Rome has more beggars, thieves, pickpockets, and con men than it does buckets of gelati in July. And believe me, the tourists and the natives go through a small mountain of gelati every day of the summer.
You’ll find beggars in Rome on every street, and reliable authority tells me that every one of them is a fake. If these, bedraggled creatures showed one iota of talent—sang a song, recited a poem, danced, something—they might get some attention, but most just sit by a wall sticking out a dirty cup for coins. Visitors become blind to them after about three days.
The other day I was having coffee at the Antico Caffe Greco, near the Spanish Steps. As usual, I bumbled into this place, and it turns out the cafe is famous, having served as a bar to all sorts of celebrities and ordinary people like me since 1760.
At any rate, I’m sitting at the one of the outdoor tables in the rear of the cafe typing away, and a grizzled old guy—that made two of us—shambles up, holds out a cup, and keeps asking me in Italian for money. I told him twice no, waved my hand a few times, and finally said, “Buzz off.” He buzzed off, leaving me a little ashamed of my rude words.
Inside the same restaurant, paying my bill, I put my backpack on the floor while I dug out my wallet. During this transaction I asked the waiter, a nice kid dressed like all the others in formal attire, if I could wander through the place. “You must take the pack,” he said. “There are thieves everywhere in Rome.”
Now for my con man: It’s today, Sunday morning, and I’m walking to Mass along the Tiber in the shade of the trees. There’s little traffic, but suddenly a small dusty car honks at me, and the driver waves, smiles, and yells, “Hello.” He pulls over on the other side of the street and waves for me to come to the car. So I walk over, studying him as I approach, and he says with a thick Italian accent: “I know you. How are you? I recognize you.”
I look at him carefully and think: Buddy, I have never seen you in my life. I might forget his face, but would definitely remember this accent.
“Your remember me?” he says.
I decide to play along and see what happens.
“Oh, yes,” I say. “You’re the bartender from the osteria on Via Della Scorfa. You’re really good. I was watching you last night while I ate supper. Very fast.”
He looks a little confused, but plows ahead. “Where you living now?”
“North Carolina.”
“I’m from North Carolina! You remember me? Where in North Carolina?”
“Asheville.”
He is very animated, his smile big and warm and genuine. “My father has a restaurant in Asheville.”
“Really?” I say. “That’s amazing.”
“Come to the other side of the car. You get killed on this side,” he says. Grateful for his consideration of my safety, I walk to the other side of the car. He remains seated and gestures me inside the car, but I just smile. When he asks what I am doing these days, I tell him I am a teacher. “So Professore, I work for Armani. In London. You know Armani?”
“Of course,” I say, though in his stained shirt and wrinkled pants he is underdressed for an Armani salesman, even on a quiet Sunday morning.
“London. I work there. I’m on my way to the airport after a big show.” He pats the steering wheel. “It’s a rental.”
“Good for you.”
He looks at me again, still glowing with excitement that we have reunited after all these years. “Here,” he says. “I give you my email. You write me and we visit when I come to North Carolina to see my father.”
I dig a pen out of my backpack, and he writes an email address on the Hotel Due Torri map I carry in my pocket. “Here,” he says. “My father’s restaurant. The Bella Italia.” He writes that out. “It’s downtown Asheville. You visit and say hello to my papa.” He writes down the name Tony.
Okay, I think, yielding a little in my suspicions. Maybe this guy is for real. Maybe he really does know me. Maybe there is no sting, no con.
He hands me my map and pen, then reaches into his back seat and pulls out a leather coat under plastic and a beautiful leather handbag. “Here,” he says. “Sales sample. You take. It’s my gift to you.”
Now it’s coming, I think, and smile at him. “Grazie. But I can’t take these things.
“Take,” he says. “The coat’s a medium. It will fit you. The bag is for your wife.”
“My wife died eleven years ago.”
“Oh,” he says, and his face grimaces with pain. "So sorry."
“It’s all right, “ I say.
“Maybe you have a daughter.”
“I have a daughter.”
“She like this bag. You take.” He shakes the coat and handbag at me and puts them in a large plastic bag. “Free. Just samples. Take. Enjoy.”
He holds out the bag, giving me no choice. I take the bag from him. “Grazie.”
