Notes on Rione Monti

I get off the bus outside the grandiose Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. A sign of the times is the army vehicle and heavily armed soldiers in camouflage (why? They're in the city.) beside the metal detector that guards the entrance to the basilica. It's Palm Sunday, an important date in the Christian calendar and the faithful are there, queueing up to enter the basilica. 

 I head across Via Cavour and onto Via Urbana which leads down into the heart of the ancient suburra. Back in Roman times the insulae would have dangled precariously over the alley. The stink of the masses would have been overpowering. The area had once been infamous for drugs, violence and prostitution.

Today it is the trendy heart of the city, a village in itself, devoted to boho chic with vintage and second hand clothes shops alongside genuine and less genuine trattorie and other eateries catering to the tourists. 

I pass the church of Santa Pudenziana - home of worship to Rome's extensive Phillipine community and the oldest place of Christian worship in Rome. It dates back to the 4th century.

 As it's Palm Sunday the church is busy. I head off the narrow road up a graffitti-lined staircase onto an attractive plant-filled alley which disappointingly leads onto a large road, one of Monti's principle thoroughfares, Via Panisperna.

Monti is Rome's first district -  central Rome is divided into 22 administrative districts known as 'rioni'. Most of Rome's rioni are included within the old city walls. Over the ages the borders of the rioni have fluctuated.

Monti (Hills) was so called because wthin its original borders it encompassed the Viminale, Esquiline, parts of the Quirinale and Caelian Hills. It extended as far as the Aurelian walls.
Today its 1,6 square kilometres no longer include the Quirinale and Caelian Hills.

 










At the end of Via Panisperna I turn onto Via dei Serpenti so-called it would seem because of a mosaic depicting the Madonna (?) with her foot on a snake. It is a road I know well. It is home to two excellent Indian restaurants: The Maharaja (a little pricey) and Mother India. 

I check out the Tuscan emporium (Podere Vecciano) I've heard so much about:all oils, jams and honeys with some pretty hand-painted ceramics. 

I then discover that my invisibility cloak is still working. It works particularly well in domestic appliance/computer supply shops.  Despite the fact that I'm the only customer in the shop the man behind the till (owner?) acts as if I'm not there. In his defence, I could say I was rather shabbily dressed: jeans, T-shirt and cardigan, so fairly obviously not the type of person who'd be going for over-price olive oil and vinegar.

I leave the shop, half regretting not having bought the attractive hand-painted bowl with owls and leaves on it.

At Piazza della Madonna dei Monti a procession is underway. Mass has just finished and a gaggle of nuns followed by the faithful are singing their way down the street for, as it turns out, a short distance, as they turn into the church of the Madonna dei Monti, the one with the snake squashing Madonna, on the street of the same name. 

I walk down the Via della Madonna dei Monti, all very picturesque and weave my way to the back of Augustus' forum. Monti is one of the larger districts and my feet are beginning to feel it.

Walking back up Via della Madonna dei Monti I come across a heart rending sight. Embedded in the cobbled road surface are some metal plaques, I bend down closer to read the inscriptions and realise that they are memorials to the people who once lived in the building I am now standing in front of. They lived there and in 1944 were deported to Auschwitz. They never came back. 

 Climbing up and down hills over cobbles and across large roads such as Via Cavour I end up on Via del Colosseo with the Colosseum a great big mass in my sights. I read this week that since 2015 a colony of hedgehogs have made their home there. 

I go past San Pietro in Vincoli, but the Palm Sunday crowd stops me from going in to see Michelangelo's Moses. I walk down the Scalinata dei Borgia (the Borgia steps) across Via Cavour and past Finnegan's Pub. There are many pubs in Rome where ex-pats gather to watch football and rugby matches on flat screen TVs while drinking their pints. 

 Last time I came here at Halloween the pub had been decorated for a party for the owners' children. There had been cotton cobwebs, plastic spiders, skulls, bats and ghosts dangling form every picture frame and mirror and the TVs had been switched off.

I arrive outside the metro stop of Cavour on Piazza della Suburra where an ancient plaque marks the spot.  'tis time to head home. My feet are killing me!