At times, the past fades away, much as we regret it. That cheering reminiscence ends being swallowed by time and the priorities of dull mornings at work. But, at times, the past acquires greater force than a Monday fraught with faxes and commitments; commitments that become trivial when we find ourselves at the entrance to the Coliseum and we enter the Roman Forum, filled with admiration, with the Temple of Saturn, the Septimius Severus Archway, the Temple of Julius Caesar, the Arch of Titus… Little does it matter if this or that project is unfinished if, upon raising our eyes we discover the Michelangelo frescos illuminating with renewed colours the Sistine Chapel.
Who can worry about that order not arriving on time when, in the middle of St. Peter’s Square in The Vatican, we can understand why the Renaissance artists gave so much importance to the sense of proportion? That circular temple dedicated to Apollo on the banks of the TiberRiver takes us back to our adolescence, in the Art class, with that teacher obsessed about the greatness of the Greco-Roman culture and Renaissance art who showed us slides of the Pantheon or the Renaissance palaces.
History overwhelms us at every step in Rome, as though the air turns denser. We would walk through a labyrinth of alleyways that turn off from the Via Tritone and, never for a moment would we expect that at the end of this narrow, winding pathway we could come across the monumental Fontana de Trevi, immortalized by the Fellini film ‘La Dolce Vita’ (1959) in a sensual scene starring Anita Ekberg. And we became carried away with Audrey Hepburn’s enthusiasm during her ‘Roman Holiday’ (Wyler, 1953), driving though the streets on a Vespa and peering through the windows of the exclusive Via Veneto shops.
We will always want to return to Rome.

Agata e Romeo:
Considered one of the city’s best restaurants, its owners, Agata and Romeo, form the perfect team for this restaurant, which reproduces the classic flavours, concepts and aesthetics of Italian cooking. It is a real demonstration of the best gastronomy in an elegant setting, where one can enjoy some peace and quiet.
Via Carlo Alberto, 45

La Pergola:
The cult of abundance and opulence. Everything is solemn, as corresponds a to a five-star restaurant, in the hotel Roma Cavalieri Milton. And when Heinz Beck is in charge, the experience is guaranteed: modern tempered haute cuisine offering serene tastes and attractive constructions. This culinary artist mixes fantasy and technique, German and Italian, the cerebral and the passionate, in a delightful symbiosis worthy of being discovered.
Via Cadlolo, 101

La Rosetta:
The city’s best fish and seafood restaurant offers high-end cooking by Chef Máximo Riccioli. This legendary restaurant opened in 1966, and since then this restaurant specialised is seafood cooking has maintained its passion for Sicilian gastronomic tradition, remaining popular thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm placed in each of its dishes. Don’t miss it.
Via Rosetta, 8

Al Presidente:
With a menu of over 500 wines from all over the world, the restaurant Al Presidente has become one of the most sophisticated in Rome under the orders of Daniela Petruccioli. Tradition and innovation are found together on the menu of this establishment, where you can enjoy good food by candlelight.
Via in Arcione, 95

Alberto Ciarla:
In this restaurant you can enjoy various sampler menus, each one accompanied by six different types of bread. Depending on the time of the year, the speciality changes, but both its meat and fish are exquisite. The quality and variety of their ingredients stand out. Tuna filet and mussel tagliatelle, and grilled swordfish. Delicious.
Piazza San Cosimato, 40

Enoteca Capranica:
The city’s oldest Roman wine cellar, open for over a hundred years, is now a contemporary Italian restaurant that has preserved its old-world charm, with wood panelling and flashy chairs. The menu offers refined Mediterranean dishes such as: lobster cream with fennel and hot pepper or the classic crème brulée served with vanilla and mango ice cream.
Piazza Capranica, 99-100

Hostaria dell’Orso:
Famous Milan chef Gualterio Marchesi, who has 3 stars from Michelin, is the manager of this magnificent restaurant located in an old medieval palace that has been converted into an elegant restaurant offering Italian haute cuisine. And who could be better than this renowned cook to carry out this change from traditional Italian cooking to nouvelle cuisine?
Via dei Soldati, 25c

