Joseph Shieh

Frances McCue

Honors 345A: Pilgrimages and Idle Travels: A Memoir and Travel Writing Studio

January 18, 2017

The Tiber River

8:00 A.M. Central European Time. I had just woken up, and it had taken me a moment

to gain my bearings, realizing that I was no longer in Yakima but halfway across the world. Upon

that realization, I quickly got out of bed, quickly getting ready, quickly exiting my hotel room,

eager to explore my surroundings, nearly running into a chambermaid, who smiled and greeted

me with a Buongiorno. Good morning. Not remembering any Italian at the time, I awkwardly

smiled and waved in my attempt to be polite and raced down several floors to the hotel dining

room for a hour-long breakfast

I left the hotel. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. No clouds covered the sky. Old

buildings lined the old cobblestone streets. Quiet with only the background drone of traffic. The

atmosphere pleasantly warm and humid. I tried to establish my reference points and ended up

spending most of the hour nearly getting lost after wandering through several winding streets and

through Campo de Fiori, a nearby public square. A local market and local restaurants. Barrages

of Italian as people greeted, friends conversed, sellers advertised, and buyers haggled the prices.

After gaining the local bearings using local landmarks to ensure that I could actually return the

hotel, I headed towards the Tiber River

The Tiber River. In a way, the Tiber awed me. It is one of the most famous rivers in the

ancient and modern world. It is the river, according to ancient Roman myth, by which Romulus

and Remus founded Rome. And the sheer history. It is river that allowed ancient Romes rise to
power, to become the most powerful empire in the ancient Mediterranean that would influence

the entire Western world centuries after Rome had fallen, surpassed only a thousand years later

by the British Empire

The Tiber reflected a green-blue hue, its current slow and lazy with the occasional bit

of debris floating by and the occasional boat. The banks, covered with reeds and other aquatic

vegetation, spanned at least thirty feet. Narrow asphalt-paved roads lined the banks. Enormous

slanted stone walls at least fifty feet tall tall loom over the roads. Intermittent stone stairways led

to the high ground where lush trees often lined the walls and where the main roads and streets

were located. Besides the occasional steps of morning runners or the occasional ring of a

cyclists bells the banks of the Tiber were quiet with only the sound of the running river in the

background, but going up the walls steps, a deafening cacophony of cars, motorbikes, residents,

and tourists permeates the air. Preferring the quiet tranquility of the banks of the Tiber, I would

smell decomposition whenever I wandered too close to the rivers banks

As I raced along the Tiber, my eyes devoured everything that I encountered. Along the

walls of the Tiber, intermittent artwork referenced aspects of ancient Roman culture and its proud

history, from the famous Capitoline Wolf to conquests by the ancient Roman republicans and

emperors. Ancient stone bridges, at least a thousand years old, intermittently bridged the walls of

the Tiber. Latin inscriptions, Ponte(Bridge), named the bridges. Greco-Roman

ornamentations decorated the bridges, and Greco-Roman statues celebrating famous figures in

Roman mythology or history further decorated these ancient bridges. Many ancient, Medieval,

and modern structures lined the Tibers walls, integrated together like a continuing chronology of

the city. The modern buildings presented a sense of familiarity, an anchor to the present, while

the ancient ones beckoned me to explore the citys past, drawing me into the ancient world. As I
walked along the Tiber, I would wander off from the rivers path to explore famous ancient

Roman structures, the Circus Maximus, the Coliseum, the Palatine Hills, Trajans Column, the

ancient Roman Forum, but always, I would return to the Tiber. As I walked along the Tiber, I saw

Isola Tiberina, the famous Tiber island, the ancient island of healing where a functioning hospital

semi-hidden by lush trees still stands. Because many of ancient Romes structures lined the walls

of the Tiber or were located near the Tiber, the river was an indirect road to many locations in

ancient Rome

I would spend the rest of the day walking along the Tiber, only stopping late in the

evening, only after walking eighteen miles, only after my feet refused to walk any further. As I

wearily made my way back to the hotel, I couldnt really believe that I was actually halfway

across the world. Actually in Rome.

______________________________________________________________________________

Several days later, I would revisit the Tiber, this time at night along with friends from the

University of Washingtons Honors study abroad program

At night, the outdoor bars and restaurants lining the banks of the Tiber would come to

life, lighting up the banks of the Tiber. The walls of the Tiber light up, further adding to the

Tibers lights, outlining and illuminating the river, giving a beautiful glow to reflections of

structures along the river. Residents, travelers, and tourists would meet with their family and

friends to enjoy the evening, long into the very early morning of the night. Conversations in

Italian and unknown languages and sounds of laughter filled the air, as if the people had no cares

about the world. A sharp contrast with the quiet tranquility that permeated the banks of the Tiber

in the morning. Loud, beautiful, and bright yet paradoxically tranquil because of its carefree

atmosphere, not a single worry.

______________________________________________________________________________

Over the course of my time in Rome, I would walk along the Tiber so many times that its

sights and sounds became familiar to me, yet never ceased to intrigue me. It fact, the scenery

would become so familiar that it felt that I had grown up there, lived there my whole life. Like

walking home from school whenever I returned to my apartment after my classes. When I finally

left Rome to return to the States, it felt like leaving a home.