John Henderson's Travel Adventures in Rome and Beyond

April 24, 2020

Non-capital European cities to consider when we can all start traveling again

You’re probably tired of reading about the coronavirus. I’m certainly tired of writing about it. So this weekend I’m giving you a change of pace, a step into Europe during better times. This is a post by freelancer Alan Hardson on some of the best non-capital cities to visit in Europe. Yes, travel is curtailed for the time being but it will return some day. […]

April 21, 2020

Italy’s coronavirus lockdown for expats: Tears, loneliness and loved ones far away

The sidewalk cafes tempt you like the Sirens from a nearby shore. You can feel the sun’s warmth on your balcony but you can’t feel the sea. The last time you did the Italian double-cheek kiss was with your cat. Welcome to Porto Quarantina. Life in Italian lockdown is harder than most places. We live in the most beautiful country in the world but feel […]

April 16, 2020

Rome’s Centro Storico in lockdown: An eerie stroll through a silent and empty neighborhood on edge of despair

The only beneficiaries of the coronavirus quarantine are cats. Think about it. They have all these laps to sit on and sleep on all day. Lots of hands to pet and stroke them. Someone is always there with thumbs. Owners can open a can of catfood at the first meow. The coronavirus turned them from pampered to princes and princesses. Then I had a weird, […]

April 8, 2020

100 books: Retirement is a reading paradise, making life in the virus less like a living hell

So how do you like your company now? I see divorce filings are up all over the United States. Domestic violence is up in Asia. Netflix stock must look like Apple 20 years ago. In this time of international lockdown, people from San Diego to Shanghai are searching in the far corners of the Internet and the closet for something to do. You’ve played Monopoly […]

March 31, 2020

6 million coronavirus cases in Italy? A report says so and scientists agree

I went to bed Monday night feeling pretty good about my adopted country. Italy, the epicenter of this vicious coronavirus, showed signs of recovery. The percentage of new cases had dropped four straight days and in a week had been cut in half. The percentage of daily deaths had dropped three straight days. I woke up Tuesday morning and read in Rome’s Il Messaggero that […]

March 25, 2020

Coronavirus in Italy: Some improvement but death still haunts

My girlfriend, Marina, finally started working from home Monday. I could hear her exhale as she left her office near the Vatican two miles from my apartment. She no longer works around elderly men, the favorite target of the coronavirus that has laid waste to much of the world. Nowhere has it run more roughshod than it has here in Italy where our 7,503 dead […]

March 17, 2020

In virus-torn Italy, misery loves company but our suffering is soothed with pride

Sergio Serra rents out holiday houses around Rome. He has a wife and a 3-year-old daughter. Underneath all the death, the overflowing hospitals, the empty streets and the fear as the coronavirus cuts its swath through Italy, Sergio is one of many stories that doesn’t get told. “My income,” he said, “is completely zero.” Unlike many of his friends, such as myself, he’s not sitting […]

March 11, 2020

Life in Coronavirus lockdown: Italy closes its borders

Tuesday I had to make the risky move of traveling across Rome to a clinic using public transportation. As Italy becomes the western world’s most paralyzed country courtesy of the Coronavirus, I felt like the guy sneaking out of his shelter in a scene from “Night of the Living Dead.” My girlfriend, a third-generation Roman terrified of the virus, begged me to take a taxi. […]

March 6, 2020

Coronavirus in Italy: inside Europe’s biggest petri dish

Hello from Quarantine Centrale. Here in Italy we have become Europe’s red-headed, deformed stepchild. We are shunned, ridiculed and home bound. The Coronavirus has turned all 60 million of us into passengers on one giant cruise ship. We’re sitting motionless with no port accepting our wretched, damned souls. I myself am quarantined. Yes, it happened to me. Since returning from Saudi Arabia last Friday, I […]

February 14, 2020

Valentine’s Day in Rome: QC Termeroma is the perfect SPAcial gift

FIUMICINO, Italy — I love the parlor game: Who would you like to be at any point in history? Mine’s easy. I would be part of the aristocracy during the Roman Empire. What would your life be like? Let’s see. You go to your private thermal bath and sit in an outdoor Jacuzzi set at 96 degrees (Fahrenheit). Then you go into a sauna where […]

January 28, 2020

Derby Day in Rome: a vicious rivalry that can still bring opposites together

(Editor’s note: I was planning on posting this Monday but yesterday was meant for remembering Kobe Bryant and not a relatively meaningless soccer game in Rome.Riposa in pace, Kobe.) It was a terrific idea to celebrate a birthday. Alessandro Castellani, my best Italian friend in Rome and veteran sportswriter, had gathered seven of his male friends to an arranged dinner. We were all huge soccer […]

January 23, 2020

“The New Pope” a holy new experience for this film extra as an American cardinal

Eighty cardinals stared at me as I walked alone down the Sistine Chapel. I tried not to think about Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino watching my every step or the two cameras I was told not to look at or I’d be shot on sight. Instead, I walked slowly, deliberately, as if in a trance, hoping the ballot I held aloft didn’t fall from my hand […]

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