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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Porta Alchemica and our disappointing results...

Prior to our trip to Rome, I bought the guidebook Secret Rome (click on it to see it on Amazon) and saw that it had some really cool stuff to see. The book failed to mention several things however... And the one esoteric thing I really wanted to see was the Magic Door (again - click on it to see it on Atlas Obscura) but I was stopped way short as you can see in the picture below. Apparently, even to see this ruin in the middle of a park now requires one to call the Commune di Roma to schedule somebody to come and open the iron gates surrounding it for you. Nowhere in this little guidebook does it tell you this and the rather timid man who opens the gates for scheduled groups is apparently the only Roman above a small bribe to get a bit closer! Seriously though, it was one of the few lowlights of the trip to be denied admission to this peculiar door :^( And as far as the guidebook goes, that wasn't the only problem we had but I'll save those stories for another time...

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