La Bella Roma

Dear readers, I am sorry that I have neglected you in a shameful fashion but I have been sunning myself in Rome. I couldn’t take the wretched cold one more minute so I managed to wangle a work/birthday/inspiration trip to Rome instead. It was glorious – it was warm and sunny and italian. From the minute the airport-to-hotel shuttle finally turned up after I’d been liberally suffocated by cigarette smoke (Italians still smoke like the dickens. Extraordinary.), I knew I was going to have a good time. Our driver seemed to have the most cursory knowledge of Rome itself, and once he’d started muttering ‘Dio mio‘ which he helpfully translated for us while putting postcodes in his phone satnav, I settled in for a convoluted journey. I was the second drop-off and he couldn’t seem to find a way to get to the hotel. In fairness to him, we were going down increasingly narrowed roads which seemed to have been recently designated as one-way/blocked off/dug-up. In the end, he stopped in a road, lovingly handed me my luggage and began gesticulating, ‘a destra, a destra, continua, a destra, numero tirty-tree. Tree, tree.’ ‘Ah, numero trentatre’, I murmured, trying to be helpful. Big smile, ‘Si, bene. Arriverdeci’ And just like that, I was in Italy. He might have been a wonderfully incompetent driver, but I liked the way his pride in ‘La Patria’ meant that even hearing a few words of italian from a foreigner cheered him up. I can only hope he isn’t picking me up for my return flight. Madre mio 🙂

I finally arrived at the hotel and it was pretty swanky. I knew that I was punching heavily above my weight when I walked down the road and saw not one, but two Chanel shops on my street. I can only assume they have a back-up in case, catastrophe of catastrophes, one burns down. Imagine a street with no branch of Chanel! Unthinkable. The shops on Via Condotti were amazing but I preferred those on Via del Babuino. It was excellent because everything was so outrageously expensive and out of reach that I could just kickback and admire the workmanship. It’s when I can almost afford the stuff that I pine; this stuff was way out of my league.

It was really warm, and I had the Spanish Steps pretty much to myself, it being nearly midnight. I love wandering around cities late at night; they have a totally different vibe. There was a warm and friendly trattoria a few doors away, and I was fussed about and cossetted like a princess. My waiter called me ‘beautiful girl’ every time he addressed me, and said that I was prettier than my carpaccio con arugula e parmigiano. You gourmands out there know that is very pretty indeed. They fed me osso buco a la romana and I drank a pichet of wine by myself, well, most of it. I realise that in these heated times, I ought to have denounced the waiter for his inappropriate remarks. I have let the sisterhood down, mea maxima culpa. I’m afraid I found it cheery and amusing, especially since I haven’t been called ‘a girl’ for 30 years or so. Plus, they forgot to charge me for the carpaccio and then decided to let me off the €15 as a pretty-girl discount. This intolerable sexism was inexcusable, but 15 bucks is 15 bucks. Reader, I left them a hefty tip and exited the restaurant with a big smile and a slightly drunken lilt. Rome, I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

Photos: Beauteous bag on Via del Babuino; Bulgari set. Favourite type of jewellery, looks like boiled sweets. Plus, love the mini Fiat; view of Rome from the Vatican; Tiber, Tiber, burning bright. See that shiny thing in the sky? It’s the sun; Piazza Spagna in all its madness.

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