A Day in Monti, Morning to Midnight

Most people give Monti an hour on the way to the Colosseum. I would like to make the case for giving it a day, and to tell you exactly how I would spend it, because a neighbourhood is not a sight and you cannot tick it off.

This is a Saturday, in my head, with nothing booked.

07:30, the shutters

Open them first. The light on these ochre walls at half past seven is the reason people paint this city badly and keep trying. The street below is already awake in a low, unhurried way: a delivery, a shutter going up, somebody sweeping.

08:00, coffee standing up

Go to the bar and drink it standing at the counter with everybody else. It costs less than sitting down, it takes ninety seconds, and it is not a rushed way to have coffee. It is a sociable one, which took me an embarrassingly long time to understand.

Two small rules that will make the barista’s morning slightly better. A cappuccino is a breakfast drink, and asking for one after lunch marks you gently. And un caffè means an espresso; if you want something longer, ask for a caffè lungo.

08:30, downhill before the queues

Walk down to the Imperial Fora while the light is still coming in sideways and the coaches have not arrived. You do not need a ticket for this. Stand above the Forum of Augustus, look at the enormous grey wall that closes it off, and remember that it was built as a firebreak, specifically to stop the fires of this neighbourhood from reaching the marble city. It is the most direct thing ancient Rome ever said about the people who lived where you are staying.

Then walk the length of Via dei Fori Imperiali at the Colosseum, and turn round before you reach the crowds.

10:00, one church, properly

Not four. One. Climb the covered Salita dei Borgia off Via Cavour to San Pietro in Vincoli and spend twenty minutes with Michelangelo’s Moses, which is free and, at this hour, quiet.

If you would rather have mosaics than marble, go to Santa Prassede instead and put a euro in the light box of the Chapel of San Zeno. I have never taken anyone in there who did not go silent.

11:30, the market

Mercato Rionale Monti, Via Baccina 36. Go even if you are not cooking, because half an hour in a covered rione market will tell you more about how Rome actually lives than any monument.

But you probably do have a kitchen, so buy the fresh pasta from Pippo Tortellino, made in front of you, and carry it home. That is tonight’s dinner sorted for the price of a sandwich, and it will be better than most things you could book.

13:00, lunch without ceremony

Pizza al taglio from Trieste Pizza on Via Urbana, cut with scissors and weighed, eaten walking. Or sit down at Aromaticus across the street if you want vegetables and a chair. Either way, do not lose two hours to lunch. You will want them later.

14:30, the hour Romans get right

Go home. Genuinely. Between roughly two and four, especially from May to September, the city is at its least generous and the stone holds the heat like a griddle.

This is the hour that the whole architecture of a good Roman holiday is built around, and it is the reason I argue so hard for staying somewhere you actually want to return to in the middle of the day. Read, sleep, run a bath, sit with the shutters half closed. Rome will still be there at five.

16:30, the shops

The small shops of Monti reopen in the late afternoon, and this is the right time to walk them. Start at the top of Via del Boschetto and work downhill so you are not carrying bags uphill, cut through to Piazza degli Zingari, which most visitors never find, and look in at LOL just below it.

The light between five and seven on these streets is the best of the day. Bring a camera you can work quickly.

19:00, the piazza

Piazza della Madonna dei Monti. Take a glass from one of the bars around it, find a step near the fountain, and stay longer than you meant to. Nobody organises this. It simply happens, every evening, and it is the single most reliable pleasure in the neighbourhood.

Aperitivo in Italy usually arrives with something to eat, which ranges from a bowl of crisps to a plate that will meaningfully delay dinner. Plan accordingly.

21:00, dinner, booked

Romans eat late and the good tables go. If you want the proper Roman dinner, it is La Taverna dei Fori Imperiali, and you should have written to them before you flew. If you want the wine to be the main event, it is Fafiuché, and you should have booked that too. If it has been a long day and nobody can face a decision, it is Tettarello, round the corner, cheap and honest, and I love it for exactly that.

23:30, the walk home

This is the part I would keep if I could keep only one. The lanes empty out, the stone gives back the day’s heat, somebody is still talking outside a bar on Via del Boschetto, and the hill you have been complaining about all week takes you home.

Go up Via Panisperna rather than the way you came, for the view back over the roofs.

Then three flights of stairs, and the shutters, and that is a day in Monti.

Everything above is a few minutes from our front door. The names, addresses and walking times are all collected in my guide to Monti.