Lara Croft’s Italian holidays

In the alleys of Trastevere

The butler Winston mentions one of the archaeologist’s first adventures, the search for the philosopher’s stone: that adventure in Rome was “one of her toughest hunts”. According to Winston, Miss Croft headed to a opera hall (probably Teatro Costanzi, in Piazza Gigli) with a large sum of money to buy a precious relic, needed to obtain the stone, which had fallen into the hands of artefact smugglers. At the moment of the exchange, however, the pair escape with both a case full of money and the essential object. During the chase, Lara ends up (or at least so we believe) in the alleyways of Rione Trastevere, the most evocative niehgbourhood in Rome: from its cobbled paving to cascades of tumbling ivy, the small fountains and the little courtyards, restaurant awnings and the parked cars. From here, after crossing the river, she even stopped en route to dabble in an enigma linked to the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth), near Teatro Marcello, the ancient stone medal with a man’s face, the source of various legends, which also appears in Wyler’s Roman Holiday. Even if Lara Croft was not actually persuaded to do so, a visitor may instead be convinced by the possibility that a hidden divinity could bite off the hand if a falsehood is detected: the site is one of the most mysterious and fascinating for first-time visitors to the city and is certainly worth a photo.

The tricks of the Fori Imperiali

Our heroine’s search continues in Trajan’s Markets: here Lara must have explored the interior of the structure, searching high and low for secret passages and hidden levers to pull. For the visitors following in her tracks, the site can be visited along with the Museo dei Fori Imperiali, which provides explanations and reconstructs its decoration and architecture. Visitors are clearly discouraged from following in Lara Croft’s tracks as she ranges the various levels of the Market, heading into dangerous areas, crossing crumbling buildings and those being rebuilt with a tightrope walker’s aplomb, unless they are familiar with the extreme treasure hunt.

Mysteries of the Colosseum

Her last stop on the Roman search for the philosopher’s stone is the Colosseum, which the heroic archaeologist reaches through a series of underground galleries closed to the public (we would have pointed them out otherwise). After gathering the artefacts necessary to obtain the long-desired relic, the young but determined woman enjoyed perhaps the best view of the amphitheatre: through a system of hidden mechanisms, she managed to emerge at its centre. Here she faced a series of creatures clearly inspired by gladiator fights, evoked by the smugglers through the risky use of some relics. Only at the end, by opening a secret room, does Croft manage to get her hands on the long awaited stone.
The Colosseum is no less exciting for the tourist: to think that these impressive ruins were once the setting for animal fights, duels and public executions, holding up to 75,000 spectators, makes the monument even more majestic, imposing, and equally macabre. While the exterior of the building is breath-taking, inside it is equally impressive: it doesn’t matter if you can’t go into the depths of the earth like Lara Croft.

Luckily, Lara did not die in Egypt as everyone believed. She had the company of the philosopher’s stone for many years following and the memory of that journey in Rome never left her.