Time to check out all that Rome has to offer

When I think of Italy, I immediately think of pizza. Which is why the photo that I’ve used with this blog post is of a bona-fide Italian-made pie.

The first time I ever had the opportunity to taste such a delicacy was during my initial trip to the great city of Rome. The year was 1997 and my wife, Mary Pat Treuthart, was teaching in Florence as part of Gonzaga University’s academic program in that Tuscan city.

Mary Pat was already in Italy when I flew to join her. She met my plane at Leonardo de Vinci International Airport, and we took a train into the city’s Roma Termini train station. From there we cabbed to the room she had booked near Rome’s famous Spanish Steps.

And I can still remember rising early the next morning, jet-lagged but eager to try out my rudimentary Italian with the staff at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. I managed to get out that I wanted a cappuccino, and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a coffee drink more than I did during those first few sips.

(BTW, coffee is the second thing I think of when someone mentions Italy. Following that are gelato, pasta and only then wine.)

We spent the next few days roaming the city, seeing such sites as the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Vatican City and Saint Peter’s Square and Basilica, along with my favorite spot – the Pantheon, which I visited again early one morning as a soft rain fell through the ancient temple’s open roof.

Of course, anyone who is familiar with Italy will immediately recognize that the photo accompanying this post was taken not in Rome but in the Florentine restaurant Il Pizzaiuolo. But pizza is pizza, even given the many variations of it that can be found in cities as diverse as Naples (naturally), Pescara (on the Adriatic coast), Bologna and, of course, Rome.

I’m thinking of La Città Eterna (Rome’s nickname for the past 2,000 years) because of a recent New York Times travel story titled “Your Guide to Rome.”

“Arriving in Rome for the first time is like being dropped into a sprawling open-air labyrinth where every path beckons,” wrote the author Seth Sherwood. “Where to start? What to prioritize?”

Valid questions for sure, and ones that can prove problematic to any first-time visitor. Sherwood does his best to prepare those visitors with a wealth of information.

He starts out with what he terms “the essentials … iconic places and flavors” that deserve to be experienced. Among the places he recommends are Vatican City, Ancient Rome (including the Colosseum and the Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum) and the Pantheon.

One of the sites he mentions, the Villa Borghese, brings back a lot of memories for me. During a 2017 trip to Rome, I had the opportunity to spend a month working remotely for the Washington, D.C.-based news organization Bloomberg Government. And every day I would rise at 6 a.m., ride the bus to the Piazza del Popolo and by 7 be at a computer terminal.

In the afternoons, I would stroll through the Villa Borghese Gardens on my way back to our apartment. It was the only time I ever felt like something more than a mere tourist in Italy.

Sherwood then mentions Roman neighborhoods, keying on the Centro Storico (think of the Spanish Steps and Piazza Navona), Testaccio (where you’ll find the graves of the poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley) and Trastevere (which feels a lot more like a place where people actually live than your typical urban setting).

I’ve stood before Keats’ grave, the headstone of which doesn’t bear his name. Instead, it says the plot contains “all that was mortal, of a young English poet” and declares “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.” I recall, too, going to a nearby pasticceria (pastry shop) at which we bought some authentic (and delicious) Sicilian cannoli.

I’ve also walked the streets of Trastevere, both during the day and at night. Filled as it is with its outdoor restaurants, Sherwood correctly describes the area as having a “village-like feel with its stone bridges, fountain squares, cobblestone lanes and ivy-draped old houses.

Rome is a walkable city, at least in its Centro Storico, and as Sherwood says it’s safe to explore – as long as you watch out for pickpockets. That, though, is the same danger that any big city poses no matter the location, from New York’s subways to Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

Sherwood offers this overview of welcome travel advice, along with recommendations of places to stay, shops in which to purchase everything from jewelry to souvenirs, plus restaurants to patronize.

Which brings us back to pizza. I’ll admit that I’m far more familiar with the pizzerias in Florence than I am with those of Rome. And all of us who have spent time in the land once ruled by the Medici family have our favorites. I’ve already mentioned Il Pizzaiuolo, but there are several others (click here for one website’s top 14).

Sherwood’s story, though, features a video section about the pizza bianca made in the Roman restaurant Forno Campo de’ Fiori. Pizza chef Osvaldo Palamidesse has been making his foccacia-crusty pies for some four decades.

I’ve never heard of the place or of Chef Palamidesse. But thanks to Sherwood, the next time I get to wander the streets of Rome I now plan to give his pies a try.