You know I tell the truth here on Italian Grapevine. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth … on matters of Italian food, wine, culture and dolce vita living. I am la bocca della verità.
Back in the Eternal City… What is the magic of this place?
Could it be that you still have views that look like 19th century oil paintings smack dab in the center of the city? A tree grows in Brooklyn? And red poppies grow in the center of Rome…
The walks down memory lane were multiple this time…
I’m not going to recall the first time I put my hand in the Bocca della Verità… Let’s just say, if he didn’t bite then, he sure had reason to take a nibble now… But I managed to get by unscathed.
Even had a sip of Frascati DOC – for old times’ sake.
Non mi sono fatta mancare niente, as we say – I didn’t skimp, or skip anything.
Managed to also have the DOCG Cesanese del Piglio (Cesanese comune is a red grape indigenous to Lazio), as well as the Frascati! And dinner in Trastevere in one of the less tourist-y places…
But the after-midnight walk through the city center takes the cake. Up the Via Nazionale, over past the Quirinale where the view across to St. Peter’s from the hilltop is magnificent, the city was bathed in the rosy glow of lamplights. Winding our way down by the Trevi Fountain – encased in plastic scaffolding for the extensive renovations, but magic nonetheless – we marveled at the silence and the complete lack of tourists – who were clearly getting their beauty rest because by day, Roma Capitale was filled!
But when my heels clicked and clacked across the cobblestones of an empty Piazza della Rotonda, where the Pantheon stands in all of its majesty, and we were the only ones to admire it – well, that is the magic of Roma,Caput mundi.
Suzanne Branciforte's Italian Grapevine 