Virtual Tour: Rome, Italy

Another neat characteristic of Roma is that it stands on seven hills: I S ette Colli. Their names are: Colle Celio, Colle Palatino, Colle Av entino,Colle Esquilino, Colle Quirinale,Colle Viminale, Colle Campidoglio ; this makes Roma's roads quite nice to ride (of course only between 2:00 am and 5:00 am, otherwise traffic is terrible!). As you can guess, the biggest problem in modern day Rome is traffic. The government is trying to better this situation with many projects: Building new parking garages, new tubes (subways), preferential lanes, and so on. But in the meantime the Roman people -- and all Italians, for that matter -- have found a solution: Scooters and bikes. They're everywhere! Especially in Roma -- about 40 percent of all the scooters sold in Italy were bought in Rome (about 400,000 units).

To one side of the Colosseo stands Colle Oppio. Two old buildings are there, first is the Colle Oppio: Basilica di S. Pietro in V incoli inside of which there is the 'Mose,' one of the most beautiful sculptures by Michelangelo.

Immediately beside it stands the Faculty of Engineering. This building is important for two reasons: Obviously for its great artistic and historic value, -- in fact, in the past it was a monastery and its front face and internal gardens are really beautiful. It is also one of the places in Roma where you can find "real" bike enthusiasts. Of course the Faculty of Engineering is not the only place where you can find bikers in Roma, but it's a good place to start if your looking for fun. In Roma, there are also many groups of people that go out of town for the weekend to do some nice "sightseeing," except they don't really go sightseeing. Instead, they're looking to make their own GP race on the roads to a favored shop or pub, with all the disastrous consequences that you can imagine.

Young people living in Roma have some really strange motorcycling traditions. They choose a place and spend most Saturday evenings there racing each other with their bikes or scooters, though many often crash. So the police come and shut it down and the whole scene moves else where. Of course it is not really a healthy way to spend your Saturday, but it happens.