A couple of those things don't bother me, the graffiti and the Vatican.
I don't remember the amount of graffiti in Rome standing out at all. I haven't spent enough time in New York to have an impression of what it's like there, but coming from Los Angeles, I didn't have any sort of threshold triggered in Rome.
We spent a week in Rome and never went near the Vatican/St. Peter's. We looked at a map in the hotel on the first day, decided the Vatican was too far, and never spoke of it again. I could easily see it not coming up at all if we'd been on a specific "look for things in the Fora" mission (from what I gather from your post) rather than a "go sightseeing in Rome" trip.
Agree about the pizzerias. We (my companion largely, I entirely) avoided pizza in Italy, but they made their presence felt, yes.
We flew out of Rome, but I don't remember the visuals. Wikipedia tells me that the square mileage of Rome is slightly greater than NYC, so yeah, I'd expect the lower height and density to stand out.
I can't comment on the Tiber, since we didn't go that far west.
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I don't remember the amount of graffiti in Rome standing out at all. I haven't spent enough time in New York to have an impression of what it's like there, but coming from Los Angeles, I didn't have any sort of threshold triggered in Rome.
We spent a week in Rome and never went near the Vatican/St. Peter's. We looked at a map in the hotel on the first day, decided the Vatican was too far, and never spoke of it again. I could easily see it not coming up at all if we'd been on a specific "look for things in the Fora" mission (from what I gather from your post) rather than a "go sightseeing in Rome" trip.
Agree about the pizzerias. We (my companion largely, I entirely) avoided pizza in Italy, but they made their presence felt, yes.
We flew out of Rome, but I don't remember the visuals. Wikipedia tells me that the square mileage of Rome is slightly greater than NYC, so yeah, I'd expect the lower height and density to stand out.
I can't comment on the Tiber, since we didn't go that far west.