Rome is impossible to see in one visit. But it is equally impossible to leave without falling in love — that part always happens the first time.
The city where
you park on the pavement
Fiat 500s, laundry on lines and squares you only find once you stop looking.
Romans park everywhere. On pavements, on crossings, pressed up against ancient columns. This is not chaos — it is a system, just a different one. A little Fiat 500 wedges itself between a scooter and a sixteenth-century fountain, and it looks entirely natural. The Fiat 500 was made for Rome — small, round, nimble, it moves through these alleys like a fish through water.
The streets of Rome are not straight. They wind, narrow and suddenly deliver you to a square you weren’t looking for — which turns out to be more beautiful than the one you were. This is the city’s signature trick: it always surprises you once you stop trying to control it.
In the morning the alleys smell of coffee and fresh bread. Laundry dries on lines strung between buildings — as it did five hundred years ago. Someone shouts from a window. A church bell rings somewhere. Life goes on against a backdrop of architecture five centuries old.
Buildings that
remember everything
Baroque on top of medieval, medieval on top of ancient: in Rome nothing was ever quite demolished.
Rome was built over two thousand years, and you can see it. Here Baroque sits on top of the medieval, the medieval on top of the ancient. Nobody ever demolished anything completely — they simply built the next layer. The facade of a seventeenth-century church — and beneath it the columns of a first-century pagan temple. This is normal.
The most famous story about Roman architecture concerns the Pantheon. When Pope Urban VIII, of the Barberini family, ordered the bronze stripped from the Pantheon’s portico in 1625 to be melted down for cannon (and, legend has it, for the baldachin in St Peter’s), the Romans coined a phrase: “Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini” — “What the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did.” The phrase still lives in guidebooks. Urban VIII probably deserved it.
But the true marvel of Roman architecture is the Colosseum. Work began around 72 AD and it opened in 80. It held some 50,000 spectators and had 80 entrances, so the crowd could fill the stands quickly and leave just as fast. In the heat a vast awning — the velarium — was stretched over the arena, worked by sailors of the imperial fleet. Architects still use the Colosseum as a textbook.
People who
live inside a museum
Bella figura, the passeggiata and an easy coexistence with history.
A Roman does not notice the Colosseum. He notices the traffic jam in front of it. This is not indifference — it is a particular way of living alongside history. When your grandfather walked past the same column as Caesar, the column stops being a landmark and becomes just a column.
Italians are among the most stylish people in the world. Not because they dress expensively, but because they dress correctly. An old man in a perfectly ironed shirt at a coffee bar, a woman on a scooter in a dress and heels, a young man in a linen jacket in 35-degree heat — this is not effort, it is habit. Bella figura — the beautiful image — is not vanity, it is respect for others.
In the evening Romans come out for the passeggiata — the evening stroll. Not for exercise, not with a phone in hand. Simply to walk, to look, to talk. The ritual is older than any guidebook.
Rome is best
seen from above
The Aventine, the Janiculum, the Pincio terrace above Piazza del Popolo — from any of the hills Rome unfolds like a map. Domes, domes, domes. Rome has more than nine hundred churches — and behind almost every dome there is a story.
The most famous view is through the keyhole of the Knights of Malta gate on the Aventine Hill. Through the small opening you see a perfectly aligned avenue and, at its end, the dome of St Peter’s. Every day there is a queue for that keyhole.
Rome is the only city where you can come to two-thousand-year-old ruins and find a cat there. Just a cat. Who lives here and is in no hurry whatsoever.Secrets Service · Rome · 2015
When the tourists
go to bed
Fountains lit from below, honey-coloured walls and baths where two thousand years ago it was just an ordinary Tuesday.
At night Rome becomes a different city. Tourists retreat to their hotels, the fountains are lit from below, and the ancient walls turn the colour of honey. The streets don’t empty — the population simply changes. The Romans come out.
The Trevi Fountain at night is an entirely different experience. No crowds, no shouting, only the sound of water in the silence of a narrow street. Tradition says you toss a coin over your shoulder with your back to the fountain, so that one day you will return to Rome. The coins don’t go to waste: they are collected regularly and given to charity.
The Baths of Diocletian, the largest in ancient Rome, could hold about three thousand people at once. Today they house a museum. But come in the evening, when the light changes and the tourists are few, and you can imagine it: three thousand people, hot water, mosaic floors, the smell of oil and stone. Two thousand years ago this was an ordinary Tuesday.
That is how many churches Rome has — from tiny chapels to St Peter’s. Each one a separate story, a separate architect, a separate century.
Rome recognised its street cats as part of its bio-cultural heritage. They live in ruins, by fountains, in gardens — and are in no hurry.
2.97 metres long. Fits anywhere. A symbol of Italy’s postwar revival and the star of Rome’s back streets.
How to see Rome properly
The single most important thing: get to the major sights early. The Trevi Fountain at 7am and at noon are two different places. The Pantheon opens at 9 — be there at opening (since 2023 there is an entry fee). The Colosseum is best seen with a guide; otherwise you lose half the meaning.
Essential: carbonara in Trastevere (guanciale only, no cream), espresso standing at the bar (sitting costs more — that’s the rule), gelato only at a gelateria artigianale (not the ones with mountains of ice cream in the window). And the Knights of Malta keyhole on the Aventine — free, and the queue is usually shorter in the evening.
