André Aciman's guide to Rome: Contorno, supplì and Trastevere
I have returned to Rome at least once a in the memoir — late-Renaissance and baroque year, usually twice, for the past 20 years, Rome, what I like to call My Rome. Mostly especially after the publication of my narrow streets and cobbled lanes, representing books. I have my “haunts” and these still my itinerary from one bookstore to another. I take me back to my first year in Rome. I fell in love with books because they screened like evening scenes when the shops the world of Rome that I still wasn’t sure I liked, close and the Romans head home.
I still love the gleaming cobblestone as the city starts to empty a bit on streets such as Via Frattina and Via dei Condotti, which I discovered on my second or third day in Rome as an adolescent. I love that these streets are now closed to traffic so that you can amble about in the middle and not think of cars. But I also love the city in the early afternoon, when the sun pounds the streets and the narrow lanes bask in light, emptied of people. Now that I think of it, I like Rome when fewer people are about. Then, when it’s quiet, my mind wanders and I begin to think that it is my home forever.
My lasting memories of Rome are...
Ambling through, trying to fathom what Rome and I shared in common. Initially the answer was nothing at all. I was a stranger and Rome was no less strange to me. At best we’d learn to be patient with each other. I put up with its antic ways of doing things, with its strange smells, with its people, with their quick temper and impatience with my foreign accent, while it put up with my refusal to accept that I was probably going to live in its midst for the remainder of my life. Eventually, we learned to come to an understanding, which is called tolerance at first, then appeasement, and in the end, just when you least expected it, love.
There are areas I walked in the evening in the historic centre of Rome, and I mentioned them in the memoir — late-Renaissance and Baroque Rome, what I like to call My Rome. Mostly narrow streets and cobbled lanes, representing my itinerary from one bookstore to another. I fell in love with books because they screened the world of Rome that I still wasn’t sure I liked, but also because books revealed another world.
If I only had 24 hours, I would...
I like Rome before the busy day starts. I’ll walk to Piazza della Rotonda where the Pantheon is, then head towards Piazza di Spagna, which has always been my “centre of gravity”. Then, after watching the buildings of the Keats-Shelley House, walk quietly down Via del Babuino that leads to Piazza del Popolo. In the Cerasi Chapel are two of my favourite Caravaggios, The Crucifixion of St Peter and The Conversion of St Paul.
By 11 o’clock, it’s time for my unavoidable supplì (a rice and tomato snack) at Roscioli. I like to munch on supplì while walking down Via dei Giubbonari, then Via Giulia towards Trastevere, left, and cross over on the Ponte Sisto bridge, where I’m already thinking of a late lunch under the pounding noonday sun.
In the afternoon, after a short nap, I like to head to the Church of the Four Saints, where at 3pm, I want to hear the nuns sing. After that I like to head to the Basilica di San Clemente, about which I wrote in Call Me By Your Name.
Then it’s almost cocktail hour, and I like to walk back to Piazza San Cosimato, where I’ll sit and order a nice chill Campari spritz that is always accompanied by an apericena — assorted snacks of one sort or another. Following that I love the al fresco dinner at Trattoria Polese or Trattoria da Luigi. I adore their rustic, simple Roman food. Then, following a stroll down Via dei Banchi Vecchi, it’s time to turn in.
The chicest place to go is...
You have to see the Vatican and the Colosseum, but I prefer the area of Trastevere, because it is more Roman, rougher on the edges, sometimes roguish.
My favourite beauty spot is...
The Fontanone, right, in Trastevere with its stunning vista of all of Rome. In the film The Great Beauty a man simply looks out at the view of Rome and then dies.
The three places you should visit for breakfast, lunch and dinner are...
Breakfast is usually a coffee and cornetto [croissant], maybe even two coffees, though no one claims to want two. My favourite spot is by San Pancrazio, at Bar Gianicolo. It’s one of the high points in the Gianicolo (in Trastevere). It’s also very, very close to the American Academy in Rome and to Villa Pamphili, whose large park and stately tree area are truly lovely.
Lunch is more traditional, so I like Da Armando by the Pantheon or Dal Bolognese, on Piazza del Popolo. It offers very authentic Italian fare, thin breadsticks (grissini) while you’re waiting, soup, pasta, and as a second course either meat or fish with contorno (potatoes or peas or beans, sometimes in combination). It is normally quiet, despite the clamour outside. Reservations are always a plus.
For dinner I love the crowd and the food at Zi’ Umberto in Trastevere. It’s normally youngish, 25- to 45-year-olds, dynamic and animated. People wait to sit outside and it’s best to make a reservation. My favourite dish there is the pasta all’amatriciana, made with tomato sauce, guanciale, pecorino cheese, black pepper, olive oil, dry white wine and salt.
My packing essential for visiting Rome is...
Rome is now global. They have everything you need. Just bring your iPhone.
In what way do you wish your home city was more like Rome?
Romans like leisure, they know how to seek it, how to find and exploit it, and how never to cut it short. Work can always wait. It’s not that Romans are happier than others on this planet; they just know how to delight in things and make them last.
One of the best places to stay is...
Hotel Donna Camilla Savelli (Via Garibaldi 27, rooms from €200 per night, vretreats.co). It was built as a monastery for Augustinian nuns and designed by the famed architect Francesco Borromini. The hotel is very large, boasts many baroque corners and suites, and still has a small chapel. At sundown you can enjoy drinks on its rooftop with friends. It offers silent, breathtaking vistas of Rome and of all the church domes in visible succession.
A hidden gem I’m willing to share is...
Room 203 in the Hotel Donna Camilla Savelli. Once you sit in that huge terrace adjoining that room, you’ll never want to leave.
The one thing I’d bring home with me as a souvenir is ...If you can find a shard of a sampietrino (a cobblestone) on the ground, take it. They’re usually very heavy, but if you can find a fraction of one, if only a tiny, broken shard, it’s a lovely memento of an ancient time. I once took a video of how sampietrini were being hammered down by a group of workers on Via del Babuino. A lovely sight and lovely sound of a very old custom.
As told to Hayley Spencer
André Aciman is the author of novels including Call Me By Your Name and The Gentleman From Peru. His memoir, My Roman Year is out now (Faber & Faber, £22)
