Out for dinner with Mario

Last night we had a dinner with Mario, a dear friend of ours we hadn't seen for a long time. He is a Tour Leader too but in this period, like all of us, he is not working. We met in a nice restaurant in Trastevere and obviously we ordered a pizza. "Going to eat …

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Argentina – Part two

"Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!" According to William Shakespeare, these are the last words Caesar spoke before he died. But where exactly did Julius Caesar's body fall?  According to the historical sources, the great dictator was assassinated in the Curia by some senators, the so-called "conspirators". Among the assassins, the figure of Brutus, the …

Street names

As my twenty-five readers - quoting Alessandro Manzoni, with Dante Alighieri, the father of the Italian language – will know, I always say Rome is a city that never ends. And I'm right to say so because here, even the names of the streets, like everything else, have a story to tell. In the Sant'Eustachio …

The Romans: Acqua Madre Hamam

It happens sometimes, while walking around Rome, to turn the corner and cross, without having an immediate awareness, invisible boundaries of the city that we notice only by contrast, when we realize we are alone in a background of a thousand-year-old scenario that has nothing to do with the present time.  This is what happened …

Tiber flooding

According to a Latin motto "repetita juvant", "it is useful to repeat things". That’s why I will never be too tired to tell you that Rome is a city that never ends: even in the most unthinkable places this generous city will offer you a chance to learn about it. For example, on the walls.  …

Talking statues

Yes, you read the title correctly. It sounded weird to me too and when I was a kid, it was actually kind of scary. If I couldn't avoid the streets of the talking statues, or I forgot and suddenly found them in front of me, I hastened my step. I was terrified they would talk …

The Romans: blacksmiths, windows and aqueducts

Entering the workshop of our blacksmiths, Andrea and Massimo Manoni, is easy to understand how important it is to have in mind the two magic words "stratification" and "recycling". I talk about it on my home page in order to realize how Rome was built.  Their grandfather founded the Company immediately after the Second World …

Rome is for all of us

Therapeutic properties of art is a well-known concept today.  And for sure many of us have seen photos of a person being brought by medical staff into a museum as if to grant one last wish: seeing beauty again.  But in Rome, where beauty is certainly not something we miss, since 2012 there was already …

The Romans: Emi Fabbri’s handmade style

I don't know how it works in your country but when Vincenzo and I announced our wedding, there was so much wedding organization advice that we got confused very soon. As for my wedding dress, after a few afternoons trying on dresses in some downtown shops with friends, mothers and grandmother Vittoria, all I knew …

Piazza Navona’s imaginary tour

Today I would like to tell you about this beautiful square, one of the icons of Rome, starting from a very personal memory. Not really a memory of mine actually, but of my grandfather Pietro, who, for some years, when he was a child, lived with his family in an apartment inside this brown front …