“Prego,” he says, and then it comes. He reaches again into the back seat and pulls out another coat. “Feel. Feel it.”
I feel the coat. I think it’s suede, and the material is smooth and soft, but it is also a very ugly coat, unlike the first one. “Nice.”
“Yours,” he says. “Cheap. Only 200 Euros.” He points at the gauge on the dashboard. “I need gas. Money for the airport.”
Now, for a fleeting moment, I consider our circumstances. He is seated on the other side of the car, parked illegally and with the windows wide open. I am wearing a backpack and it is getting warmer, which are disadvantages, but I am also holding the bag with the purse and the coat, which he doubtless has stolen from some poor hardworking soul but which would make excellent Christmas gifts for a couple of my children. In addition, for the past six weeks I have walked all over creation and am feeling unusually fit. I am holding that bag and am certain I could set out at a dead run and give this guy a merry chase. I could be half a block away before he even got out of the car, slipping in and out of alleyways and streets.
On the other hand, I am off to Mass, and thieves are supposed to refrain from communion. Besides, I’d have to break a sweat.
So I drop the bag on the passenger seat and say, “No, thanks,” and walk quickly away. He shouts something, then beeps twice and speeds away. I wave at him without looking back.
Such encounters are my pepper to the Roman omelet. (I have to add that I will undoubtedly regret for the rest of my days not making a run for it.)
The Latin Mass at Sanctissima Trinita Dei Pellegrini was a little bit of heaven. Sunlight streamed through a window in the high dome above the altar, incense filled this beam of sunlight with shadows of smoke, and though the homily was once again in Italian, that didn’t matter. One major difference between the Tridentine Latin Mass and the Mass in English—or in any other language—is the opportunity for prayer. The former offers enormous space for prayer, the latter only moments.
In the pew in front of me was an Italian family with four young children. This was the first time in Rome I have seen an Italian family with more than two children. Usually it’s just one.
The name of the church and the square on which it is located make me smile, as Pellegrini is my favorite bottled water.
Then to the Almost On the Corner Bookshop across the Tiber in Trasteverle, an excellent little bookstore with titles all in English. I bought one book—Alain De Botton’s Essays In Love—and then moved on to Meccanismo near the Ponte Sisto, a restaurant where I ordered a hamburger and a medium beer for an outside table. By how, the heat of the day had come on, and I pecked out notes for this column until the hamburger arrived. This burger was a joy to behold. “Oh my gosh,” I said when the waitress set down the plank holding the burger and fries on the table, and she smiled and said in excellent English, “A big meal for a hungry person.” And it was big, massive, a huge hamburger draped with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and bun, accompanied by a tin bucket of delicious crispy homemade chips. Nine Euro, and worth every penny.
As for yesterday, Saturday, I spent my time at Ostia Antica, the ancient port city of Rome and once the dwelling place of 100,000 people. If you are ever in Rome, please include Ostia on your agenda. It is easy to take the Metro there—this day the cars were crowded with beachgoers—and though the journey requires nearly an hour’s time from my hotel because of three station changes, the site is amazing. You can wander through acres and acres of this recovered city: the streets, the Forum, the spectacular theater, the tombs of the necropolis, the houses where people lived and worked and loved and died. Most amazing to me was a tavern I bumbled into on a side street. The marble bar from which the tavern-keeper had served his wine was still intact and could grace any home or shop today. Behind the tavern, and a part of it, was a courtyard where customers could sit to enjoy their food and drink.
You could spend three days in Ostia seeing everything. I spent four hours before the sun and heat finally beat me down, but in spite of my limited time, this tour made for a great day.
Last note: Yesterday, Saturday, one of the house staff here at the Hotel Due Torri had left a bottle of porcelain cleaner in my bathroom. I found it in the late afternoon, and in the evening when I was going out to find something to eat for supper, I dropped the bottle and my key at the desk. The woman behind the desk whose name I have forgotten looked quizzically at the bottle.
“I found it in my room,” I said. “I thought someone might need it.”
“This is horrible,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“This is horrible.”
“What is horrible?”
“You found this in your room?”
“Yes. I thought you might want it.”
“One of our staff left this bottle in your room?
“Yes, but—”
“This is horrible.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
“No joking,” she said. “This is horrible. Unforgiveable.”
