Happy Birthday Rome ! (MMDCCLXXVIII)

Rome celebrates 2,778 years today. Happy birthday, my beloved birthplace. You truly do not look a day over MMDCCLXXVII.

Festivities filled the weekend !  Around 2,000 participants dressed in historically accurate costumes representing various roles in ancient Roman society (centurions, legionaries, senators, Vestal Virgins, gladiators, matrons, magisters, barbarians, priests and more ) processed through the city center, with lively reenactments.

Celebrations continue today, with classical band concerts across the city.

As I reflect on how much I love you, Rome, I’m reminded of how important it is to experience you properly. It also makes me think of how — regrettably — so many visitors end up doing it the wrong way.

My approach to planning time in Rome is an extension of my life here: and my mother’s, my grandmother’s, my daughter’s. Let me provide just a few Insider’s points to keep in mind:

1.When you’re met at the airport, pause en route for that first, arresting view from the Janiculum Hill with what surely is the world’s most beautiful city laid at your feet like a richly woven tapestry.

2.Early morning is the time for Rome : early is from dawn until 8 AM or so. Awaken with the Romans and take in its light and quiet before the tourist’s day gathers pace.

3.In the warm weather months, a terrace makes all the difference: in your room, for the aperitivo, over dinner.  To see the swallows overhead, to hear the bells, to feel truly part of Rome : these are all the experience. Please let us guide you to our favorite Roman terraces.

4.Rome has roughly 2,800 years of visible history, with continuous layers of occupation and building from the early Republic through the Empire, the medieval city, the Renaissance, and into the modern era. Unlike many ancient cities where layers were erased, in Rome you still see architecture, streets, and urban fragments spanning nearly three millennia in the same physical space.

With such density of periods and history, make use of an extraordinary guide — we have several — whose understanding and appreciation of Rome changes your experience of the city.

A guide must excel at seamlessly connecting different periods of the city without flattening them into a single narrative and must draw from an outstanding educational background in archeology, history, art history and Roman culture. An experienced guide does not simplify or compress what is there but helps you move between periods without confusion or loss of detail. A guide must be able to engage children as much as adults, and, in doing so, spark in them a sense that they might one day like to become an archeologist or an art historian.

5.Insider’s Italy has since forever proposed the path less taken, and no place do we do so more than Rome.   Plan days to allow yourselves two hours on foot or on a bicycle out the Appian Way, along the Aurelian Walls, at the Parco degli Acquedotti, at the Baths of Caracalla.

All of these magic places make their way into my clients’ Travel Plans. Allow enough time in your Roman days that their monumentality and enduring majesty – and few tourists – can be a part of your stay.

6.We plan with the light: when a church’s frescoes are best seen, when a view is most tender, when a gallery has best natural light. With light — Rome’s glorious light —  well-judged timing makes all the difference.

7.Choose a hotel that could exist nowhere but Italy : Italian in its owners, its staff, its sensibility. The colors and spirit of Rome should be present even when you close your door.

8.Timed entry is important — and (as many do not know) is often obligatory. Timed entry allows you to step into great sites rather than waiting. Rome is far too interesting to waste time in : and why would you ?  We are exceptionally attentive to the hours when we and our guides elect to have you visit popular places. From Easter through early November, you do the Pantheon a great discredit if you are not there during the last hour of the day.

9.Ensure that you eat seasonally, locally, simply and extraordinarily well, and in the presence of Italians. I eat this way and each day is a celebration at the table. You should too.

10.And finally, come in winter. This has long been my not-quiet refrain. The Rome of my childhood, and the Rome that I most want to share with you, is readily obscured when tourist masses are excessive. Rome’s winter climate has been celebrated since antiquity, and missing the chance to experience it then is to do yourself, and Rome, a disservice.

Hotels are much less expensive.

And decisively, you eat so much better. Roman cuisine excels in the winter, not in the summer.

And now off to be with the Roman legions. And eat pizza bianca.

Auguri Roma !