Visiting the Set of the Lizzie McGuire Movie AKA Rome

​When I first saw the Lizzie McGuire Movie at the impressionable age of eight years old, I witnessed a near perfect work of cinema. Travel, adventure, finding your famous doppelgänger… and all with your best friend at your side. I wanted to experience something like that someday.

Now, overlooking a few major flaws in that film (e.g. a 14-year-old girl taking off with a 40-looking 17-year-old in a foreign country was not a great move), I finally did it! I went to Rome. And of course I couldn’t help but notice when I saw all the landmarks that appeared in the movie. This is where Lizzie did a cartwheel! That’s where Lizzie met Paulo! Over there is where Lizzie’s feet started bleeding from blisters! Okay, maybe that last one was just me…

The Trevi Fountain was a landmark I knew I needed to hit for more than just Lizzie reasons, but to be honest, I’ve wanted to go to that fountain ever since I was eight simply because it looked so magical in that movie. And it was even more magical in person. I tossed a coin over my shoulder just like Lizzie did, but no sketchy yet attractive Italian pop singer appeared before me as soon as the coin splashed into the fountain. In fact, I found out that you don’t really “make a wish” with your coin the way you might at a fountain here in the States. Whenever I told an old person that I was going to Rome, they would reference some movie I had never seen about the three coins you toss in the Trevi Fountain. I was quick to correct them that, ahem, Lizzie McGuire only tossed one coin, thankyouverymuch. Turns out they were as clueless about Lizzie as I was about their movie that I can’t even remember the title of. Three Coins? Trevi Coins? Ernest Tosses a Coin? 

Anyway, I decided to look it up. As it turns out, when you toss a coin in the Trevi Fountain, the wish is already predetermined. The first coin means you’ll return to Rome; the second coin means you’ll have a love affair; the third coin means you’ll get married. A love affair sounds a bit dramatic for my taste, so I tossed one coin.

I also visited what Paulo refers to as one of the most expensive shopping districts in the world. Did I set foot in a single store? No. Did I climb to the top of the Spanish Steps and do a bit of voguing where Lizzie did her famous (in my mind) cartwheel after her makeover scene? Of course. ​

I also want to talk for a second about Lizzie’s hotel experience. She went to Rome on a class trip for her eighth grade graduation. So, suspending my disbelief enough to overlook the fact that her family and her school building itself didn’t seem to be in the type of socio-economic class to send their 14-year-olds off to Italy, what’s with the luxury hotel they stayed in? Seriously, the thing was beautiful. Two queen size beds in a room to sleep only two girls, the room was huge, and it was covered on stunning decor. And with all of that, the manager of the hotel (who seemed to be the only person ever working the front desk) didn’t speak English? That was nothing like my experience. I didn’t pay for a fancy hotel, so my expectations weren’t too high, and the overall experience at the place we stayed, Hotel Osimar, was sufficient. Twin beds, a tiny room, a perfectly clean bathroom, and an entire staff that spoke at least some English. And usually they were fluent. In fact, that’s something we noticed all across Rome. Obviously, when you work in hospitality, knowing such a prominent language as English seems likely, but pretty much the entire city of Rome is full of tourists all the time, so it seemed like most people spoke English. We only went to one place our entire stay where no one did, and that’s out of the hotel, tourist attractions, stores and restaurants. The scene where Gordo walks up to two random strangers because he sees Lizzie on the cover of an Italian magazine and he asks if they speak English and they do, fluently, seems way more realistic than the manager of a fancy hotel speaking barely any English at all.

And that isn’t the only plot-hole in this still fantastic piece of cinema. The finale scene where Lizzie (spoiler alert) performs a whole song and dance at an Italian music awards show in the Colosseum? Pretty impossible. Although in its day, the Colosseum sat thousands of people very efficiently, today it is a ruin. Like, a literal ruin. There are very few seats left intact, let alone a stage. In fact, even the floor that the gladiators once fought on no longer exists, and the whole underground system is exposed, as you can see in my photo. It’s more likely that a show could be held in the Pompeii amphitheatre, which has been restored enough that they actually do host shows there occasionally, though it’s significantly smaller. Yes, I went to Pompeii too. Read more about that in a post to come. You didn’t think this would be my only Italy blog post, did you? Ha. Not even close.