“It’s really no big deal.”
“No, it should not happen. It’s horrible.”
She looked very serious and chagrined. I chatted her up for a few minutes, and she was happier when I left, but this entire conversation just left me smiling.
The other day I was having coffee at the Antico Caffe Greco, near the Spanish Steps. As usual, I bumbled into this place, and it turns out the cafe is famous, having served as a bar to all sorts of celebrities and ordinary people like me since 1760.
At any rate, I’m sitting at the one of the outdoor tables in the rear of the cafe typing away, and a grizzled old guy—that made two of us—shambles up, holds out a cup, and keeps asking me in Italian for money. I told him twice no, waved my hand a few times, and finally said, “Buzz off.” He buzzed off, leaving me a little ashamed of my rude words.
Inside the same restaurant, paying my bill, I put my backpack on the floor while I dug out my wallet. During this transaction I asked the waiter, a nice kid dressed like all the others in formal attire, if I could wander through the place. “You must take the pack,” he said. “There are thieves everywhere in Rome.”
Now for my con man: It’s today, Sunday morning, and I’m walking to Mass along the Tiber in the shade of the trees. There’s little traffic, but suddenly a small dusty car honks at me, and the driver waves, smiles, and yells, “Hello.” He pulls over on the other side of the street and waves for me to come to the car. So I walk over, studying him as I approach, and he says with a thick Italian accent: “I know you. How are you? I recognize you.”
I look at him carefully and think: Buddy, I have never seen you in my life. I might forget his face, but would definitely remember this accent.
“Your remember me?” he says.
I decide to play along and see what happens.
“Oh, yes,” I say. “You’re the bartender from the osteria on Via Della Scorfa. You’re really good. I was watching you last night while I ate supper. Very fast.”
He looks a little confused, but plows ahead. “Where you living now?”
“North Carolina.”
“I’m from North Carolina! You remember me? Where in North Carolina?”
“Asheville.”
He is very animated, his smile big and warm and genuine. “My father has a restaurant in Asheville.”
“Really?” I say. “That’s amazing.”
“Come to the other side of the car. You get killed on this side,” he says. Grateful for his consideration of my safety, I walk to the other side of the car. He remains seated and gestures me inside the car, but I just smile. When he asks what I am doing these days, I tell him I am a teacher. “So Professore, I work for Armani. In London. You know Armani?”
“Of course,” I say, though in his stained shirt and wrinkled pants he is underdressed for an Armani salesman, even on a quiet Sunday morning.
“London. I work there. I’m on my way to the airport after a big show.” He pats the steering wheel. “It’s a rental.”
“Good for you.”
He looks at me again, still glowing with excitement that we have reunited after all these years. “Here,” he says. “I give you my email. You write me and we visit when I come to North Carolina to see my father.”
I dig a pen out of my backpack, and he writes an email address on the Hotel Due Torri map I carry in my pocket. “Here,” he says. “My father’s restaurant. The Bella Italia.” He writes that out. “It’s downtown Asheville. You visit and say hello to my papa.” He writes down the name Tony.
Okay, I think, yielding a little in my suspicions. Maybe this guy is for real. Maybe he really does know me. Maybe there is no sting, no con.
He hands me my map and pen, then reaches into his back seat and pulls out a leather coat under plastic and a beautiful leather handbag. “Here,” he says. “Sales sample. You take. It’s my gift to you.”
Now it’s coming, I think, and smile at him. “Grazie. But I can’t take these things.
“Take,” he says. “The coat’s a medium. It will fit you. The bag is for your wife.”
“My wife died eleven years ago.”
“Oh,” he says, and his face grimaces with pain. "So sorry."
“It’s all right, “ I say.
“Maybe you have a daughter.”
“I have a daughter.”
“She like this bag. You take.” He shakes the coat and handbag at me and puts them in a large plastic bag. “Free. Just samples. Take. Enjoy.”
He holds out the bag, giving me no choice. I take the bag from him. “Grazie.”
“Prego,” he says, and then it comes. He reaches again into the back seat and pulls out another coat. “Feel. Feel it.”
I feel the coat. I think it’s suede, and the material is smooth and soft, but it is also a very ugly coat, unlike the first one. “Nice.”
