You have waited in interminable queues to see the Sistine Chapel, you have braved
the crowds at the Spanish Steps, you have had your picture taken with a fake
gladiator outside the Colosseum. And you have felt, just a little, that Rome
has escaped you. It is beautiful, it is fascinating, but it is elusive. You
have the sense that the Eternal City is eternally slipping away down a
cobbled side street, forever out of range.
I first went to Rome in 1974, and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve
been back. I have survived four olive harvests, three Italian girlfriends,
two Vespas, and a whole heap of parmigiano. And I am still struggling to
understand the city. But here is my collection of hot tips.
They are unashamedly personal. My only criterion is to avoid the obvious —
the main tourist sites that feature on everyone’s first-time
itinerary. The best ceiling fresco may be the Sistine Chapel, and the best
square is undoubtedly Piazza Navona.
But I am assuming that either you have already seen them, or you can find them
for yourself — just follow the crowds. This selection is about the
places you didn’t have time for the first time round, or the hidden
places you have never heard of. It is intended to nudge you off the tourist
circuit, and into the city.
BEST RUIN
The Baths of Caracalla
Edward Gibbon claimed the great bathhouses were responsible for the decline and
fall of Rome — all that moist nudity was weakening the Roman
character. In our own age of spas and health clubs, they seem enviable
institutions — though, of course, we may well be going down the
plughole too.
The Terme di Caracalla was a cathedral of bathhouses. It accommodated 1,600 bathers
and included a stadium, a gymnasium, libraries, art galleries, shops and
gardens. Even in ruin its scale astonishes. Surrounded by umbrella pines and
swathes of cropped grass, the colossal vaults and ghostly, roofless halls evoke
Rome’s lost grandeur better than any ruin in the city. It survived until
the sixth century, when the invading Visigoths buggered up the plumbing.
BEST MUSEUM
Museo Nazionale Romano
Divided between various buildings around the city, the best chunk of this national
collection of classical art is in the gorgeously renovated Palazzo Massimo,
at 1 Largo di Villa Peretti (00 39-06 3996 7700). Everything here seems to
be a masterpiece.
The portrait busts are astonishing — Germanicus, Caligula, and a
ravishing Sappho. Don’t miss the gladiator fresh from the arena —
you can almost smell the sweat — or Niobe, a gloriously ambiguous
female swoon.
But upstairs is the real treat — a series of paintings from Roman
villas. They have a freedom and lightness that would not be seen again
until the end of the 19th century.
BEST CHURCH
Santa Costanza
No building in Rome acts as so eloquent a bridge between the pagan and the Christian
city. This little church, lying just off the Via Nomentana, beyond the
ancient walls, was built in AD350 as a mausoleum for Constantia and Helena,
two daughters of Constantine, the first emperor to embrace Christianity.
One of the city’s earliest surviving Christian buildings, it has the
form and decoration of a pagan temple. Its ghosts are the citizens of
ancient Rome discovering a new religion. Despite the name, Constantia was
hardly a saint. According to the historian Marcellinus, she was a fury who
goaded her husband to acts of terrible violence.
BEST CATACOMBS
Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura
In the same complex as Santa Costanza, the catacombs beneath Sant’Agnese
fuori le Mura are a gloomy labyrinth of passages lined with burial niches.
Follow the wide staircase down into the church on its south side, adorned
with fragments of marble bearing scraps of Latin inscription and early
Christian symbols. A guide will take you down into the catacombs, which were
stripped of their occupants by relic-hunters in the 18th century.
BEST PAINTINGS
Caravaggio’s
A predictable choice perhaps, but the bad boy of 16th-century art is irresistible.
The drama and realism of his work make it more suited to our age than his
own. The magnificent Conversion of St Paul, in Santa Maria del Popolo, was
dismissed as “an accident in a blacksmith’s shop”, while
the first version of St Matthew and the Angel was rejected because the saint
was portrayed as a tired old man with dirty feet. Don’t miss the three
St Matthew paintings in San Luigi dei Francesi (06 688271), in Piazza di San
Luigi dei Francesi.
BEST SCULPTURE
The Sleeping Hermaphrodite
One of the most exquisite classical sculptures in Rome, and one of the most surprising.
There have been at least six copies of the Greek original. The best is in
the Palazzo Massimo (see Best Museum), though the one in Galleria Borghese
is possibly more famous. A naked woman lies sleeping, stretched out on a
divan, one leg slightly cocked. From the back she is exquisite, sensual and
very erotic. Walk round to the front and you see she has male genitals, an
ambiguity that seems deeply Roman.
