A Day in the Life of Rome

Alive. That’s the best word for it. Rome is a place where life pulses through the streets. It’s where you can skip down cobbled avenues with the sun warming your shoulders, wearing a slightly-too-short pink dress without feeling out of place. It’s where you will nearly be knocked over by a cute guy on a moped, who will both look annoyed and call you beautiful in the time it takes for him to speed off into the distance.

It’s where you can fill your water bottle freely from gushing fountains on almost every corner, and where eating ice cream at midday or midnight (or both) every day is considered perfectly acceptable. It’s a place where you can lean against the bricked walls of Ponte Sisto and watch the sun set over the river every night, as it has done for years before you, and marvel at how different it looks every time you see it.

Rome is a place where you can eat, and eat as you are supposed to: indulgently, with friends and time. You can sit outside at a crooked table bedecked with a checkered tablecloth, and watch the world go by over a plate of pasta. It’s where you can twirl succulent mouthfuls of cacio e pepe – spaghetti with sheep’s cheese and pepper – onto your fork, and slosh a second glass of wine into your glass without feeling dizzy.

It’s where you can down a rich shot of espresso as you stand against a silver breakfast bar each morning, and bite into a warm croissant and feel the Nutella inside fizzing against your teeth. It’s where meals are a ritual, concocted with instinct and freshness and love.

It’s where I remembered how important it is for a break, to take care of myself, to indulge a little.

Rome is a city of the ages, where time and history stands all around you, where modern life is lived around the ancient buildings. It’s a city where you can throw open the shutters of your 17th century hotel each morning to greet the day, and where you can wander down streets that have seen thousands of years. It’s where you can seek respite from the bustle in the calm of a hundred churches, and rest your forehead against the cool marbled walls. Its where you can seek shade next to ruins still standing tall, against the odds. It’s where you realise just how small you are in this huge wide world, and how humbling that feels, and how strangely comforting.

Rome is a city where you can dance and laugh and dine and marvel. It’s where you can people watch every evening, admiring the outfits and the confidence and how cool everyone looks in their suits – even in the blazing heat. It’s where you can leave your stresses at the door, where you can let go for a while. It’s where you can eat all the wrong things, and drink wine every night, and sleep only five or six hours a night and still feel healthier than you’ve done in a long time.

Rome is where I turned 29. It’s where I remembered how important it is for a break, to take care of myself, to indulge a little. And what better way to do this and start the last year of my twenties than indulging in la dolce vita like this, for a few joyous days?