How is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world! Nathaniel Hawthorne
It was time for our last two nights in Italy after an unusually long five-week stay, and we chose to spend them in Rome. I reserved a fantastic-looking, very hip apartment for us in the Trastevere section of the city and thought this would make for an excellent jumping-off point for checking out our favorite sites in Rome: Piazza del Popolo, Piazza Navona, and the Pantheon. Trouble is, the weather just didn’t cooperate. But Plan B quickly kicked in and we were delighted.
This was the fall of wind and water. Venice was experiencing an extraordinary waist-deep Aqua Alta; there were waterspouts in Puglia; tornadoes in Campania; and incredible wind everywhere. Sitting on Piazza Garibaldi in Sulmona earlier in the week, we spent the better part of an hour chasing sugar packets and plastic packet holders blowing off the café tables while we had our capuccini. We heard reports of hail in Rome when we were up in Gubbio, but figured it was just an aberration. We were wrong.
When the time came to leave, we took the local bus from Sulmona to Tiburtina Station in Rome and then caught a taxi, thanks to Tim’s clever ride app. The location of this AirBnB was incredible: in colorful Trastevere, on a quiet, upscale street, with a very cool coffee and music bar — the Big Star Pub— just around the corner. At 7:30 one morning, Tim and I and all the locals (maybe 6 of us in all) brought our coffees to the front door to watch another bout of hail pummel the streets of Rome. Walking around the Janiculum Hill (Giancolo) about an hour later, we saw a gorgeous double rainbow. Magic is everywhere if you’re open to it.
So what’s in Trastevere? A real neighborhood. It’s a little BoHo funky there across the river (tras-((across)) -tevere ((the Tiber))), with narrow streets and cafes that you’ll want to linger over, and shops that beckon. The Jewish ghetto, established in the 16thcentury and considered the most ancient in the western world, is here. A visit to the Great Synagogue is a must, as is a sampling of some of the many wonderful foods available here, especially the artichokes — unlike anything you’ve ever had in the States. Try Taverna del Ghetto or Nonna Betta, and don’t forget Forno Boccione, the amazing tiny bakery, for “Jewish pizza” (pizza ebraica) which is a sweet, not a savory, and dished out by a colorful cast of Jewish nonne.
Bernini’s Turtle Fountain is not to be missed, nor are the many churches. We literally stumbled upon San Francesco a Ripa, just a few blocks from the apartment. It started to rain and we ducked in to this welcoming building for what we thought would be 10 minutes, at most. Gregorian chants were playing as we walked around the side chapels, and then we saw it: another Bernini. This one, The Ecstasy of Saint Ludovica. An absolute stunner. 
We looked at all the chapels, went up to the main altar, and were about to leave when we heard an organ chord. A live organ chord. There was no leaving.
The full name of the church is the Franciscan Sanctuary of Saint Francis in Ripa. Here is where Saint Francis of Assisi lived during his visits to the Holy Father. In 2011, the Roman Province of the Minor Friars decided to emulate Francis, creating a project for homeless brothers and sisters. They also preserve a collection of books, among the oldest and most important of Rome, and a library specializing in all things Franciscan.
But back to that organ chord. At first, I could not see who was playing, and it didn’t matter. A selection of the usual church music went on for about 30 minutes, and at the end, I started to put my coat on, calmed and contemplative, when I heard the beginning of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. I took my coat off and sat down. Eventually, I moved to the front of the church, where it turns out Tim had been standing the whole time, to see a young man in his 20s or maybe 30s playing. We applauded (since we were the only ones there) and offered a “bravo” and “grazie,” which he nicely acknowledged. We turned to leave.
And then . . . he played the powerful opening notes of the Bach Cantata and Fugue in D Minor(you all know it) and I was floored. The sanctuary shook. I sat the heck back down. I wept. And there we sat for more than an hour while this young man played everything from Debussy, Satie, Elgar, and God Save the Queen. It turns out that his name is Ben, he speaks fluent English because he was born in Italy, but lived for a long time in Canada. Now he is back, a Jewish music student, who has permission from the Friars to play this organ whenever he wants. Magic again. I gave him my card and hope that he contacts me one day because I would love to put him on one of the two Skinner organs at our old church in Boston.
By now, it was lunch time and Tim did his trusty TripAdvisor thing and found us a little place nearby called Nannarella. There was a plastic-enclosed outdoor café, where the tablecloths were blowing like stink and the sugar packets were swirling like confetti, but this is where they seated us all. About 4 tables of us, just barely out of the maelstrom of wind and water. But a little wine does wonders, and soon we were laughing and talking with the two Australian guys at the next table and life was good. The food was terrific — we started with two orders of the artichokes — and they let us stay for hours. Every once in a while we had to rescue a red and white tablecloth from the floor and anchor it again with ashtrays and olive oil bottles, but it became part of the shared experience.
After lunch (by now it was about 4:00) we started for home and stumbled upon another church: the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, considered by many to be the first Christian place of worship in all of Rome and quite possibly the first to be dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. It features some incredible Cavallini mosaics as well as architectural elements from the Fourth Century, the 12th Century, and columns reputed to be from the Baths of Caracalla. The angels on the ceiling are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
These churches, which bookmarked our wild lunch and musical tour, are just two of a bevy of gorgeous and historic churches to be found in Trastevere. On our way home, we grabbed a nice bottle of wine and some cheese and veggies and stayed in the for the night, listening to the life howling around outside our door. It was good to be home.
Buon viaggio!
P.S. If you’d like a 3-minute view (badly done, on my iPhone) of the Pachelbel experience, please tell me in the comments section and I’ll send it along. It was too big a file for this post.
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
