Just days into Rome, Trastevere was ours already. The nighttime murmurs from below our window on vicolo del Cinque were our lullaby; in the morning we turned right and and then left for the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, where already the sun reflected off ochre walls waking, too.



Mornings, we sat in the sun with a cappuccino and a croissant, fuel enough to power walks through the city. We walked, oh, how we walked, we walked till my feet tingled; north to the Castel Sant’Angelo for the view of the city till the edge of the sky; south to the crap market of crap at Porta Portese; east to the ruins – the silent stones of the Forum, and the Colosseum, where the gladiators smoked and chatted on their mobile phones.



We ducked scooters and flattened ourselves against the walls when the cars came down the narrow lanes; and at the end of every street, it seemed, there was something old and crumbly and stately and elegant – a house, a wall, an arch, a corner. A serene Madonna behind dusty glass.



I am intrigued by intrigues, so I tell you: There were secrets, too, everywhere, and for the picking; Rome is a field full of flower secrets blooming. ’Round the corner from the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, we’d stopped in at a caffè for tea and a chocolate biscuit. We stood at the bar with the men in black suits, all of us reflected in a wide, gilt-framed mirror hanging behind the bartender. Behind us, a woman – she was proper and straight-backed; she was white-haired and robed in swathes of black – was arguing, quite loudly, with her companion, a tall man with a small hunch about the shoulders. He might have worn glasses. He was calm and clipped British to her indignant American, and Olive said later that he was a priest. He explained, the man did, that he was in a difficult position, and the woman, pulling her cape around her tighter in a precise movement, said: “I don’t wonder.” Her eyes were wide and fierce, and her forehead high. He held a small porcelain cup, empty but for its coffee rim. “Put your coffee down, William,” she said, later, snappishly, and they left up the stars to the back.

Inside the gallery, later, we whispered on wood floors while medieval eyes watched. The candelabras had been lit. I seem to remember golden paintings. From inside I heard the seagulls calling down silent hallways.