A Strategy for Touring Rome

Strategy, wrote Clausewitz, cannot be planned to the last detail; instead the strategist should identify overall objectives and have plans to cover almost every contingency. Clausewitz would have enjoyed writing a guidebook to Rome.

Things will be unexpectedly closed. Critical resources will go on one-day strikes, announced or unannounced. Churches and museums will be chiuso per restauro. And Some Other Damn Thing Will Happen.

When you arrive in Rome, make a shopping list -- things would want to see, where they are located, when you think they will be open. Organize it by city quadrants. Set off. Be opportunistic.⁹ When the inevitable setbacks occur, immediately change plans, taking stock only at day's end.

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A Strategy for Touring Rome

ã Copyright 2002 David Alexander Smith