Roman Quarantine – Day 45

Roman Quarantine – Day 45

Coronavirus

Tweet On Tuesday, which happened to be Rome’s birthday, our local fruit and vegetable market reopened for the first time in six and a half weeks. Lots of fresh produce markets in Rome have stayed open right through the national quarantine but not, for some reason, the...
Roman Quarantine – Day 44

Roman Quarantine – Day 44

Coronavirus

Tweet As I’m sure someone very famous has said on a thousand inspirational Facebook quotes, adaptability is all. Whilst there is a light at the end of the tunnel of the current level of full lockdown in Rome (parks reopen on 4 May, some businesses will reopen), when...
Roman Quarantine – Day 43

Roman Quarantine – Day 43

Augustus, Coronavirus, Origins

Tweet Today is Rome’s birthday. On the 21st April, 753 BCE (which I think we can agree is very specific for a legend), the city was founded by her first king, Romulus. He and his brother Remus, were twin sons of Mars and the Vestal Virgin, Rhea Silvia. She was the...
Roman Quarantine – Day 41

Roman Quarantine – Day 41

Coronavirus

Tweet Today we’ve officially gone beyond the quarantine: day 41 of 40 – still buffering. I feel like I’ve lost all grip of what’s happening in the Italian pandemic situation. Things are, I think, improving? Though perhaps not as much as they should be? And when...
Roman Quarantine – Day 40

Roman Quarantine – Day 40

Coronavirus

Tweet Today marks our official quarantena, the word we get from the forty days the Venetian Republic kept ships suspect of disease at bay. I went for a (permitted, local) walk, the first in a week. I wandered along a little bit of the timeless aqueduct road, past the...
Roman Quarantine – Day 39

Roman Quarantine – Day 39

Coronavirus

Tweet Days have been mostly sunny recently, but evenings significantly cooler and so today was the first outdoor supper of the year. Timings and temperatures were just right, the sort of thing one can’t really ever organize, and we three neighbouring terraces were...
Roman Quarantine – Day 38

Roman Quarantine – Day 38

Coronavirus

Tweet On Day 29 I mentioned my jaunt to Urbino in January. If a walk in a park feels distant, impromptu road trips feel vehemently other at the moment. As well as the show in honour of Raphael, I visited the rest of the exquisite Ducal Palace, a place I first visited...
Roman Quarantine – Day 37

Roman Quarantine – Day 37

Coronavirus, Rus in urbe

Tweet Day thirty-seven of the Happening, and I’m definitely beginning to lose all track of time. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. The URL of yesterday’s blog ends “/day-37” because that’s what I called it at first. In fact today is day 37 after all, but to be...
Roman Quarantine – Day 36

Roman Quarantine – Day 36

Coronavirus

Tweet The other day on Twitter, Tom Holland (the historian, not Spiderman) posted photos from an enviable early morning London walk. Among them was this photo of St Bartholomew the Great. A thoroughly excellent church, and one that owes its existence to Rome. I still...