I am absolutely in love with la Città Eterna, the Eternal City, a vibrant, layered, captivating metropolis and one of my favourite cities in the world. I arrived in Rome for the first time in October 2021 on a train from Nice, on France’s Côte d’Azur. It was cold that night, the first cold night of autumn, I was told, and the first time I really needed my winter jacket in Europe since my arrival in Barcelona a month earlier. I was there for eight days and came back to spend time with Italian friends for another week after a two-week trip south to Puglia. I walked a lot, marvelling at the ancient ruins scattered between tram lines and shops, swooning at the details in the architecture, and gorging on the food. You know what they say, when in Rome…
LA CITTÀ • HISTORIC SITES • IL VATICANO
Roma, Città Eterna
From Rome’s seven hills to Trastevere and the Jewish Quarter, everywhere I went the city was a dream.
Historic Sites
Rome is a place of connection, where the past and the present meet; a living archeological site, every corner bursting with the city’s millenary history, the remnants of greatness and war, and the seemingly endless cycle of humanity that has walked its streets.
Il Vaticano
Being in the Vatican, especially in St Peter’s Basilica which was built between 1506 and 1626 during the Catholic Church’s Crusades in the so-called New World, which they destroyed in order to steal the gold to build monuments such as this one in the Old World, was emotionally overwhelming for me. The mastery and artistry of the Basilica is absolutely stunning—its grandeur leaves you speechless—and seems to be completely at odds with the cruelty, greed, and violence it took to build it.
Laura Restrepo Ortega 