Rome isn’t just disappointing – the city is an absolute mess

A young woman in a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt approached the Trevi Fountain, turned around and waited for her boyfriend to get his camera ready. She adjusted her hair, he clicked record, she tossed the coin over her shoulder, but – “clink” – missed. In her defence, the target is much smaller than usual.

The world’s most famous fountain is undergoing something of a glow up. City authorities have drained the Trevi Fountain of water, erected a perimeter fence and tasked a team to remove the layer of calcium and biological goop that has formed on its surface.

Comically, they have installed a little trough for tourists to fill with their pennies. Even more comically, the tourists are obliging. There is also an unsightly temporary walkway that allows tourists to get a close-up look at the technicians cleaning the fountain, which costs €2 and has raised eyebrows as paving the way for an entry fee to see the fountain in the future. It will be dismantled at some point in December.

I asked one onlooker, a chap from Maine who was visiting Rome with his wife, whether he knew the Trevi Fountain would be in this state.

“No,” he said, his voice slightly raised to supersede the rattle and sparks of a pneumatic drill fixing the temporary walkway. “It’s a shame. I guess they’re just tuning it up ahead of the Jubilee.” Would he be throwing a coin into the little pool? Legend says that doing so would guarantee that he will return to Rome one day, after all. He laughed. “Nope.”

The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, has commissioned hundreds of infrastructural and maintenance projects ahead of the Jubilee Year, an event which takes place every 25 years and which will see millions of pilgrims visit the city in 2025.

He says Rome will be “more beautiful and efficient than before”. Maybe so, but it has come at a cost. People on Tripadvisor have described the city in its current guise as “a mess” and “humanity at its worst”, while videos on social media exposing Rome’s scaffolded state have received millions of views. With little more than a month before the Holy Year begins, I visited Rome in the midst of its gory facelift, which just so happened to be my first ever visit to the city.

A bingo card of disappointments

My 48 hours in Rome began just around the corner from Piazza Venezia, where a violinist attempted to restore some sense of dignity to proceedings. He grimaced, and I wondered whether it was the expression of a virtuoso lost in the majesty of his own performance, or the face of a man whose tolerance for the incessant grinding of heavy machinery was reaching its limits.

Beneath his feet, and indeed all around, construction was underway on the extension of Rome’s third underground artery: Metro Line C. The project has been delayed and bogged down by allegations of corruption, funding issues and archeological discoveries (a Roman tavern was recently unearthed). The disruption overground is quite overwhelming, too, with the monument to Victor Emmanuel II hiding behind tall fences and pedestrians shepherded along narrow temporary pavements.

This, I was soon to discover, was the tip of the iceberg. Across the city there are 3,200 smaller public construction projects taking place, 322 of which are said to be “essential” for the Jubilee year. I started ticking them off, thick and fast, like a bingo card of disappointments.

As I approached the Colosseum, a moment I’d imagined all of my life, I saw the amphitheatre surrounded by cranes, diggers and major construction sites just metres from its ancient walls. Nearby, the Arch of Constantine resembled a tooth in braces. The Egyptian Obelisk in front of the Pantheon was being spruced up, and all three of the fountains at Piazza Navona were drained. All were cordoned with signs that read “Roma si trasforma”, or “Rome is transformed.”

Many locals are unhappy that their home has been turned into a giant building site. At one hotel a few hundred yards from the Trevi Fountain, the receptionist said: “The people are very unhappy with the mayor. One day it just all appeared. Without water this is not a fountain, it is a sculpture.”

There is also little faith that everything will be completed on time, and a general sense of exasperation that the works didn’t start earlier. One local called Orietta said: “It has become clear now that several projects won’t be finished until 2025. What concerns us most as Roman citizens is logistics and the flow of traffic. The city is expecting around 35 millions tourists to visit over the course of the Jubilee, and we have no idea how this will all be handled.

“We can only hope that the remaining projects that are yet to be completed won’t have the effect of penalising the city, rather than enhancing and promoting it globally as a premier tourist destination.”

Interestingly, many tourists seemed gleefully unbothered by all the construction work. I saw selfies being taken right in front of heavily scaffolded church facades, I saw arms craning over fences to capture a shot of workers in hard hats polishing old marble. Perhaps they had powers that I do not possess. Perhaps merely being in the presence of history was enough for them. Or perhaps they can magically erase the ugly stuff using AI.

Whatever their rationale, I was determined to see Rome uncloaked. And it is possible, with a bit of patience. On my walk to the Colosseum, I found the Forum was unencumbered and free to roam, like stepping into the pages of a history book. I enjoyed a drink at a cool cocktail bar called Salotto42, looking out to the elegantly lit Hadrian’s Temple. The glorious Pantheon itself was left unbothered, and the Spanish Steps could be enjoyed without drills, hammers or chisels in earshot. Although not for long: Fontana della Barcaccia, at the foot of the steps, will be emptied and scrubbed up soon.

On my way back to Rome’s central railway station, I couldn’t shake the sense of having missed out. Visiting Rome right now is like going to the cinema to watch a popular film, but having your view impeded by somebody in a very tall hat. It’s like eating a Michelin-starred meal while suffering from the flu.

People often like to say “I must return one day” after enjoying a pleasant trip abroad, but for me there was a sense of urgency to the sentiment. So I did it. I went via Piazza di Trevi, jostled with tourists to get to that ghastly perimeter fence near that little trough, I turned around, took aim and tossed a coin over my shoulder. And unlike the woman in the Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt, I made sure it landed.

Where to stay

The Telegraph’s travel experts have reviewed all of the best hotels in Rome. Chapter Roma, The Fifteen Keys and Casa Fabbrini are three highly regarded options in the city centre.

Where to eat

Greg stopped for dinner at Antica Birreria Peroni, which has a menu of pasta dishes that rotate daily. This is one of the 39 restaurants recommended by Telegraph Travel’s destination experts in Rome.

More information

The Jubilee Year officially begins with a mass presided by Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square on December 24 at 7pm. For more information about Rome’s Jubilee Year visit iubilaeum2025.va.