicensed guides claim to love Rome, however, untaxed black market lifestyles do less than nothing to support our crumbling Colosseum.

According to local experts, the best beer in Rome and most of Italy is "Menebrea", so don't miss out. When you walk into a bar, go straight to the till and tell the cashier what you want. He or she will give you a receipt. Take it to the bar, hand it to whoever, and get what you paid for. Ignore the haggling boss and his or her minions who'll try to usher you towards a seat upon which you'll pay alot more for the privilege. Many Italian bar owners end up dating the east European waitress they hired on looks alone. If you want to take the tram from hell, go to Porta Maggiore and slum it all the way up Via Prenestina with all manner of peoples. The Via Longoni bus connection to my destination included a fight, the bizarre sight of a black geezer modelling a long red dress, jesus sandals, and an umbrella, topped off with two Italian teenage girls asking for cigarettes in exchange for one or both of their phone numbers. Anyway, there's your 527 words! No particular mention of Rome tours herein, but as ever, if you want to avoid any or preferably all of the above, we're here to save you.