What is now one of the fanciest districts of Rome for many centuries was its poorest and most dangerous area, full of foreigners and minorities. Trastevere means beyond the river and this was the only inhabited part of ancent Rome on the other bank of the river. Strictly connected to the harbor of Ostia and the river port, it hosted traders and sailormen from all over Italy and the Mediterranean. The Jewish community lived here before it was relocated in the current Ghetto, on the other side of the Tevere.  

This is the area of Rome were Christianity spread first (S. Maria in Trastevere is possibly the first Christian church in town) since its inhabitants were open to ideas coming from abroad, and where the local neighborhood identity was the strongest until the end of the 19th century – and that’s also why the borough’s feast is “Our own” Festival and not of the rest of the city!

Another key feature of Trastevere is Regina Coeli, Rome’s most ancient jail. Until a few years ago you could (see and) hear the screams of big men who were paid by prisoners’ relatives to communicate with their jailed loved ones from outside the prison, for instance, just to give you an idea of the atmosphere around this place.

Besides the lights of the bars, restaurants and shops open until very late lies a hidden story of real lives, intense spirituality and authentically Roman popular traditions that is worth telling.

For instance St. Francis loved to stay in Trastevere when he came to Rome and the church of S. Francesco a Ripa (whose main feature is a Bernini late work: the statue of Ludovica Albertoni) takes her name from him. While the church of S. Cecilia hosts one of the most touching sculptures of Rome, made by Maderno. And Cecilia is still the most beloved female Roman saint and one of the favorite names given to girls by Romans.

Another heroic female figure from Trastevere is Giuditta Tavani, mother of 4 (some say 9), who fiercely fought and lost her life to liberate Rome from the Papal rule during Risorgimento. A plaque in Via della Lungaretta 97 commemorates her sacrifice for Italian unity.

This is where the dialect was more pronounced and it is no coincidence that two of the most important squares of the borough are named after Rome’s best dialect poets: Trilussa and Belli.

But even in the 20th century Trastevere retained a specific and proud identity. It was only from the 1990s that it started to gentrify and become fashionable.

Another couple of places where you can still immerse yourself in 20th century’s Trastevere atmosphere are Biscottificio Innocenti and Pasticceria Valzani where you can also have some of the best cookies and cakes in town in a 1950s ambiance.

For the best wine bars of Trastevere,read this story.

For a list of good restaurants in Trastevere read this wrap up!

If you’re after a free wifi cafe in Trastevere, check out this post.

According to most food experts and historians it was invented during the Allied liberation of the Eternal City from German troops (WWII). US troops had bacon and powdered eggs with them whereas Romans had stocks of pasta. Mixing these ingredients, Carbonara came out as a result.

Given the hazy origins of this pasta recipe, its ingredients are not totally clear-cut either. Short or long pasta? Bacon or guanciale – lard from the pig’s cheek? Pecorino or a mix of parmesan and pecorino? The whole egg of just egg yolk? There is only one thing for sure, never ever put cream as most Italian restaurants abroad do. Egg is the main ingredient of the yellowish cream of Carbonara!

And here are our top ten restaurants with their distinguishing recipe, cooking and presentation features.

1 Roscioli. Yolk egg only, sarawak pepper, thick spaghetti.

2 L’Arcangelo. Short pasta, rigatoni, very, very al dente even for roman standards which means it is nearly raw!

3 Antico Falcone. You can choose the pasta you prefer, served in a soup tureen rather than an ordinary dish

4 Pipero al Rex. Price depends on quantity. Standard size: 50 grams.

5 Felice. Bacon, rather than guanciale, and spaghetti.

6 Checchino. Classic version

7 la Pergola. Very innovative version, with a zabaione egg-filled bundle.

8 Open Colonna. Negative of Carbonara. Egg, parmesan and pecorino are inside a rough tortello

9 Taverna Trilussa. Served in a pan

10 Armando al Pantheon. Spaghetti, guanciale and pecorino.

One more tip: you will find this Carbonara story by a Rome-based blogger also interesting!

For advices on where to eat genuine Roman food in the most Roman of the Eternal City’s boroughs, Trastevere, read this post.

If you’re also interested in other regional Italian cuisines, go here.   

Another group of art exhibits we think you should consider is the Spanish Contemporary Art one. It is purely coincidental, there is no project behind it, but Rome is currently hosting two exhibitons by possibly the best Spanish contemporary artists: Dalì and Mirò.

