June 24, 2020

Golden hour and a love letter to the city of my dreams:

I didn’t fall in love with Rome the first second I arrived. Like all love, it was a process. A process of discovering what lies below the surface of this eternally beautiful and charming city. I’d say it’s still a process. Rome can be impossible to accept and impossible to hate at the exact same minute. It’s a city that is both exacerbating and devastatingly seductive. You can fluctuate between adoration and frustration in the minutes between finding a beautiful cobblestones alleyway and being cut off in traffic by someone who has the audacity to scream at you when it’s (definitely) their fault. There are loud ambulances and there is the ever-present chiming of church bells.

So what else do I love about you, amore mio? A Campari spritz (served with peanuts and olives), a coda alla vaccinara, a contorno of cicoria, a piatto di spaghetti vongole, so much goodness that this list could honestly go on forever. The way your buildings are all colored terracotta and salmon and pastel hues like a movie set. The way the light dances on your buildings and in your deliciously distinctive umbrella pines. I love the Colosseum and the Pantheon and all the big obvious things too. I love discovering something I’ve never seen before that I’ve walked past a thousand times.

When I got here I was stupefied by Rome’s beauty. But it was getting to know it that made me truly fall in love.
So, today I did my first tour in over 3 months. It feels so good to be back, but I’m going to keep on enjoying the quiet luxury of time this summer too. Roma, amore mio, ti amo tanto oggi.