Il Pagliaccio:
Anthony Genovese is the man behind this restaurant’s unheard-of creations, particular and fabulous. It offers cooking with a very personal touch and excellent quality, taking advantage of the cook’s extensive experience. Some of the dishes created here are, for example, mussel soup in its juice and fried mozzarella on chicken skewers, cold melon soup with crunchy rice (with peanut dipping sauce for the skewer).
Via dei Banchi Vecchi, 129

Il Drappo:
This is a very personal restaurant, decorated with imagination, and its strong point is its flavourful, creative traditional cooking. An excellent selection of wines, exquisite desserts, and the highest-quality foods are the key to this establishment’s success; it also has a pleasant, friendly, cordial atmosphere. Cooking to be discovered.
Vicolo del Malpasso, 9

Sora Lella:
Territorial, regional cooking, which integrates innovation while always respecting the basis of the great Roman culinary tradition. Simple cooking that has brought back dishes forgotten by fashion. The Trabalza brothers are responsible for this culinary revival.
Via di Ponte Quattro Capi, 16

Vineria Regio:
It keeps clients awake with its original character; located in Piazza di Campo de’Fiori, the constant flow of people is a spectacle in and of itself, a disordered bustle that habitually fills the square, centred on this charming spot. This is an ideal wine cellar for tasting some of the city’s best wines, and the bar allows you to have your “espuela” (the last wine of the day).
Campo de Fiori, 15

L’Acquanegra:
Elegant, designer spot to meet and sample, for example, a vodka sour à la tangerine with lychees.
Largo del teatro Della Valle, 9

Salotto 42:
Design books and magazines, comfortable divans and sofas, few people and a quiet atmosphere, where you can have a drink or a cocktail while looking at the remains of what was once an ancient temple now made into one of the city’s trendiest spots.
Piazza di Pietra, 42

Hotel de Rusie:
Around 7 in the evening, you can enjoy an aperitif in one of the city’s most chic bars, located in the Hotel de Rusie. The standard drink in this alternative spot is Martín de Russie, Martín vodka served with caviar.
Via del Babuino, 9

H Club Doney:
The bar of the hotel Westin Excelsior, formerly the main symbol of the Dolce Vita, with its crystal chandeliers and baroque chairs, is a historical place that is renewing its style, sophisticated and futuristic, adapting to a demanding clientele that is always attentive to new changes in the sector. It is a lounge club with a simple, effective philosophy: quality, innovation, the latest trends and design, and attention to detail.
Via Vittorio Veneto, 125

Supper Club:
Champagne bar-lounge bar-art. This spot was created to be exclusive, the peak of elegance, a place to have a sensory experience with each one of its cocktails. Live music, lights, performance, aperitifs… a mixture for a bar that is, of course, worth visiting.
Via De’Nari, 14

La Maison:
One of the capital’s coolest spots, this club has three rooms and an exclusive VIP area where you can have a drink in the best surroundings.  People also dance in this establishment—until very late.
Vicolo dei Granari, 4

La Palma Club Fandanfgo:
This is a club that offers the highest-quality music, in some of the most interesting genres, from jazz to classical, including avant-garde and singer-songwriters. It is an ideal place to listen to good live music while having a drink.
Via Mirri, 35

Zest:
Located in another hotel, the Radisson Sas has a different concept, sophisticated and futuristic, a style that calls to mind Tokyo, a minimalist air. Located at the top of the hotel, it has a pool, where “pool parties,” one of Rome’s most recognised nightlife events, are held.
Via Turati, 171

Alimentari Placidi:
This establishment sells typical Roman pasta, offering 410 different types: spaghetti, macaroni, cannolicchi, trucioli… and various colours, depending on the ingredients: rosso pomodoro, verde spinaci, nero di sepia, etc.
Viale Manzini, 15

Campo dei Fiori:
Every morning this picturesque market opens, with fruit and vegetable sellers displaying the area’s typical seasonal products; it is an explosion of colour and perfume.
Campo dei Fiori

Franchi:
This historical establishment selling typical regional products stands out.
Via Cola di Rienzo, 204

Caffè Sant’Eustachio:
For espresso lovers. This is a prestigious toasting establishment founded in the 1930s, where coffee is toasted in an old-fashioned way using a wood fire.
Piazza Sant’Eustachio
   
