Rome Italy Travel - Hassler Hotel, Rome, Italy

The Spanish Steps, Rome Italy (Hotel Hassler in background) - Photo copyright Christine Collie

On our last night in Rome we ate at a funky hole-in-the-wall restaurant with new friends‹an Irish Galileo scholar working in Rome and his sculptor girlfriend, a native of Cannes.

To get to the place they'd recommended, we walked for blocks and blocks from our hotel atop the Spanish Steps through Rome's lively pedestrian precincts where only taxis and delivery vehicles are allowed. We window-shopped our way through the chic boutique quarter that radiates out from Piazza di Spagne, strolling on into quieter residential districts beyond. Everywhere we looked in the narrow, meandering, lamp-lit streets and alleyways there were arresting medieval and renaissance vistas.

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