Walking around… the bad neighborhood.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t really like the first time I went out for a walk in Rome after the lockdown. Maybe I had to get used to it, maybe I was still wary, not ready for what I would find. A magnificently intact city, not appreciated except by sporadic passers-by. Yesterday, however, it went better. I met a couple of colleagues in Monti to talk about work. It was nice to discuss and fantasize about new tours to propose, anecdotes and new ideas; I felt alive. After the briefing, we took the opportunity to stroll and enjoy the bougainvillea and creepers branching out and adhering greedily to the facades of sumptuous buildings, the unexpected views that reveal unmissable topics, such as the Colosseum and Santa Maria Maggiore. Silence. He is now the inseparable companion of these walks, my regular client. Silence is broken only by the smile and greeting of the shopkeepers happy to see someone to approach and buy something.

In antiquity this neighborhood was known as Suburra and was considered the periphery of Rome! Or better, a place where you certainly wouldn’t want to be alone at night. Inhabited by what we would call the scum of society, thieves, murderers, prostitutes, where dilapidated houses and condominiums got easily burned because they were built in wood. But it gave birth to the most illustrious of the Romans, the most adored and glorified in the world. Yes, I’m really talking about him: Julius Caesar. Over the centuries things have changed, the dilapidated houses have become towers for aristocratic families who challenged to find out those who had it longer (The tower, of course). Nowadays it is a central district, certainly not as cheap as it once was and it is called Monti, due to its “hilly” trend (as if the plains existed in Rome!). If you are fashion addicted you must absolutely visit all the small boutiques of clothing, footwear and costume jewelry that you can find here.

Ah, one last thing: don’t try to search for Suburra on Google. You would only find information on an Italian film and TV series. Rather give me a call, we’ll discover it together!