“Yours,” he says. “Cheap. Only 200 Euros.” He points at the gauge on the dashboard. “I need gas. Money for the airport.”
Now, for a fleeting moment, I consider our circumstances. He is seated on the other side of the car, parked illegally and with the windows wide open. I am wearing a backpack and it is getting warmer, which are disadvantages, but I am also holding the bag with the purse and the coat, which he doubtless has stolen from some poor hardworking soul but which would make excellent Christmas gifts for a couple of my children. In addition, for the past six weeks I have walked all over creation and am feeling unusually fit. I am holding that bag and am certain I could set out at a dead run and give this guy a merry chase. I could be half a block away before he even got out of the car, slipping in and out of alleyways and streets.
On the other hand, I am off to Mass, and thieves are supposed to refrain from communion. Besides, I’d have to break a sweat.
So I drop the bag on the passenger seat and say, “No, thanks,” and walk quickly away. He shouts something, then beeps twice and speeds away. I wave at him without looking back.
Such encounters are my pepper to the Roman omelet. (I have to add that I will undoubtedly regret for the rest of my days not making a run for it.)
The Latin Mass at Sanctissima Trinita Dei Pellegrini was a little bit of heaven. Sunlight streamed through a window in the high dome above the altar, incense filled this beam of sunlight with shadows of smoke, and though the homily was once again in Italian, that didn’t matter. One major difference between the Tridentine Latin Mass and the Mass in English—or in any other language—is the opportunity for prayer. The former offers enormous space for prayer, the latter only moments.
In the pew in front of me was an Italian family with four young children. This was the first time in Rome I have seen an Italian family with more than two children. Usually it’s just one.
The name of the church and the square on which it is located make me smile, as Pellegrini is my favorite bottled water.
Then to the Almost On the Corner Bookshop across the Tiber in Trasteverle, an excellent little bookstore with titles all in English. I bought one book—Alain De Botton’s Essays In Love—and then moved on to Meccanismo near the Ponte Sisto, a restaurant where I ordered a hamburger and a medium beer for an outside table. By how, the heat of the day had come on, and I pecked out notes for this column until the hamburger arrived. This burger was a joy to behold. “Oh my gosh,” I said when the waitress set down the plank holding the burger and fries on the table, and she smiled and said in excellent English, “A big meal for a hungry person.” And it was big, massive, a huge hamburger draped with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and bun, accompanied by a tin bucket of delicious crispy homemade chips. Nine Euro, and worth every penny.
As for yesterday, Saturday, I spent my time at Ostia Antica, the ancient port city of Rome and once the dwelling place of 100,000 people. If you are ever in Rome, please include Ostia on your agenda. It is easy to take the Metro there—this day the cars were crowded with beachgoers—and though the journey requires nearly an hour’s time from my hotel because of three station changes, the site is amazing. You can wander through acres and acres of this recovered city: the streets, the Forum, the spectacular theater, the tombs of the necropolis, the houses where people lived and worked and loved and died. Most amazing to me was a tavern I bumbled into on a side street. The marble bar from which the tavern-keeper had served his wine was still intact and could grace any home or shop today. Behind the tavern, and a part of it, was a courtyard where customers could sit to enjoy their food and drink.
You could spend three days in Ostia seeing everything. I spent four hours before the sun and heat finally beat me down, but in spite of my limited time, this tour made for a great day.
Last note: Yesterday, Saturday, one of the house staff here at the Hotel Due Torri had left a bottle of porcelain cleaner in my bathroom. I found it in the late afternoon, and in the evening when I was going out to find something to eat for supper, I dropped the bottle and my key at the desk. The woman behind the desk whose name I have forgotten looked quizzically at the bottle.
“I found it in my room,” I said. “I thought someone might need it.”
“This is horrible,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“This is horrible.”
“What is horrible?”
“You found this in your room?”
“Yes. I thought you might want it.”
“One of our staff left this bottle in your room?
“Yes, but—”
“This is horrible.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
“No joking,” she said. “This is horrible. Unforgiveable.”
“It’s really no big deal.”
“No, it should not happen. It’s horrible.”
She looked very serious and chagrined. I chatted her up for a few minutes, and she was happier when I left, but this entire conversation just left me smiling.
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