BEST COURTYARD
Chiostro del Bramante
Bramante was responsible for much of St Peter’s, and his cloisters in
the more modest church of Santa Maria della Pace are among my favourite
places in Rome. The proportions of this courtyard are perfect: it soothes.
Best of all is that you can enjoy it over lunch. In the arcades upstairs is
an excellent bookshop and cafe, with salads for £6 and baguettes for £5.
It is open for lunch between noon and 4pm, and then for coffee and cakes
until 7pm. There are also exhibitions here. Visit
www.chiostrodelbramante.it, or call 06 6880 9035 for details.
BEST STREET
Via Margutta
Running parallel to Via del Babuino, from the Piazza del Popolo almost as far as
the Spanish Steps, the Via Margutta has been famous for artists’
studios since 1600. High rents have forced the artists out, but galleries
maintain the tradition. It is a wonderful backwater in the centre of Rome,
lined with evocative, terracotta-toned, wisteria-clad walls.
The galleries are like pocket-sized museums, featuring everything from classical
sculpture to old masters, Persian carpets to contemporary art. If nothing
suits your budget, you can always try Alinari at the southern end of the
street, which sells a selection of photographic prints of old Rome at reasonable
prices.
BEST RESTAURANT
Take your pick
Eating out in Rome is one of the city’s great pleasures. Start with
breakfast or brunch at Le Pain Quotidien (00 39-06 6880 7727, from £10),
at 24
Via Tomacelli, where the bread and pastries are baked on the premises. For lunch
I love the Enoteca Bonanni, at 11 Via Giacomo Pagliari. Their ravioli al
limone con salvia is a proof of God’s existence.
For afternoon tea, perhaps to rest weary limbs in the midst of a shopping spree,
go to the wonderful The Verde (06 6992 3705), at 46 Via Bocca di Leone: it
has the longest tea menu in the city. Don’t miss the carrot cake. Dinner
has got to be at La Terrazza dell’Hotel Eden (06 4781 2752), one of the
best restaurants in the city — from about £30. If you can’t
afford the dinner, go anyway for a cocktail. The views of Rome are
spectacular.
BEST CEILING
Palazzo Barberini
One of the grandest palaces in Rome, the Barberini houses the Galleria Nazionale
d’Arte Antica, a wonderful collection that includes works by Caravaggio,
El Greco, Filippo Lippi and Raphael, as well as Holbein’s portrait of
our very own Henry VIII, all dressed up for his wedding to Anne of Cleves.
But one of the best things in the palace is the ceiling fresco by Pietro da
Cortona, in the grand salon. The curators have thoughtfully supplied the
room with comfortable benches, on which you can stretch out to view the
ceiling in comfort. A good place to catch a little nap after that wonderful
lunch. Open 8.30am to 7.30pm. Closed Mondays.
BEST CEMETERY
The Protestant Cemetery
It may be a well-trodden path, but a visit to this non-Catholic cemetery, beside
the Porta Ardeatina in Testaccio, is like a rural retreat. Keats is buried
here, as are Shelley’s ashes. Their monuments attract a flow of earnest
pilgrims. There is a panoply of other famous non-Catholics and atheists:
Gramsci, Axel Munthe, Shelley’s friend Trelawney, Goethe’s son,
and a host of other notables. Don’t forget to leave a donation for the
cats — there is a box in the wall.
BEST VIEW
Through a keyhole
Piranesi — he of the endless 18th-century architectural engravings —
is responsible for this one. He was the designer of the Piazza of the
Knights of Malta, a curious walled space on the Aventine Hill, decorated
with obelisks and military plaques. Not terribly interesting, save for the
door in the priory wall on its north side. Peer through the keyhole and
there, perfectly framed by trees at the end of a garden avenue, is a lovely
view of the dome of St Peter’s.
BEST ICE CREAM
Fata Morgana
Ice cream is a passion in Italy and in Rome everyone has their favourite gelateria.
Look for the word artigianale, which implies they make it themselves. My own
favourite is a bit of a hike northeast of the Villa Borghese, at 9 Via Lago
di Lesina. Fata Morgana has 120 varieties, ranging from rosemary to roses
and orange. For a more central gelato, try San Crispino, at 42 Via della
Panetteria.
BEST COFFEE
Caffe Sant’Eustachio
To Romans, this is the best bar in the Centro Storico. It is classic 1930s, with
a zinc counter top, faded photographs, steaming espresso machines and cappuccino
served in the Neapolitan style — very sweet. Its gran caffe has a thick,
rich burnished foam.
