Roman Logic

I decided to head over to the Vatican Post Office on Monday last - I had to send off Speck's long overdue fridge magnet. I may have mentioned that the Pope's Post is a dream to deal with: very little lining up, polite multi-lingual staff and service. How does it compare with PosteItalia? Didn't you just read what I wrote??

With the new location we are handy to all sorts of transportation - 2 trams over to the Parioli and Flaminia areas, 4 buses to Centro and beyond and a Metro station one stop removed from Termini. Now as convenient as that all sounds, except the Metro it all depends on traffic and - stop me if I've said this before - traffic in Roma is a nightmare.

Monday it took me one hour and 35 minutes to do what should be a 20-25 minute bus trip from my neighbourhood to Vatican City. There had been a pro-Alitalia demonstration in Piazza Barbarini that snarled traffic turning right at Piazza Santa Sussana and they are replacing the cobblestones on Via Nazionale which perpetually snarls traffic turning left. So we had what the French call un vrai bordel, the Italian un casino , the English a cock-up and us less charitable ex-pats a f...g mess.

I should have expected there would be problems when this caught my eye as I stood waiting for the bus at Via Nomentana and Regina Margherita.


Just click for a closer look!

Yep that's right - this bright spark parked his car with the hood jutting into the express lane. Buses - some of them articulated doubles - had to go up over the median to avoid wiping out his front end. And by the way there were 7 - count them 7 traffic officers at the intersection not 20 metres away.

If challenged on it I'm sure the driver would be totally unflappable. What was the problem? He had found a perfectly good parking spot. The buses where able to go up over the median. It was a win-win call.

And that my dears is Roman logic! How can you argue with it?

26 settembre - Santi Cosimo e Damiano