Providence is a quite hilly city, of course. In large part it's a bunch of little mounds surrounding a river. While the steep factor can be a pain in the ass when you're carrying something heavy, it's not without its upsides. Does give you a fairly good workout, which is something of a turnabout from the previous sentence. Another nice thing is that it affords a variety of views within a fairly small area.
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Ah yes, the ups and downs of city life. The story I recall about the hills
of Providence is that they match the seven hills of Rome. Truth to tell,
I never counted either.
Apparently the story about Nero fiddling while Rome burned isn't true
because the violin hadn't been invented yet. He was, however proficient
at playing the lyre. It's also the case he was miles away at the time
of the fire. Nevertheless, he was happy to have the Palantine cleared
to make room for his new palace.
The reported similarity to the seven hills of Rome is funny when you consider that the city was founded by English Protestants. The people who might have been able to make firsthand comparisons came quite a bit later.
As you say, Nero was nowhere near Rome at the time of the fire. Afterwards he did get some blame for it from people who thought he'd hired out for arson work. There's no evidence for that, and the most probable cause is accident. He did, however, make the not-very-cool move of blaming Christians for the fire, back when Christianity was considered a fanatical Jewish sect. It was a great city but didn't necessarily have great leadership.
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