When The Moon Hits Your Eye…

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Cobblestone streets, cafes, trattorias… Trastevere sounded too Instagrammable to still be true.

I almost skipped it, if not for the fact that I had no idea how to get back to my B&B from Campo de Fiori. I did know that if I could just get to the bus stop at Lungotevere Aventino — just down the hill from the Giardino degli Aranci, the orange grove I’d visited the day prior — I could board Bus No. 23 to get home. And so, from Campo de Fiori, I made my way through a maze of small streets to the Tiber River — and then, since Trastevere was just right across, I figured I might as well drop by.

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Napoli is over 200 km away from Trastevere but Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore” kept playing in my head the whole time I was there. It seemed appropriate somehow. Trastevere had, in abundant quantities, that “typical” Italian charm that us non-Italians tend to imagine, along with pizza and pasta and paint peeling off brightly-colored ivy-covered houses.

And yet it was gratifying to see that Trastevere had not been totally given over to this commodified Italian ideal. Somehow, there was just enough graffiti and dirt and grit to reassure me that Italy — or this part of it anyway — has so far successfully defied Disneyfication.

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Do stop by.

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