Giolitti:
The most famous ice cream shop, built in 1900, it offers a great variety of its own ice cream creations and the most diverse flavours made by hand.
Via Uffici del Vicario, 40   

Della Palma:
Another of the city’s most famous ice cream shops, a place where travellers wishing to taste the typical Italian ice creams must stop.
Via Della Magdalena, 20

Buccone:
This well-known wine cellar offers a great variety of wines, liqueurs, champagne, and a delicatessen. It is also possible to taste the products.
Via di Ripetta, 19

Uve e forme:
This is the ideal establishment for wine and cheese tasting.  Typical regional products with a variety of over 300 types.
Via Padova, 6

Valentino:
He opened his first workshop in Rome, becoming famous with a fashion show at Pitti Imagine in Florence. He is one of the film world’s favourite designers. Stars like Julia Roberts, Liz Taylor, and Joan Collins wear his designs for Oscar night.
Via Condotti

Brioni:
Elegance in tailoring. This world-recognised firm dressed agent Bond 007, as interpreted by actor Pierce Brosnan in his many films.

Fernanda Gattioni:
This workshop opened in 1945 in Rome. Personalities such as Anna Magnani, Evita Perón, Ingrid Bergman, and Audrey Hepburn have worn this label.
Via Veneto

Sorelle Fontana:
A historical firm that dressed the Roman bourgeois from the period after the war until the Dolce Vita, when it was launched to the United States, designing and making the stage clothing for international artists.

Bulgari:
Sotirio Bulgari was born in Greece, and in 1881 he moved to Rome to open the first Bulgari shop. Little by little, the firm created its own style, inspired by Greco-Roman classicism, the Italian Renaissance, and the 19th-century Roman school.
Via Condotti

Versace:
This Italian firm has just renovated its shop in Rome. Haute couture: innovation and design, quality and refined style, with Hollywood elegance. Versace is one of the leading international fashion labels, a synonym for Italian luxury.
Via Boca di Leone

Cartier:
The jewellery boutique is located in Rome on one of the world’s most elegant streets, with exclusive brand-name luxury stores.
Via Condotti

Capucci:
One of the few “independent” fashion designers, this designer has distanced himself from the traditional fashion circuits and personally organises the presentations of his collections as if they were real art shows.
Via Gregoriana

Gai Mattiolo:
Born in Rome, he began his career as a designer very young, and his firm is currently one of the most internationally up-and-coming young firms.
Via Borgognona

Isola Tiberina:
Travellers must not forget to visit this island in the middle of the city at night; it is a sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius (legend has it that Asclepius was a serpent that had to free the city from a terrible plague epidemic). At night, the sanctuary offers a trip back in time, wrapped in a halo of magic and mystery.

St. Peter’s Basilica:
An immense Christian sanctuary, it is the largest church in the world, imposing and majestic. Of the works of art housed there, Michelangelo’s Pietà stands out, sculpted between 1498 and 1500.

Trastevere:
One of the city’s most animated old quarters (rione): a walk through its winding streets, among cafés, small restaurants, pubs and bars with live music, all bustling, is a unique, exciting experience.

Via Veneto:
Walking down Via Veneto, travellers see the image that Fellini engraved in our collective memory with the famous film “La Dolce Vita.” It’s not the same as during the 50s and 60s, but the spirit of the “dolce vita” is still there, adapted to the current times.

Vatican City:
Vatican City deserves a day or two to visit. Its museums are large and rich in works of art. Go up to the Cupola, visit the excavations of the Necropolis, admire the Basilica… these are some of the wonders to be seen there.

Appia Park:
Although Rome is a city that looks like a desert, it jealously guards a very important green heart. This park is the city’s most important one, and it forms a part of its heritage.

Pantheon:
The Roman Empire’s most representative monument, it is also the best-preserved. This building currently houses the funeral complexes of Italian and Roman history.

Coliseum:
The largest amphitheatre in Rome, its architecture is very elegant and, at the same time, extremely rational. It was inaugurated in 80 A.D. by Titus Caesar and part of its structure and all of the underground levels remain from that time.

Roman Forum:
This is where the political, legal, and business life of ancient Rome was carried out; it is currently one of the places where the most archaeological remains are found—temples, columns, arches, etc.