4 May 2020

All photographs taken on 4 May 2020

Four years ago today (four? a hundred? who even knows any more), on Monday 4th May, the strict Italian lockdown rules began to be lifted. For the first time in two months one could take a solo walk as far as one wanted with no justifications to the police required.

The only church I found open was, suitably enough, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s favourite church, Santa Marina in Campitelli (itself an ex voto for the end of a pandemic). So I took myself off on a walk which started in Pigneto and took in, well, pretty much everything. I think I remember that day I walked twenty kilometres.

Almost no one else seemed to have had the same idea, and there was a curious cautiousness in the air. But the sun shone and out I strode, over grassy cobbles and through deserted piazzas—fountains playing for no one, just a fireman taking selfie at the Trevi—and it was wonderful. Very odd, but wonderful. Gosh, I’d missed it all.