One of the most imitated and appreciated contemporary artists, a true icon of the 20^th century, Salvador Dalì is on show at Vittoriano through July 1. Paintings, unpublished photos, videos, letters, magazine covers, objects – such as the famous soft or melting clocks – and theatre costumes on loan from several Spanish museums and foundations, will give you a good grasp of his personality and lay out well his philosophy of “the realism of an imaginary world.” But being located in Rome, the exhibition focuses on his relationships with the Italian painting masters and the Eternal City in the 1950s.

Mirò’s exhibit, instead, draws the attention on the studio of the Catalan artist with the reproduction of the room, the paintbrushes, and other tools and instruments including his rocking chair. 50 Oils and another 30 watercolours, bronzes and clay sculptures trace the last 20 years of his artistic life, from the 1960s onwards, when his favorite subjects were women, landscapes and birds. Mirò’s surrealist fantasies and dreams are on display at Chiostro del Bramante through June 10.

He is not Spanish but comes from the same cultural area another key surrealist, Sebastian Matta, whose works (14 paintings, more than 30 drawings and eight sculptures) you can see for free through May 20 at Rome’s Auditorium. Matta is the father of the Roman artist Pablo Echaurren. Everyday from 11am to 6pm.

It’s not just rock and pop, Rome’s summer will also features remarkable jazz, classical music and opera performances. It’s a really impressive list!

But let’s start from the pop, rock and punk stars, the international icons.

Madonna will be in Rome on June 12 in the Olympic stadium, Rome’s biggest arena, usually used as the football court of Rome’s top teams: Roma and Lazio.

Radiohead will play at the horse-race track of Capannelle on June 30 for the Rock in Roma Festival.

The same Festival will also feature the Cure on July 9.

And after this stunning trio, let’s see who else will please the crowds during the 2012 open-air concert season.

Meet In Town, the New Sound Festival with young and emerging talents, will unfold on June 8 & 9 in the Auditorium halls.

The Cranberries will be on stage on July 2 at the Auditorium.

The same venue will also host the Joan Baez on July 6 and another folk artist Patti Smith will play on July 20 there.

The day after Patti Smith it will be Alanis Morissette’s turn at Rome’s Auditorium.  

The revival section will start on on July 18 with Duran Duran, who will also sing for the Olympic games opening ceremony, at Rome’s biggest tennis court for the Centrale Live Festival.

The Beach Boys band will follow on July 26 at Capannelle.  

Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club on July 31 will be the last of the old glories concerts. Auditorium.

Going back to younger artists. The Italo-Scottish Paolo Nutini will be in Rome on July 16. Auditorium again.

The following day will see the talent of Lenny Kravitz at Capannelle.

James Morrison is announced for July 24 at Auditorium.

Another young talent, Damien Rice, will perform at Auditorium on July 30.

Two world jazz stars will also visit the Eternal City this summer: Pat Metheny and his guitar on July 14;  

Keith Jarrett with the piano on the 29th. Both at Auditorium.

Classical music will see one of the top Italian piano talents, Giovanni Allevi on July 12 for Centrale Live.

Last but not least, opera. The Caracalla Festival, in the ancient Roman baths, begins on June 30. The key appointments are Aleksandr Nevskj on July 7, Bellini’s Norma from July 21 to August 7 and Verdi’s Attila from July 31 to August 7.   

May is probably the best month of the year to visit Rome. Long, sunny days with warm temperatures – hot weather only starts in June here – and absolutely everything open and running.

Except the very first day of the month, the chaotic May 1, this is a perfect moment of the year to be here!

Let’s then have a quick glance at Rome’s top events and activites in May:

This month’s symbol is the rose flower, therefore, nature lovers, shouldn’t miss the Roseto Comunale, the Rose Garden. May is the only month of the year when it is always open (except May 18-19 for an international flower contest). And it’s free!

The cinema event of May seems to be the first edition of the Nordic Film Festival. Free movies in original languages with Italian subtitles on May 3-6.

But two major night openings mark this month. The Vatican Museums will start their 7pm-11pm visits on May 4 every Friday, while the Colosseum will also be open in the evening with guided tours in English and Italian at 8:30pm on Thursday and Saturdays, from May 5 to October 6. 8pm-midnight.

Open House Roma on May 5/6 will open the doors of so many houses, offices, buildings to show you the best architecture of Rome for free.

Another key event for Rome in May is the Internazionali d’Italia, the country’s most important tennis tournament, hosting many top world players every year, that will start on May 12 and run through May 20.

May 12 will also feature the Italian hip-hop dance championship qualifications for the MTV international show.

The European initiative Museums at Night will also involve Rome on May 19 with free guided tours, concerts and events in some of the city’s countless museums which will be open from 8pm to 2 am.

