My Top Five: Rome
What to Eat in Rome. No one knows if it was designed that way or if it was just a lucky coincidence, but the centuries-old building is truly majestic. Before entering the hands of the Knights of Malta, it was a fortified palace belonging to Alberico II, who ruled Rome from , a Benedictine monastery, and home to the Knights of Templar. There are a few, however, with altars by Caravaggio and other Renaissance and Baroque masters that will leave you awestruck. Raphael, Bernini, and Pinturicchio also contributed to its splendid interiors.
After dark, the city becomes a playground for bacchanalia. A word to the wise: Be careful in your choice of footwear.
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The cobblestone streets are a dire enemy of stilettos. If you have an extra day to escape the city, a trip out to one of the seaside towns surrounding Rome is absolutely worth it. Want to see Rome the way the locals do? Filmmaker, poet and novelist Pier Paolo Pasolini depicted the lives of working-class Romans in movies like Accattone , which was filmed on the streets of Pigneto—where he lived—in Stroll down via del Pigneto and via Fanfulla da Lodi, which are full of street art and lined with vintage shops, bars, and restaurants.
Luckily, the neighborhood has become much more accessible since Metro line C was completed. If you want to dig deeper, enlist the help of Imago Artis , a luxury tour operator run by charismatic locals Fulvio de Bonis and Pietro Migliori. Rome may not have as many cocktail bars as New York or London, but fans of shaken and stirred drinks will find plenty of excellent watering holes in the Eternal City. Choose a drink from the extensive list of classics and originals and soak up the atmosphere in the secret garden.
The Japanese restaurant Zuma is popular among stylish locals, who flock there for Asian-inspired cocktails on the rooftop terrace atop Palazzo Fendi. The Hotel de Russie is perfect for travelers who appreciate flawless service, a renowned restaurant and bar, and modern design in a perfect location on the bustling Piazza del Popolo. Palazzo Dama —housed in a restored aristocratic villa—sports a cool, eclectic design and has a Peruvian restaurant and the only pool right in the city center.
The Best Luxury Hotels in Rome.
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Gabriele Bonci has made a name for himself with his popular Bonci Pizzarium , a tiny pizza al taglio spot where you order slices topped with mozzarella, prosciutto, zucchini, and other delicacies to go. Want to sit and relax with an individual pie? While Via Veneto—featured in La Dolce Vita —has lost much of its charm, there are plenty of other spots worth finding. One of the most picturesque is Via Margutta, where legendary filmmaker Federico Fellini lived with his wife, the actress Giulietta Masina.
You can still see the plaque on his building on the northern end of the street. He often worked at Bar Canova on Piazza del Popolo, where he had his own office in the back.
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Many of his drawings still hang on the walls. Ripley to name just two. The machinery has remained intact, forming a striking backdrop for the marble masterpieces. Admire Ancient Ruins at the Roman Forum. Gaze at the Architectural Marvel That is the Pantheon. Climb the Spanish Steps. Throw a Coin in the Trevi Fountain. Get Lost in the Centro Storico.
Eat All the Gelato at Giolitti. Ascend Gianicolo for Panoramic Views. Sample Fried Artichokes in the Jewish Ghetto. Indulge in La Cucina Romana. Find the Secret Keyhole in the Aventino. Experience the Nightlife in Testaccio. Zip Around the City on a Vespa. But I decided against that because my next two choices are very infused with the spirit of Tacitus. And it really had a crucial sense of shaping our understanding of Imperial Rome as a place of vice and savagery and sexual depravity and violent, brutal, bawdy splendour. I think that what would leap out would be the shenanigans of Caligula, who indulged in incest, forced prostitution — lunacies that would put….
And that is simply because he has exerted such a magnetic appeal on future generations. His influence is so clearly massive and he is seen by many people as a very attractive figure. My own feeling is that he is actually much darker, verging on psychopathic, but it is that tension between the man who in his correspondence is witty and charming set against the record of someone who brought unbelievable slaughter and mayhem to Gaul and then to his own people.
And it is that combination of creativity and destruction within him that I think makes him one of the all-time magnetic figures in world history.
Next up is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, which is considered a classic by many, but also somewhat of a heavy read. I think it is regarded as a heavy read simply because it is physically heavy. The most accessible version is the Penguin one which comes in three large volumes. But the truth is that it remains incredibly readable. As I said before, it takes Tacitus as its model, who was famous for his waspish style, and a careful balancing and modulating of the sentences so that irony would be generated.
This is what Gibbon does as well, and it means that not only is it an incredible work of scholarship but it is also compulsively entertaining. I really think that anyone who is prepared to give it a chance will find themselves smiling at the very least throughout it. It was written in the 18th century, but do you really think it still has an enduring appeal?
Yes, and what is interesting about Gibbon is that his work is not only a masterpiece of 18th century prose but it shapes the terms of historical debate now.
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Instead it continues right the way up until the fall of Constantinople in and even beyond. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter. What that does is to give us a sense of how when civilisations fall they are inevitably clearing the decks for other civilisations to rise. That is the sort of understanding that has taken historians quite a long time to catch on to and it means that Gibbon is now coming back into focus as someone who really has something to teach.
32 Ultimate Things to Do in Rome
This again is an absolute classic which is completely informed by Tacitus. It has that very mordant take on the way that power works and operates. One of the reasons for that is that it was written not in the heyday of the British Empire — a time when British historians were rather keen on the workings of the Roman Empire and identified themselves strongly with the Caesars and all their works — but in the s, and published just as World War II was starting.
Yes, but also the power of it is that it is a dispatch from the frontline of dictatorship. So any notion that this is just ancient history, and therefore for that reason somehow removed from how politics function and work now, is absolutely impossible to sustain when you read this and hear the details about how the Romans are coming to terms with Augustus and his regime. And the henchmen of Augustus are very recognisable figures.
I have chosen this because a lot of books on Ancient Rome, my own included, generally like to tell stories that take fragments of evidence and piece them together to make a coherent narrative. But there is also a deep pleasure in looking at some of the things that we think we know about Rome, or the myths that we know are not actually true, taking the mystery to pieces and examining the works and seeing what is there.
This is what Mary Beard does in her book. Are the ideas of the Romans who wrote about it true? But how does she manage to go back so far and genuinely know that what she is revealing is right rather than what there was before? Well, you have to trust her.
32 Ultimate Things to Do in Rome
It is like in any detective novel you have to trust the detective. She is such a scholarly yet wittily sceptical guide that as you read it you feel that you can trust her to lead you through the labyrinth that she is exploring and point out what is true and what is not, so by the time you get to her ultimate conclusion you are perfectly content to take her word for it. At base it is about questioning and exploring things that anyone can be guided through.
That is what she does so well. She is not dumbing down but she is making accessible what is incredibly interesting. I chose this because the great revolution in moral and ethical affairs, which the Roman Empire witnessed and which Gibbon touches on as well, very amusingly and mordantly, is the rise of Christianity. We tend not to think of Christianity as being an expression of Roman civilisation but in so many ways it is, even though it radically transformed the empire.
The first half is looking at how pagans function in the years before the reign of Constantine, and you have glimpses into the practices and very deeply held beliefs of the pagans. And then in the second half you have the same treatment being given to Christians. It is an absolutely panoramic tour de raison of how people believed and thought, and the revolution and the convulsion that was underlying the religious life of the time. And ever since reading it I have become much more interested in the way in which the great religions such as Judaism and Islam emerged out of the world of the Roman Empire and antiquity generally.
The book I am writing at the moment is about how Islam emerged from the context of the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire.