January's Monthly Newsletter

This newsletter is two years old this month and I thank you all very much for subscribing! My very first Vespa Tune was L’anno che verrà, Lucio Dalla’s sardonic hymn to the arbitrary nature of calendars, and to the unrealistic expectations we give a year with a new number.

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. New Year’s Day, 2024

In Rome the holidays are drawing to a close—in Italy Twelfth Night is also a public holiday: Epifania tutte le feste le porta via as the saying goes—and the city is busy with visitors, especially noticeably at this time of year from other parts of Italy. Tomorrow the throngs of folk at the Trevi Fountain, the Vatican, and the Colosseum will have abated, surely the Monday-est Monday of the year.

Pale blue cirrus-y winter skies and a hologram of twenty-seven centuries, coexisting. 30 December, 2023

This lull between Epiphany and the school holidays around Carnival (barely a month this year as Easter falls so early) is a wonderful time to visit the city: take a weekday morning wander through the centre of town and the streets will be largely peopled with dog walkers, civil servants going to work, and children weighed down by enormous backpacks being hurried along to school.

Dinner reservations all set to go after the lunch service. 30 December, 2023

This quotidian Roman life is always there, but at this time of year the crowds that usually envelop it peel away. Though days may be short, skies are often crisp and blue; pre-booking sites like the Colosseum, the Galleria Borghese, and the Vatican Museums is less crucial than at other times of year; one can usually find a table at even the most in-demand restaurants without having to book months in advance; and apartments and hotels offer advantageous rates. The post Epiphany lull has a great deal to recommend it!

A happy and healthy new year, and all my best from Rome,

Agnes