Week 7 – Walking in Rome

Walking with AAR colleagues near Ponte Fabricio

This past Friday was a major transportation strike here in Rome.  Buses, trains, subway were all affected. The public schools were all closed as a result, giving the day-off to the 10 or so school-age American children of Academy fellows, who all live in my same apartment building.   In Rome, children getting the day off from school for a major strike seems to be only slightly less common than school children in Boston or New York getting a day off for a major snowstorm. 

Walking toward the Ponte Sisto

I was out and about the city, but the strike didn’t really affect me because I tend to walk almost everywhere, anyway.   Since I find almost no time for exercise between my project, academy life (lectures, events, meals, etc.), and family life with a four month old baby, I’ve also rationalized that all this walking will partially offset all the incredible cheese, gelato, dolci and other rich foods I’ve been eating here.  

 Walking is such a great way – I think the best way – to see and experience the city.   

 While the subway is great in bad weather, it doesn’t permit you to see any of the neighborhoods you traverse.  You simply enter at point A, emerge from the ground at point B, and really have no idea about what lies between. 

near Piazza Gerusalemme

The bus system in Rome is quite good, and I always keep some bus tickets in my wallet in case I am tight on time for an appointment, or if I need to cover long distances with my infant daughter in-tote.   It does allow you to see what’s between points A and B, but the buses primarily run on the major streets that are wide enough to a accommodate them, and that really limits and changes your perception of the city and neighborhoods you traverse.  Neighborhoods that are primarily residential can appear hectic and commercial when you only see the widest, busiest street.    

 Bicycle is also a great way to see the city, particularly if covering long distances, but the narrow alley-like streets of medieval neighborhoods like those in Trastevere (just down the hill from the Academy) are really best experienced on foot.  Bikes can be a little cumbersome to the pedestrians in some of the incredibly narrow alley-like streets (“vicoli”) of medieval buildings.  And not having a bicycle to push around or hold up in the narrowest vicolo leaves both hands free for taking a photo or making quick sketch, and moving on without making a big production of it.  The steep hills of Trastevere and Gianicolo that are always the final leg of my walk home from Centro include steep ramps and stairways that are far more pedestrian-friendly than bike-friendly (and similarly, they are more friendly to me as a pedestrian wearing a baby-carrier than one pushing a stroller.)   As I spend a lot of time in Centro (e.g., seeing historic buildings and sites), that winding, twisting walk home from Centro has quickly become both very familiar and beloved to me.

The Ponte Sisto, connecting Trastevere with Centro (left)

 Next week I’ll convey some sense of that walk through a series of sequential photos, starting in Centro, and walking across the river, through the Trastevere neighborhood, and up the big hill (the largest hill within the walls of the city of Rome) to the Gianicolo.