Roma

Cast of Characters

Campo dé Fiori

Caffè San Pietro

Colosseo

Foro Romano

Chiesa del Gesu

Pantheon

P. Navona

S. Pietro

Il Papa

S. Eustachio

S. Maria Trastevere

Trastevere

Bocca Verità

Fontana di Trevi

Museo Vaticani

Villa Borghese

Vittorie

Mangia!

Loose Ends

Desktops

One of the highlights of being in Trastevere is the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere and its environs. A middle-sized square surrounded on three sides by houses and restaurants and on the fourth by the Chiesa di S. Maria (Church of Santa Maria), the piazza is home to a thriving hippie market in the evenings (something not unlike the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. As dusk descends upon Roma the tables are opened, the wares are spread, and incense, posters, hats, lamps, music, glass-blown pipes become available for a few lire. The merchants, mostly twenty-something, are friendly. It's not just tourists which frequent the markets, locals (or at least expatriats) wander from table to table.

As we walk by the market on the way to the piazza we see an area where the cobblestones which make up Roman viccoli (paths) have been taken up so that a fiber optic cable might be placed underway. Isaac loves seeing the construction. As we turn the corner we see barrels piled high with fresh oranges, the flames from large candles placed amidst the oranges catch our eye. As it turns out this is not just art but advertising, for here is offered freshly-squeezed orange juice. We sit and enjoy the fresh nectar, a wonderful break in the Roman autumn, as we survey the panorama: