ROMA = AMOR

Now I understand why everyone says there’s nothing quite like visiting Rome. | MC #85

Salve!

They say it is impossible not to fall in love with Rome. Even its original name if read backwards means "love": ROMA = AMOR. After visiting the Eternal City with my husband

Tomek Skupiński

I confirm it surely does cast a spell on you. Somehow, I wasn’t prepared for such beauty emanating from every corner! When exploring the city you constantly stumble upon breathtaking traces of the past, like ancient ruins, famous baroque fountains, or churches with spectacular ceilings. Also, museums in Rome are magnificent and filled up to the roof with the finest sculptures, paintings, mosaics, and other art forms from all over the world dated through every possible chapter of human history. Each time you start thinking you won’t see anything more picturesque, something other appears to beat it. Every single day of Rome-ing around gives you a special kind of sensory overload, and your brain has to slow down a notch to process everything 🏛️👀🧠.

Panorama of Forum Romanum | Colosseum | Lupa Capitolina in the Capitoline Museums

The Eternal City sweeps you off your feet with things you know from history lessons, books, and movies. Seeing Forum Romanum with my own eyes felt especially incredible. I enjoyed admiring it from different sides, angles, and perspectives. There’s this massive window on the -1 level of the Capitoline Museums where the panorama is so stunning that the time stops for a moment. You can spend hours there soaking up the views, staring at this huge mausoleum of ancient Rome, filled with the remains of temples, arches, and pillars scattered throughout almost 5 ha of green grass, and wildflowers. In your mind's eye, you see the great Roman orators speaking from the Rostra and moving the masses in ancient times.

via Giulia | Fontana del Moro | Parco degli Acquedotti

Rome grabs you by the hand and pulls you deeper and deeper inside its spectacular piazzas, enchanting hidden streets, coffee spots, gelaterias, art galleries, and parks offering postcard-like views. I love that it enables you to do anything you wish for at any moment. When you get tired after exploring the crowded city center, you have plenty of options to recharge your inner batteries. Depending on what you find relaxing, you can, for example, dive into a department store, vintage shop, or one of Rome’s many parks. There are many places where you can rent a bike or get a guide who’ll tell you about ancient Roman times, emperors, gladiators, the Appian way, aqueducts, catacombs, and so much more…

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Sounds of Rome

The Eternal City is one of the cities that never sleeps. If you ask me what Rome sounds like, I’d say that is like a neverending serenade of:

• roars of engines from Vespa’s and other scooters, motorcycles, and cars 🛵🚙🏍️🚕🚓🚐🚋🚌, policemen whistles 👮, blaring sirens, and overall hum of traffic jams

• parrots and other birds squeaking 🦜🎶🐦‍⬛

• the soft murmur of water fountains ⛲️

• whooshes, swooshes, murmurs, and whispers of the wind, and the rustling of leaves 🌬️🍃

• lively chats of passersby from all over the world 🗣️💬🌐

• people humming songs to themselves 🎼

• click-clacking and clomping steps on the different types of pavement 🥾👢👡🩴

• the clinking of coffee cups, wine glasses, and cutlery ☕️🍷🍽️

• tapping, clicking, and scratching of dog paws on the pavement (Rome is so pup-friendly, it looked like they’re allowed almost everywhere!) 🐶🐕

• deep and vibrating ringing of the many church bells, loud enough to make your ears squint 🔔⛪️

Sadly, I forgot to capture ambience sounds, like I did last year on Mauritius, but I think the video down below quite accurately shows everything I wrote about.

Music is everywhere in Rome. Each day and night you can hear musicians busking in the streets, playing different covers with all their hearts. Almost every shop and restaurant offers some pleasant background music. It was awesome to recognize a couple of the songs from my Italo Amore playlist playing here and there on the trip:

• I heard "Ciao Ciao" by La Rappresentante di Lista when eating the best eggplant pasta in my life 🍆🍝🤤

• "Gloria" by Umberto Tozzi was playing in the underground shopping passage at Roma Termini (the biggest train station in Rome) when we were waiting with Tom for the train to Tivoli

I urge you to check out and save my Italo Amore playlist if you haven’t already - lots of good Italian vibes guaranteed! :)

