Walking around Rome

It is always exciting visiting a city and looking at all the sites, but what I find most enjoyable is wandering around the streets, soaking up the atmosphere, seeing how people live, and how their city looks from day to day.

This is what I enjoyed the most during our stay in Rome. This small street is just round the corner from our hotel and it had interesting shops and lots of eateries and bars where you could sit outside, weather permitting

This is Via della Croce, and I took this photograph while we were having our pre-supper drinks: it had just rained, so the normally busy street was deserted

I love narrow cobbled streets and their mystery

What always hits me anew when I go to Italy is the colours of the buildings

sienna




terracotta

and sometimes a combination of the two

how do they manage to make distressed look like an artform, so pleasing to the eye?

you look closely and it still looks great

you look even closer and it looks better

What could be more beautiful than this?

And then there are the long narrow passages with a fountain at the end, and as you walk towards the fountain you know that it is going to be a courtyard, with apartment blocks surrounding it

this one was just off Piazza di Spagna

and a different view of it

we came upon this one just before crossing the Garibaldi bridge on the Tiber

on a much grander scale this is in the Palazzo Barberini,

or, you walk into a passage and find this

and a closer look.

And the fountains, everywhere you go - this one is at the Palazzo Barberini

this one is around the Via Cavour area

and what about this odd little one? This was on Via del Babuino, between Piazza del Spagna and Plaza del Poppolo

And I love the arches that link the buildings over a street

and the unexpected courtyards that you come upon by pure chance as you are wandering

this was at the Conservatorio di Musica 'S. Cecilia'

Italians love stationary shops and it always is a delight to wander in but aren't the colours in this one amazing?

Bags, purses, pencilcases, albums, and oh those notebooks

and look at all those pens

We crossed the Tiber to get to the Trastevere district

and visited Galleria Alberto Sordi on Via dela Croce on the way back

and what about this? Aren't the proportions absolutely perfect?

We walked up Via Veneto because I had not visited it last time I was in Rome and wanted to see the place where all the celebreties used to hang out all those years ago

and looked in on Cafe de Paris where Fellini used to hang out and where the 'Dolce Vita' was based.