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On
Sale Now!
Getting Lost:
Mishaps of an
Accidental Nomad
Dave's
award-winning book of humorous stories about things that have gone wrong
in his international travels.
More Info...
Rome, according to legend, was founded in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, twin brothers who were orphaned as babies and raised by a she-wolf. As a superpower, the Roman Empire took shape around 500 BC, and collapsed a thousand years later in the Great Pizza Famine of 500 AD The Vikings were not invented until 793 AD, which was sad for Europe's fashion industry because the fleece toga never came to be. The Romans, like the Vikings, were mighty travelers who liked to go on raids in foreign territories, foisting their culture upon weaker peoples and opening fast food franchises. It was, in fact, the Romans who popularized the arch. But the Romans never went as far north as Scandinavia. Asked why, one soldier was quoted as saying, "It's too damnus coldum." At the height of the Roman empire, Scandinavia was a disorganized region of small tribes who were shivering too much to go conquer. But as the climate warmed, Scandinavia experienced a population explosion. Power struggles ensued, and the Vikings started their own brand of warfare holiday. From Scandinavia, the Vikings sailed west to North America, east to Russia, and then down the Volga River as far south as Constantinople — present-day Istanbul. Some of the oldest graffiti in the world is Viking graffiti at the Aya Sofia Cathedral in Istanbul. Runic inscriptions say, "Háfðan was here," and "For a good time, call Helga at...." The second of the two inscriptions was left unfinished, apparently because the inscriber had consumed too much mead to remember Helga's phone number. Although the Vikings traveled far and wide, they never established a settlement in Rome. Historians dispute the reasons for this, but it is widely believed the Vikings were too bewildered by Rome's traffic congestion.
Today, however, Roman traffic jams are a legendary tourist attraction. In fact they are the only thing some tourists ever see here. I experienced this pastime this morning through the nose-smudged window of a tour bus on the way out to the ancient port of Ostia Antica. "Antica" means old, and "Ost" means cheese. The site is called "Old Cheese" because many of the buildings now have holes, like Swiss cheese. Wait, no. "Ost" means cheese in Norwegian. I'm actually not sure what the Latin translation would be. This is what you get for reading an article about Rome by a Scandinavian tour guide. Anyway, as we were leaving Ostia today, we spotted a group of men scrounging through an empty field. They explained that when the ground was soft after a rainstorm, ancient Roman antiquities sometimes rose to the surface. One man showed us a 2,000-year-old coin he had just unearthed.
After lunch, a tour member came running up to Don, our guide, and excitedly told him she had discovered a Roman antiquity herself that she wanted to give him. She opened her palm to reveal a plastic toy soldier. Upon close inspection, however, Don noted it wasn't actually a Roman soldier. I took a closer look. It was a Viking! This rare archaeological find proves that while the Vikings never settled here, they must have at least stopped in for some spaghetti carbonara from time to time. I now have this rare Viking artifact in my possession. Watch for it on e-bay.
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