5 Things Nobody Tells You About Rome

But you really should know

The summer is an endurance test.

Rome gets hot. And by hot I mean you could probably cook an egg on the average cobbled street June through August. Our good ol’ pal climate change has made it worse lately, sure, but a punishing Roman summer isn’t new — the Eternal City’s been auditioning for hell’s changing room since I visited as a kid. Romans handle this the sensible way, which is to disappear entirely — the city empties out, and for a few months you’re able to accomplish an otherwise Tom Cruise-worthy impossible mission: find parking. If you’re in town, however, you’ll be doing the tree-shade-to-air-conditioned-store crawl, mainlining electrolyte packets like a Trainspotting extra, longing for an actual iceberg the way DiCaprio longed for a life jacket at the end of Titanic. There is no negotiating with a Roman summer. You just survive it.

Some things are taboo with Romans.

Romans have a very particular sense of humor, and by particular I mean borderline bipolar. Ask about the buses and you’ll get twenty minutes of genuine, articulate outrage — the traffic, the bureaucracy, the government, all treated as one long-running comedy sketch nobody asked to be cast in. Self-deprecation has no ceiling here. Except for two subjects, where it evaporates instantly: the city’s good looks, and the food. Criticize either one and watch a person who was cheerfully trashing their own government five seconds earlier turn genuinely offended — or start seriously reassessing your sanity. There’s an exorbitant number of restaurants here that specifically call themselves Roman, not “Italian”. And not just in the center, to attract tourists – everywhere, in every neighborhood, defending the same four pasta dishes like state secrets. Carbonara is a religion. Romans are all fundamentalists. (See below).

There is a quasi-Shakespearean internal rivalry

You know London’s East End/West End split — working class vs. posh? In Rome it’s Roma Sud vs. Roma Nord. “Roma Nord” means money. Roma Sud means character, which is what people with no money call it. What’s odd is that it lines up, imperfectly but noticeably, with the Lazio-Roma football divide: Lazio fans have money and traditionally lean right; Roma fans are “the people,” whatever that means. You can accidentally detonate a real argument at a dinner party just by asking the wrong person which team they support. Nobody warns you about this. I’m warning you now.

Look up. No, actually look up.

There’s beauty everywhere here, obviously — but also in places you’d never think to look. Wander two streets past whatever’s on the postcards and you’ll stumble onto architecture few ever bothered to Instagram.

Quartiere Coppedè.

Look up on some completely unremarkable street — not a landmark, not a piazza, just a random street — and you’ll spot keys, tiaras, symbols that look vaguely masonic, carved into buildings that are otherwise minding their own business. No wonder Dan Brown had the time of his life here. It’s why I built interactive games into my self-guide to the Eternal City — half the fun is what you find when you’re not being told where to look.

Speaking of which — today’s the last day of this very special, extremely time-sensitive, not-at-all-manufactured-urgency launch offer.

If you’re headed to Rome anytime soon, here’s what’s in store for you: a witty, sexy rom-com set there, plus a movie-inspired, mobile-friendly guide to the city, for less than a Starbucks Frappuccino. Sit with that for a second.

And if you’ve already bought the book and read it — you know who you are — a review would mean an unreasonable amount to me. Goodreads, wherever you bought it, Reddit, word of mouth, a mural, a skywriting plane, you name it. Like Tesco says: every little helps.