As the Tiber river flows through the heart of Rome, it is bordered by high banks. At the base of those banks are paved walkways, along which one can stroll and admire the scenery.
At least, that's the idea. Today's New York Times brings to our attention that nowadays the embankments are covered with litter, overgrown vegetation, and "encampments of homeless people." The city government ignores the problem. Local volunteer groups are by-passing an ineffectual municipal government, and sponsoring clean-up efforts, art work, and theatrical performances.
The volunteer work sounds great, and long overdue. The part about "encampments of homeless people" strikes home, however, and reminds us that some problems are worldwide in scope. But it also rings a special, and happier, bell with me.
In 1970, I was backpacking alone around Europe. Still in my first week of travel since flying into Amsterdam, I arrived in Rome without (of course) hotel reservations. I arrived late on a July afternoon, during the year that Newsweek had published a cover article about American kids inundating Europe, and even the tourist office at the railway station was unable to find a place for me to stay.
So -- with no plan in mind -- I wandered from the station, crossed over the Tiber to Trastevere, and ultimately arrived at the Vatican. I found myself hanging about aimlessly in the piazza in front of St. Peter's. Maybe I should just forget about Rome, and take the midnight train south to Bari, I thought.
There were Italian kids and northern European kids and some American kids, all hanging around the obelisk in the center of the piazza. The Italians were good naturedly insulting the others. I began talking to two students from Wayne State in Detroit who shared my plight. But they, unlike me, had a plan.
"We're going to spend the night in our sleeping bags down by the river," they confided. Wow! I had a sleeping bag, for use in youth hostels, but it never occurred to me to sleep in -- essentially -- the street. Is that even legal, I wondered innocently? We bought a bottle of Chianti, descended a long flight of steps going down to the embankment about dusk, shared the wine, and sacked out for the night. We weren't far from the looming, cylindrical presence of Hadrian's Tomb above us (shown in the photo).
I was a naïve kid from small town Washington state -- pretty well educated by this time, but in no way street-wise. As my journal describes the night:
The Chianti didn't work so well as I had hoped, due to intermittent jeers from Italian teenagers who spotted us from the street above. I had visions of an "Easy Rider"-type denouement to my European odyssey, but I dropped off to sleep and rested in peace.
So, for a night, at least, I too was a homeless waif, encamped on the Tiber embankment. But with perhaps a few more resources on which to draw than have those who are being hustled away from the Tiber in today's Rome.
My night on the Tiber hardly sounds terribly adventurous, as I recount it today. But it marked a first for me, a realization that rules -- while not made to be broken -- weren't always rigorously enforced; that it was ok to sleep on the street if nothing else was available; that, in fact, sleeping on the pavement being jeered at from above could be more fun -- and certainly more memorable -- than checking into a hotel with reservations.
It was a lesson that I took fully to heart for the remaining six weeks I spent in Europe, and even more frequently the following year, hitchhiking in Britain. Today? No. I don't often sleep on a sidewalk. The Tiber banks, as the Times article described them, do sound kind of dirty and disgusting. The homeless dwellers probably aren't university students, and Chianti may not be their drug of choice..
But the basic lesson -- that even being uncomfortable in a strange place is more fun than being bored in a Marriott -- is a lesson that has stuck with me all these years.
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