Spotted by Locals--Rome Travel Tips for Your iPhone

I like Rome. Who wouldn’t like the chaotic frenzy of activity, the rabbit warren of little bits of homely ancientness poking like weeds through the city surface, the unsophisticated cuisine made up, if you search for the right places, of offal and foraged greenery? Rome is the Rome of a film director’s fantasy, a surreal Peoria upon which is overlaid a thick coating of continental lunacy, a city like an exploded puzzle put back together by an idiot savant too muscular to be let out in public.

So, I’m thinking perhaps you need a guide.

You don’t, of course—you can just wander, as we like to do. But Rome is big place. You need time to see even the highlights. But what if you’ve been before? What if you’ve rented an apartment in my favorite section of Rome, Testaccio, and want to see something different. Perhaps you want to hang out in a park, or drink coffee not with tourists but with odd Roman characters, or you want to hang out in a jazz club after your dinner of intestines and other bits of animal you can’t identify.

You need a guide written by locals. This one, written by the Spotted by Locals folks is good.

But first, let me tell you, there are no “top ten things to see in ancient Rome” or any of the other high-monetization drivel that content farms churn out every damn day. No, you have to want to go to Big Mama’s, where “mama plays more than the banjo.” You have to yearn to have a floating picnic way out there in the EUR, Mussolini’s vision of modern Rome. Or perhaps you want to learn the secrets of the Ponte Milvio, the ancient bridge of the lovers padlocks and a popular flea market and even the start of Christianity’s popular phase.

If you haven’t caught on, these are things locals are likely to do. After they’ve shown their relatives and visitors the Colosseum, of course.

So, if you’ve got a phone or tablet, perhaps you’ll want to buy one of these apps, like Venice written by locals. It’s cheap.


Spotted by Locals--Rome Travel Tips for Your iPhone originally appeared on WanderingItaly.com , updated: Dec 08, 2020 © .

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