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Tastes of Rome

Because of the city's complex stratified history reflected in its architecture and urban layout, some say Rome is like a huge lasagna with many layers… Speaking of lasagna, I didn’t eat any exceptional one on this trip, but let me tell you about my 10+ favorites of the local foodie goodness in alphabetical order:

carciofi alla Romana - Roman-style artichokes, trimmed, rubbed with lemon 🍋, stuffed with breadcrumbs, garlic, mentuccia (Roman mint), parsley, salt 🧂 and pepper, then slowly boiled upside down in water, and extra virgin olive oil. They are truly flavorful and aromatic, nutty, and insanely buttery 🤤🫠🧈

cicoria ripassata alla Romana - boiled and then sautéed chicory greens in Roman style with lots of garlic, a splatter of best-quality olive oil, and a pinch of pepperoncini, salt & pepper. Its flavor is complex and intense, grassy, and wild. It is served usually as a side dish, but you can find it inside panino, on pinsa, focaccia, bruschetta, crostini, in pasta, and more.

espresso - tastes incredibly e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e in Rome. It’s like there’s no bad coffee in there at all. The one from La Casa del Caffè Tazza d'Oro resonated the most with us so we decided with Tom to buy a bag of beans and a couple of their branded coffee cups too. The shape is quite different than usual, the porcelain is nicely heavy, and also the logo is pleasant to the eye. They’ve been in use since day 1 of our return, which probably makes them a perfect souvenir ☕️☕️

gelato - Italian ice cream is world-famous for a reason! 🍨 Aim for smaller, local, and more authentic places and experience true foodgasms. Stracciatella and fragola (strawberry) - that simple duo of flavors from Bar Pasticceria Enna I’ll probably remember until I die. The portions were huge, the consistency was perfect, and they were almost unsweetened which was truly refreshing.

maritozzo - slightly salty, surprisingly light brioche-like buns, filled with almost unsweetened and fluffy panna (whipped cream). Apart from being a delicious dessert, it has an interesting origin. Its name is a malapropism of the word “husband” and was assigned to the old, Italian, Valentine’s Day habit, that the future husband had to donate one maritozzo to his future wife. Usually, they had a sweet surprise hidden inside - an engagement ring or a pair of earrings. But in Rome and its suburbs, there was another, centuries-old tradition. Searching for a nice husband, young women had to take their freshly made maritozzo to the city’s main square. It was often heart-shaped and decorated with some message written with liquid sugar. They aimed to intrigue their future husbands ;)

espresso and maritozzo at La Casa del Caffè Tazza d'Oro | panini at Caffè Antica | pinsa and pasta at Tira e Molla | Trapizzino and Moretti beer

panini - these grilled Italian sandwiches were our no.1 choice for lunch to cut the hunger between our sightseeing sessions. They come with different buns and stuffings. The absolute best we ate at Caffè Antica. The bread was unique and tasted like something between a salty Bavarian pretzel roll, sweet challah, and fluffy ciabatta. The stuffing was simple yet bursting with flavor of green olives and solid slices of mozzarella, grilled zucchini, aubergine 🍆, richly herbed with oregano and basil, sprinkled with olive oil, and a pinch of salt & pepper 🥪. 10/10!

pasta - no pasta no party! Being in Italy is a great occasion to try different than usual shapes of it, like tonnarelli, rigatoni, fettuccine, or strozzapreti. If you don’t eat meat and Carbonara, Gricia or Amatriciana aren’t for you, choose Cacio e Pepe (cheese and pepper), Vongole (mussels), or my favorite served at Tira e Molla with tomatoes, eggplant, olives, and capers. IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to clean your plate with a bit of bread! Italians have a special name for this tradition, called "fare la scarpetta" which translates to "make a shoe". Your fingers become a leg that pushes a little shoe made of bread through a sauce left on a plate to absorb it 👞🍞🍽️. It’s even funnier in Polish because "skarpeta" means "sock".

pinsa - a much more light, and airy Roman version of pizza. It’s oval-shaped, crispy on the edges, and soft inside and it’s made with a special mix of wheat flour, rice flour, soy flour, and dried mother yeast so that it’s much more healthy and digestible than pizza

supplì - delicious Roman rice croquettes, deep fried and crunchy, with soft, melting-in-your-mouth insides. Stuffing can be meaty or vegetarian, depending on your choice.

tiramisù - this classic dessert tastes just better in Rome than everywhere else. The best ones we ate at the famous Two Sizes, and I must tell you - their versions are exceptional! The flavors were perfectly balanced, the cream was flawless, and the level of sweetness was on point.

trapizzino - triangle-shaped pizza pocket with 5 local stuffings to pick from, spongy and crispy, and wonderfully mouth-watering. It’s considered authentic, iconic Roman street food with locations in Italy and around the globe.

