Touring the city on foot, as Romans always have
ROME» Like hordes before us, we entered Rome through its northern gate.
We had rented a terrace apartment in an old marble-filled building in the Flaminio neighborhood, just outside the ancient city walls. Each day, we kept pace with Romans bustling to work and flowed through the Porta del Popolo, built in the late 1400s as a grand entrance to the city.
Centuries before we arrived, barbarian tribes (so named by the Romans), stormed in here and sacked the city. Martin Luther also traveled this way; he came in the early 1500s to live in a monastery, from which he observed the church and the pope close up, just nine years before he and his ideas rocked the world. Later, there was Queen Christina of Sweden, who in 1654 converted to Catholicism, abdicated her throne and rolled into her adopted city through Porta del Popolo dressed as an Amazon and riding in a chariot.
Unlike the Visigoths and the Gauls, and unlike the queen, my family and a friend came in peace and attempted to blend in with the Romans.
The first morning, in a haze of jet lag, we paused to get our bearings after passing under the arch. To our left, a ragged woman hoping for alms sat on the steps of Santa Maria del Popolo. Inside the church, works by Caravaggio, Raphael and Bernini belied the simple facade, its travertine dirtied by soot.
In front of us, the vast expanse of Piazza del Popolo made a warm welcome. In its corners, sculptures representing the four seasons gazed at indifferent passersby. An obelisk pilfered from ancient Egypt in the early days of the Roman Empire soared. A pair of matching churches, one behind scaffolding, marked the far side of the square. Radiating out from them, three main roads
led more deeply into Rome.
We opted for the center road and passed a restaurant called Dal Bolognese, after a city in Italy renowned for its cuisine, storefronts of Italian designers such as a. testoni and Boggi, and leather goods stores. Clearly, we had chosen well. We wound through a maze of tight streets, where shopkeepers chatted with neighbors as they opened for business. A truck loaded with topiaries and bright flowers tooted its horn, nudging its way among pedestrians. Then we landed at our breakfast spot, a cafe that predates the United States — Antico Caffe Greco, circa 1760, where we sat on red velvet banquettes set against art-covered walls.
Back outside, we practically stumbled onto the Spanish Steps. Just down the street, that staircase rose from Piazza di Spagna, surprisingly empty for one of the city’s top attractions.
Such unexpected discoveries would occur again and again. Rome is strikingly compact. Within its ancient walls, just 12 miles around, lie many of the city’s iconic gems: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain. We walked everywhere, moving between epochs in a matter of minutes. We shot past the 28 B.C. tomb of Augustus on our way to the Baroque Piazza Navona, all the while navigating the bustle of modern-day Rome.
Walking the Forum, we found a romantic puzzle of tumbled buildings, though it was once a gleaming plaza paved with marble and lined with marble temples and buildings. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, cows grazed the grounds and some of the marble was hauled away to be used for the next big thing: St. Peter’s Basilica.
During an afternoon, we learned how early Romans managed to construct the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater ever built, beginning in A.D. 70. Turns out that concrete made of Roman soil has an especially strong quality. It helps, too, that those ancient innovators bored holes through each piece of a column, lined them up and then poured molten metal inside.
By chance, we toured the site on March 15, the Ides of March and the anniversary of the 44 B.C. assassination of Julius Caesar. More than 2,000 years later, people were still paying their respects. Some wore wreath crowns, and flowers piled up where his body had lain.
Most days, we roamed the city. One day, we rented bikes at Villa Borghese, a giant hilltop park with manicured gardens, a lake and sculptures and temples scattered in the greens. Another day, we explored the Borghese Gallery, a palace-turned-museum in the park that brims with enthralling Italian masterpieces. We explored the crooked streets of Trestavere, where we ate pizza next to multi- generational Italian families out for Sunday dinner. We shopped, bolstered with gelato.
And every day, we passed by Santa Maria del Popolo on our way back home. On my last full day in Rome, I checked the church’s schedule, eager to study the artwork tucked into its side chapels. I arrived early, heard a sermon underway and slipped into a back pew to wait. Communion came, and I witnessed a parade of takers: a tattooed hipster, a dusty workman, a woman in fur accompanied by a dog. But when the service was over, he caretaker gently shooed out the parishioners, and me with them.
I had caught only glimpses of the Berninis and the Caravaggios after I rose from my pew. But Santa Maria is a working church for Romans, not a museum for tourists. In that way, it is much like Rome itself.