While contemporary art collectors and lovers should hit Roma Contemporary, the capital’s biggest contemporay art event with galleries from other Italian cities and from abroad show-casing their best artworks on May 25-27.

Finally, on the very last day of the month, Italy’s most important track & field happening, the Golden Gala. Usain Bolt should be there this year, too! On May 31.

The company NTV, or Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori, founded in 2006 by Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and businessmen Diego Della Valle of luxury goods maker Tod’s, finally offers an alternative to Trenitalia, the state-run railway corporation. Italian travelers and tourists can now choose.

Its base in Italy’s capital will be Tiburtina, Rome’s recently renovated train station. NTV aims at having a quarter of Italy’s high-speed train market in a couple of years, attracting 8-9 million passengers a year by 2014.

Cars look pretty much the same as Trenitalia’s, with the only major differences being the big, oversized windows and the leather seats by luxury furniture maker Poltrone Frau.

But onboard services are better: live tv (in Italian), cinema coach with first-run movies, Eataly food served in passenger seats instead of restaurant cars, and free wifi.

The 450-seat Italo, painted red, gold and gray, is the quickest train today, it can go 360 kilometres an hour but is obliged not to go faster than 300 due to the limits of the infrastructure of the Italian rail system. NTV’s trains will make the Rome-Milan run in about three hours, about the same time as Trenitalia’s high-speed trains.

As of now, you can directly reach Rome from Florence, Bologna, Milan and Naples. From August 26, Salerno will also be added. On October 27 Rome will be connected with Padua and Venice, too. Turin will be reached from Rome on December 8.

Until the end of August you can go from Rome to Milan for 30 euros with the Promo Italo fare, 45 with the low cost option. The airline-style fare structure has three choices – Club, Prima and Smart – and includes low-cost offers in the Smart “ambience” for early booked and off-peak times tickets.

May the best customer experience win!

Our previous two stories on the best exhibitions in town were about painting and so will the next one – to come out in a few days. But there is not just painting in Rome’s showings! Here is a varied selection of good displays in Rome from all kinds of art and times.

Let’s start with what will probably end out being the exhibit of the year in Rome: Lux in Arcana. If you have been to Rome recently or are planning to visit the city soon, I am sure you’ve heard of it.

It is a display of about a hundred secret documents coming from the Vatican Archives regarding many of the key moments of the history of the Catholic church, major trials and disputes from the 8^th century onwards, including Martin Luther, Galileo Galilei and so on. Weirdly, though, it’s not being held at the Vatican but at the Capitoline Museums. Through September 9.

But our favorite showing of 2012 so far is “Recycle, strategies for architecture, city and the planet” at MAXXI, Rome’s best contemporary art museum. This architecture exhibit is a real feast of first-class global creativity. The best practices of re-adapting old buildings into new uses, without destroying and polluting, will really enlighten and surprise you. Case-studies by the best world architects will show how recycling is so much better than building something new from scratch and can lead to unexpectedly original and effective solutions. More than 80 sketches, models, projects on display through May 20 (new, extended date; originally it was April 29).

If your favorite art is not painting, after the architecture exhibit at MAXXI, we couldn’t help talking of a sculpture showing. It’s “Sculture dalle Collezioni Zeri e Santarelli”. 90 artworks – statues, fragments and low reliefs – from two private collections never shown to the public, going from ancient times to the 18^th century. The most interesting objects are the coloured marbles and the pieces telling the history of Rome.

A very interesting showing is also the one at the Roman Forum on ancient glasses. 300 pieces – mostly Roman – on loan by other Italian museums, will be on display through September 16. “Glasses in Rome” will show materials, techniques, decorations, uses, the evolution and the expansion of glass objects from rich families to the majority of the population in the Roman Empire.

After the story on our favorite, current, Italian painting exhibits in Rome it is time to see what’s on in the Eternal City from the rest of the world…

And we couldn’t help noticing this nice coincidence: Rome is now hosting two exhibits on Russian and US artistic avant-gardes!

And it is no coincidence that their venues, Palazzo delle Esposizioni and Ara Pacis, are probably among those proposing some of the best photo & art exhibits here in Rome….

Let’s start with our long time allies, the USA. Through May 6 you can see in via Nazionale “Guggenheim. The American Avant-garde 1945-1980,” a selection of 59 artworks from the Guggenheim collection, spanning from 1945 to 1980.

The exposition is divided in four sections: Abstract Expressionism (ever heard of Rothko or Pollock ?); Pop art – Warhol and Lichtenestein, just to name a few; Minimalism, post-minimalism and conceptual art; Photorealism, a sort of hyperrealism.