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10 Tips & The Biggest Surprises of the Trip

1. Sitting (and eating!) like Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holidays" on the famous Spanish Stairs is prohibited and police officers actively prevent it by using whistles. You can even be fined 250-400$ if you don’t respect the law. So watch your steps!

2. To avoid long waiting lines and overcrowded spaces try to book your visits in advance or go to your must-see places as early as possible. Sometimes booking ahead is the only way to visit it, like the Vatican Necropolis, which is a mindblowing experience.

3. If you can afford it, invest in guidebooks, guides, and audioguides. It makes a huge difference when you know what you are looking at, its rich history and context. One of the best parts of visiting the Vatican Museums was our guide, Emilia. Her storytelling skills, vitality, and warmth made these massive amounts of exhibits much more understandable and digestible.

4. Invest in a Weekly Pass if you plan to use public transport a lot. You pay less than 25 euros and can use unlimited public transport for 7 days straight, including buses, trams, metro (subway), and trains around the city. I can assure you it’s worth it - along with the ticket you buy a huge comfort of mind and you have one important thing less to worry about.

5. Prepare to break your personal record of daily steps and remember to put on your most comfortable shoes for sightseeing, your feet will be grateful! 👟🏆

6. Most of Rome’s 2000+ fountains offer acqua potabile - drinking water! 💧 If there are no warning signs you can freely drink from it, and refill your water bottles. Sometimes it’s just a small curved downward faucet sticking off the wall 🚰. These kinds of fountains are affectionately, and accurately called "nasoni" = "big noses" 🚰👃⛲️

7. If you’re visiting Rome and the Vatican in 2024 watch out for the construction works - the city is preparing for the Vatican Jubilee 2025, a monumental event in the Catholic Church (whose main attraction is the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica that happens only once in 25 years). Villa Borghese was the most dug-up and taped-up place I visited during this trip. Watch out for things like "Rent a Bike" in there. These bicycle cars are often partially discharged, heavy, and unsuitable for climbing hills, and they aren’t allowed to access many paths in the park. Better use your feet!

8. Inside a department store, there’s a fragment of an ancient aqueduct! It’s hidden on the -1 level of La Rinascente, and you don’t have to pay to see it. It looks rather peculiar, in high contrast with the jewelry section, that it’s hidden behind. If you have more time, you better walk in Parco degli Acquedotti to see larger preserved fragments of the Roman aqueducts of various structures and sizes. I guarantee it’s a marvelous thing to see with your own eyes 👀

9. Be careful when ordering desserts with chocolate! 🍫 Most probably you will get something with Nutella. For some reason, Italians put it almost everywhere. It’s a huge no-no for me, and I had to learn to ask more questions before placing an order.

10. If you have time and resources - go on a day trip to Tivoli. We went by train and enjoyed this one-hour journey. It’s not far away (around 30km), and its main attractions - Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este are both spectacular in their own, unique way. The first one will give you a time-traveling journey through the second-century summer palace/mini-city of Roman Emperor Hadrian, and the second one will serve you the most stunning frescoes and a huge garden with over 100 fountains.

The Vatican Museums | Villa Adriana & Villa d'Este in Tivoli

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Ok, that’s a wrap! As you see, the Eternal City completely swept me off my feet. Quite literally in fact, because among many other souvenirs, I brought a specific, additional one - covid infection 🦠. Luckily, I went through it relatively quickly and without major difficulties (no fever, or total loss of senses). And what’s most important, I didn't share it with my family members. This trip allowed me to take my mind off the traumatic events of February and redirected my attention to experiencing the beauty of traveling, which was exactly what I needed. I’m sure it won’t be my last time in Rome, and I’m already hungry for more! Also, being almost completely offline for such a long time has served me well. Now I’m refreshed and ready to catch up on the sea of missed Stacks.

Thank you so much for stopping by, reading, and listening. I hope I managed to pass down some of my excitement and good vibes to you. I’ve missed you! Let me know what’s up in your corner of the world, and if you’ve ever been to Rome or plan on visiting. Feel free to write, I'll be happy to compare impressions or give you some more recommendations and bits of advice.

Until next time,