The taxi pulled into the bay outside the fabulous Art Nouveau doors of our hotel in Rome’s Via della Penna just up from Valadier’s Piazza del Popolo; we were back at Hotel Locarno.

(I have been returning to Hotel Locarno for nearly 15 years. And, when I first started coming here the gracious Daniele ran the bar and we had not yet started our search for a house in Sicily.)

hotel locarno, via della penna

Back at Hotel Locarno

It was close to 6pm that evening, 10 days or so ago, when the taxi pulled up. And the 45 min flight from Palermo’s Falcone Borsellino International Airport had touched down on the tarmac at Fiumicino’s Leonardo da Vinci by 5pm.

I was with some of the team from The Sicilian House. We arrived at Locarno in time to enjoy a drink in the hotel’s hidden courtyard, to walk the streets a little and to eat, on our first evening back in Rome, at a favourite restaurant.

It was balmy and summer had arrived in The Eternal City.

back street, near the pantheon

via della penna

Three nights in Italy's capital to delight in what American writer Peter Jon Lingberg has called 'the soul affirming joy of returning' and to also enjoy the pleasure of new discovery, was to be a small Roman holiday enroute to Oceania.

It was a very nice way to finish an unhurried short time in Italy after a 10 day stay in Sicily's majestic mountainous interior in The Sicilian House's Palazzo Notar Nicchi.

Chagall at Bramante's Cloisters

Chagall’s exhibition, ‘Chagall Love and Life’ in the sanctuary of the Bramante Cloisters, tucked in behind the monumental grace of Piazza Navona, was a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours late on Sunday morning.

chagall and his wife bella

To discover, for the first time, Chagall’s ‘dream like’ figurative art, anchored in his Judaism and his home town of Vitebsk in Russia, was a lucky find.

It shed light ‘on the relationship existing in Chagall’s work between art and literature, language and content’ and the love he shared with his wife Bella.

It was in Via del Rinascimento, after revisiting Caravaggio’s tender, Madonna di Loreto in the Church of Sant’Agostino that we spotted a small street ad telling of Chagall’s exhibition.

Piazza San Simeone

From the Bramante Cloisters, the back streets beckoned. And the quiet charm of Piazza San Simeone, tucked in between the fast flowing Tiber and the ‘performance’ of Piazza Navona was a welcome distraction: everyday Romans and a few travellers.

Caffe Greco

Caffe Greco the once favoured place of the illustrious: romantic poets, writers, painters and composers is still a spot to sit, to watch well- dressed Romans and tired enthusiastic tourists, to take notes and to feel part of Rome. I like reading the words ‘Caffe Greco’ on the entry floor each time I reach to swing open the double doors; and the joy of entering and finding a table once again; to sit and watch.

My coffee, cooled with small cubes of ice, was served by an elderly waiter in tails. It was refreshing after the heat of the Roman summer. This courteous waiter has served me many times in this lovely old café; he is a long time Greco character.

I wandered the small salons of Caffe Greco and rediscovered: Renato Guttuso, Goethe in the fourth salon, Alberto Moravia, Elisa Moranta and a photo of Buffalo Bill with his ‘redskin’ fellow travellers hanging above a long bench finished in red velvet.

Caravaggio and the twin churches

To cross Piazza del Popolo, just down the road from Locarno, and enter the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo to view two of Caravaggio's masterpieces: the Crucifixion of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul is a joy that never fades. It has become a ritual when in Rome.

This time a wedding had just finished in Santa Maria del Popolo and the front steps were crowded; we entered in the side door just below the long flight of steps that lead up to the Borghese gardens.

I exited the Basilica and crossed Piazza del Popolo again and the twin churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto loomed in their near symmetry; they herald the entries to some of Rome’s ancient thoroughfares: Via di Ripetta, Via del Babuino and Via del Corso.

Via di Ripetta, gelato and a Roman street character

I discovered again the length of Via di Ripetta, followed the line of the impressive Palazzo Borghese in a side street named after the noble Borghese family and enjoyed the form of the 'controversial' Museum Ara Pacis designed by Richard Meier and, in the distance the slender obelisk in Piazza del Popolo.

via di ripetta

palazzo borghese

Down Via di Ripetta I found a tiny Slow Food gelataria and enjoyed the simple diversion of a gelato: sweet pistacchio from Bronte on the slopes of Mount Etna.

And down Via del Corso, almost carnivalesque in its activity, an old man with a Quasimodo hump, dragged his bow across his violin. He has been a long standing Roman street character.

A restaurant near the Pantheon

We ate, on our first night back in Rome, at Ristorante Da Fortunato not far from the Pantheon. (I first read of Da Fortunato, favoured by locals and the odd Italian politician, when on a Ryan Air flight to Dublin in 2010). After dinner I wandered to look again at the Pantheon. It was late and the Pantheon stood as it had for the past 2000 years; powerful, silent, reverent and admired.

We had enjoyed succulent Roman artichokes (standing on their heads) once again at a revamped Da Fortunato. A favourite Sicilian waiter was at work that evening.

Ortigia, and a late night drink

And to stop by the gleaming showroom of Ortigia (the house of Sicilian perfumes and soaps) in Via Vittoria (not far from the Spanish Steps) reminds me of the scents of Sicily and in particular the Madonie Mountains.

A late night drink back in the bar at Locarno: the lilting Italian chatter, the summer air, dim lights and the quiet of a hidden bar just down from some of Caravaggio’s greatest works makes returning to The Eternal City a simple joy and ‘soulful’.

Salve,

Suzanne

All Photos by Leo Turrisi except the catalogue of Chagall and the twin churches.

Edited 5/7/2015 The first paragraph has been revised.

A Note: 5/9/2015 Information from the brochure for the Chagall exhibition was quoted in the original blog.