They also sell beans and ground coffee from a variety of select plantations around
the world: Piazza Sant’Eustachio, 8.30am to 1am.
BEST CONFESSIONAL
Santa Maria Maggiore
For the sinner, St Peter’s can be a trifle intimidating; nobody wants
to own up to impure thoughts in the centre of Christendom, with the Pope
almost in the next room. Better to trot along to Santa Maria Maggiore, which
has a friendlier, more forgiving feel.
You can confess in a number of different languages. A good chance to try out your
schoolboy French or phrasebook Italian. Somehow, sins sound less serious in
another language.
BEST ENCOUNTER
An audience with the Pope
This is one to impress the folks back home — your own papal audience,
albeit one shared with a few hundred other people. Every Wednesday, the Pope
holds public group audiences. Tickets are free.
Go to www.vatican.va for information. To book, write to Monsignor James M Harvey,
100120 Vatican City State, or send a fax to 00 39 06 6988 5863. Include the
date of the audience, the number of tickets required, and your own address
and telephone number. They will need a couple of weeks’ notice. You
can also book tickets to special Masses in St Peter’s — such as
Christmas or Easter.
BEST PIZZA
Ficini
Testaccio is the funkiest and grittiest of Rome’s neighbourhoods
currently undergoing slow gentrification, with a host of new clubs and
boutiques springing up among the old street markets and working-class
tenements. But Ficini, in Via Luca della Robbia, is not an immigrant. It’s
a traditional no-nonsense pizzeria — paper on the tables, family
waiters, a wood-burning oven — which was here long before the area
attracted the property developers. Good value, great- tasting pizzas and
calzones in authentic Roman surroundings.
BEST ROMAN MOMENT
Gregorian chant
Every Sunday evening at 7.15, as the bells toll, Benedictine monks file into the
church of Sant’Anselmo on the Aventine Hill to sing vespers. The
music, dating back to the early centuries of the church and of the city, is exquisite.
It is a moment of pure Roman theatre. As they file out again in silence at
the end, the congregation filters away into the Roman evening, where the
distant dome of St Peter’s can be seen against a darkening sky.
BEST TRANSPORT
A scooter
In Rome, everyone from students to executives loves their motorino. In the city’s
narrow, congested streets, they are the perfect mode of transport: from £24
a day from Bici e Baci (06 482 8443), at 5 Via del Viminale, near the
railway station. For the more eco-conscious, bicycles can be hired from £10
a day, at the same address, and these have the added benefit of being permitted
in Rome’s many pedestrian streets.
BEST EXCURSION
Via Appia
Via Appia, which runs into the Roman countryside, lined with cypresses and pines,
makes a great excursion by scooter or bicycle, and an even better walk. The
cobblestones are worn with ruts, where chariots passed two millenniums ago.
Ancient tombs and bits of ruined temple clutter the verges. Some of the
deceased sound suspiciously like music- hall turns.
Sixtus Pompeus the Righteous was probably a good man to avoid at a dinner party,
while the tomb of Hilarius Fuscus is adorned with the portrait busts of five
relatives as dour as clowns.
TRAVEL BRIEF
Where to stay: when in Rome, stay as the Romans do . . . which
means The Raphael (06 682831, www.raphaelhotel rome.com), perhaps the standout
pick of the city’s palazzo hotels. Vibrant colours and
stately Renaissance trim, just paces from Piazza Navona, with double rooms
from £160.
Even better for views is the 15th-century Sole al Pantheon (06 678 0441, www.hotelsole
alpantheon.com), overlooking the Pantheon, with doubles from £215.
Up on the Aventine Hill, a gracious neighbourhood, the Hotel Aventino (06 570057,
www.aventinohotels.com) has doubles from £78.
For even cheaper digs, you won’t beat the Hotel Panda (06 678 0179, www.hotelpanda.it),
just minutes from the Spanish Steps and nearby designer shops, at 35 Via
della Croce; doubles from £68.
Italian Expressions (020 7433 2675, www.expressions holidays.co.uk) has a four-
night stay at the elegant Hotel Inghilterra from £641pp, B&B, including
scheduled flights with British Airways or Alitalia from London and private-car
transfers. From November 15 to April 1, six nights are available for the
price of five.
Getting there: EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies from Nottingham,
Gatwick, Bristol and Newcastle; Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) from Glasgow
Prestwick; British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) from Birmingham,
Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester; Aer Lingus (0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com)
from Dublin. Also try Alitalia (0870 544 8259, www.alitalia.co.uk) and Jet2
(0871 226 1737, www.jet2.com).
Stanley Stewart travelled as a guest of Italian Expressions
