the Rome Blog

I wandered down to the Basilica San Paolo yesterday afternoon in order to take a look at the market they’re holding for the feast of St Peter and St Paul. As I was leaving, an Italian started following me, calling:

“aooo!”
“tspspspsp”
“hey!”
“giovane!”

I realised he was talking to me (actually, I’d seen him fall in behind me), but I was also being given a great lesson in ways to call a stranger in Italian so I walked on.

“biondo!”
“ragazzo!” (more…)

A couple of weeks ago I had a friend come to visit me in Rome, and I took advantage of my new status as tour guide to make another visit to Ostia Antica. Walking down a hallway somewhere near the thermopolium, we were surprised to find a small owl curled up in a niche in the wall:

(thanks to Rachel for the photograph)

Actually, having a friend visiting Italy was a great excuse to visit Ostia Antica again (more…)

2007 being the bicentenary of the birth of Giuseppe Garibaldi, I’ve been reading My Life, an abridged edition of his memoirs published in English by Hesperus Press.

None of the wounded complained; the only cry that could be heard from those under the surgeon’s knife was “long live Italy!”. When a people reaches this point, it is time for the Pope with his tiara, the foreign bullies and the domestic tyrants to pack their bags and leave. (more…)

 

A couple of Sundays ago I was walking along the bank of the Tiber when I saw what I first took to be an otter paddling along near some reeds in the Tiber. I’m told it was actually a strange little creature called a nutria (more…)

I’m seeing a lot of posters in metro stations for the upcoming Roma Fiction Fest. The poster features a cinema screen with the festival logo splashed across it. I thought it might be yet another Rome film festival, but it turns out to be a new annual festival dedicated to television fiction (more…)

I recently discovered the website of Pierreci, who take care of the bookings and reservations for some of Rome’s monuments. As well as the standard things like The Colosseum (and until its recent reclosure, the Domus Aurea), Pierreci can also arrange tours of some of Rome’s more obscure treasures (more…)

I keep forgetting to renew my Bibliocard. If you haven’t come across one of these, it’s a sort of souped-up library card. It costs €5 a year, and for this you get all the usually library borrowing rights, plus a selection of discounts around the city (more…)