The showing will shed new light on the Guggenheim collection and on the evolution of the US art in the second half of the last century when America started to be the world centre of modern art.

But this also the time when the US were engaged in the Cold War. And the other party of this long-distance conflict was the Soviet Union.

The “Russian Avant-gardes” exhibit focuses on the period between the end of Imperial Russia and the consolidation of the Communist regime: the 1910s-20s. Probably the freest and most creative time in centuries for this country.

More than seventy works from about 10 museums of the ex-USSR divided into 8 different segments on display through September 2. Malevich, Kandinskij, Chagall are some of the big names of this showing, constructivism was probably the most peculiar art movement originating in Russia at the time.

But the most enjoyable surprises will come from the lesser known names that we never saw in Rome. Artists who were influenced by the ferment of the first quarter of the 20^th century – cubism, futurism, abstract art and so on – but were still able to express their national origins and ancient traditions.

We know who won the “real” Cold-War but who came away with the artistic one?

On April 21 according to the legend/tradition, it turns 2765. But, of course, there is no scientific evidence that it was founded in 753BC, let alone on April 21.

Anyway, before the Liberation Day(April25)/Labour Day(May 1) very long weekend there is one more big occasion to celebrate and have fun in Rome.

The City council has organized a lot of events. Let’s see those who might be more enjoyable for non-Italian speakers.

Celebrations start on Friday, April 20, with the fire lighting ceremony and ancient dances at 3:30pm in Piazza del Campidoglio, the square symbolizing Rome’s power and history.

On Saturday at 10am at the ancient Roman military camp in Villa Celimontana which will host ceremonies, daily chores, fights and dances until midnight.  

At 12:15pm some traditional, ceremonial music will be followed by the free concert by Carabinieri band in Piazza del Campidoglio.  

The Circus Maximus will feature 3 events in the afternoon: at 3pm there will be a commemoration of the legendary trench digging by Romulus in the. At 4:30pm Army Band concert with polyphonic choir. At 6:30pm the rural ceremony of Parilia will be enacted.

From 3pm to 8pm military bands will please the crowds in the newly renovated Piazza San Silvestro, which has become a much quieter and better place.

Another free concert will take place in the Campidoglio square at 8pm by the Local Police band.

At 8:30pm at Palazzo della Cancelleria, the Compagnia Rinascimentale will hold a music/song/folk dance/jugglery/ancient arts Renaissance-style show with its 32 participants.

From 11pm to midnight a light and colors game will be held at the Trajan’s Markets.

On Sunday, April 22, from 9am to 5:30pm follow-up of the Roman camp in Circus Maximus.

Jacopo Robusti also known as Tintoretto, one the key figures of Italian painting in the 16^th century, mostly lived and worked in Venice and this is where most of his works come from: venetian churches and museums. And that’s why it took three quartes of a century to set up a monographic exhibit of his works out of Venice!

His style was innovative, bold and realistic, very different from the classic and definite order represented by Renaissance art. He made a great use of light and his characters were anguished and feverish. The structure of his works is like that of a movie set or a theatre stage, with many unprecedented cuts and perspectives. His paint brushes are quick as much as the colours are extreme.

He was such a big talent that his master, Titian, was so afraid of him that he had to kick him off of his school/workshop!

The showing, by Italy’s most controversial art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, will display his best portraits, the mythology-inspired works and the religious ones, the three main themes of his artistic production.

Rome is now also hosting another painting exhibit of a big Northern Italian painter. It’s the 17^th century and the artist is Guercino, from Cento, a city not far from Bologna. And this is where many of the works on display originate from, as well as Rome, where he spent a very important part of his life at the service of Pope Gregory XV.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, aka Guercino, one of the major Italian painters of his time, is famous for his blue skyes and the way he represented rainstorms.

The exhibit, running until April 29, sets out very clearly the three different stages of his career: the start, his stint in Rome, his return to Cento.

He was more affected by the Carracci classicist school, and its strong link with Raphael and Michelangelo, than by Caravaggio’s revolution.

However we love Caravaggio, this showing will help you understand that Italy’s 17^th century painting is not only Michelangelo Merisi!

This exhibit is also a good occasion to visit the recently renovated National Gallery of Ancient Art which showcases (mostly Italian) paintings from the middle age to the 18^th century. But there is more than just canvases: you also have Borromini’s architectural wonder of the helicodial staircase.

Tintoretto and Guercino, two original choices if you think that Italian painting of their respective times was more than Titian and Caravaggio….