March's Monthly Newsletter
I wonder for how long the cusp of February and March will inspire a shudder. My telephone has been cheerfully throwing photos at me from three years ago (do I want to make a jaunty music video from March 2020? Well, you know, not really) and it feels like an incredibly long time ago.
As I look at those photos it all feels quite other; like it may have happened to someone else, possibly in a novel. Or in a dream. This sense of otherness is undoubtedly borne of the great fortune that neither I nor anyone in my family (fingers crossed, touch wood, tocca ferro) have suffered adversely from Covid. Obviously medical professionals and those who lost friends and family have very different recollections. If this time of year is particularly painful for you, you have my warmest sympathy.
Over those days before the lockdown was announced I was a loose end as an ever thicker flurry of cancellations came in. My mum has always said “when you don’t know what to do, just do something”. It’s very good advice. So I walked and walked, and wandered around Rome’s deserted museums. The almost empty streets of the centro storico were electric with the anxiety of an impending storm.
I’m very glad I resisted to the temptation to retreat, defeated, to the sofa because a few days later that’s pretty much all there was to do. Within a couple of weeks the idea of an unfettered walk through the city would quickly take on the distant dreamlike qualities of a mirage as the claustrophobia, both temporal and spatial, of lockdown set in.
That week I was asked by Apollo Magazine to write a piece about those strange days, and when lockdown began I started writing my daily blog, The Roman Quarantine. The day I went to the Borghese the announcement was made that all Italian schools were closing. That felt momentous. Three weeks or so later I wrote about it.
A train on a whim to see an exhibition was, by mid-March of 2020, as likely as going to the moon. But last week that’s what I did, managing to catch the Recycling Beauty exhibition at Fondazione Prada before it closed. More about it here, it was wild.
Looking forward, not backwards: later this month, on 24 March, I’ll be doing another double-hander tour with Rachel Roddy. If you’re in the US Rachel’s latest book, An A to Z of Pasta, is out there at the end of the month. This time we’ll be going to Ostia Antica and looking at Rome’s ancient port through a gastronomic prism. We’ve had a cancellation so have two spaces left. Email info@understandingrome.com if you’d like to bag one or both.
We’ll talk about the imported foods from across the Roman Empire which first arrived in Italy here, visit an ancient gastropub, and we shall discuss and taste some of the snacks Romans would have nibbled in the city’s bars and in its grand theatre. We’ll also see where Ostia’s olive oil merchants would have brokered their deals before the amphorae were taken upriver to be offloaded at Rome’s river port, and the pots disposed of at what we now know as Monte Testaccio.
Appetites suitably whetted, we’ll follow their route (though by train rather than river barge) back to Testaccio and discuss how ancient Ostia influenced twentieth century Testaccio’s public housing before repairing to a Testaccio trattoria for an excellent lunch a stone’s throw from all those amphorae which came across the Mediterranean full of olive oil and docked at Ostia. The jaunt will begin at 9am on 24 March and finish at roughly 4pm, the group will be of maximum twelve people, and the cost including entry fee to the archeological site, public transport, and all food and drink is €160 per person (dormice not included). Dietary restrictions can be accommodated, just let us know when booking.
All best,
Agnes
Totally looking forward to this tour.
I would not envy your life then (and the 2 years following that period) but Rome was so amazing then.
I have also been thinking about the same thing as next week marks the time our whole family had covid for the first time! These past few years although restrictions were in place we were very fortunate where we live, and the sense of community and purpose was the strongest I have ever felt. Now the idea of making the most of time & situations when possible is so important. Loved this post.