Pantheon - Dog-Eared Passport

April 16, 2020

Rome’s Centro Storico in lockdown: An eerie stroll through a silent and empty neighborhood on edge of despair

The only beneficiaries of the coronavirus quarantine are cats. Think about it. They have all these laps to sit on and sleep on all day. Lots of hands to pet and stroke them. Someone is always there with thumbs. Owners can open a can of catfood at the first meow. The coronavirus turned them from […]

October 8, 2019

Walk across Rome without traffic: A stroll across a 3,000-year-old city

Living in Rome is like living in a big city with a small town right across the street. Can’t believe you can get a small-town feel from a city of 2.8 million people who drive like they’re escaping a coming earthquake? Just walk down a street. In fact, walk down many of them. Walk down […]

July 22, 2017

Rome Mysteries tour reveals city’s strangest secrets

The English, giving its people a place to buy English goods, helped Italy build the Sciarra Palace after Italian unification in 1861. It was Rome's first shopping center.

I’m starting to get more heavily into guided tours. Many aren’t very good. A good guidebook is a cheaper substitute and you don’t feel like a geek following someone holding up a flag. But one guide I always follow is Massimiliano Francia (guideromax@virgilio.it). Rome Explorers, an excellent Meetup group that does everything from urban tours to mountain hikes, hires “Max” out for English-speaking tours. He’s a Rome native with a library of history books that could fill one side of the Pantheon. What sets apart Francia is his voluminous knowledge of historical tidbits, oddities you won’t find in any guidebook or mainstream tour.
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