Guide to romance in Rome

5 min readFeb 2, 2020

When I was 17, it was a very good year lalalal…. ok, it was a good year, but that’s not what I am going to tell you about.

You might have already heard that Rome is considered as one of the most romantic cities in Europe and even in the world, probably the second most romantic one, after Paris… Well, its just a general idea and of course it depends on ones perception of “Romance”, but anyway I don’t wanna go in depth with that, ‘cause it really is one of the most romantic cities, personally for me.

It was October the 21st, evening, around 09:00 pm when I decided to dress up and head the random bar, all by myself, as I was making the first steps of my journey in Rome. The week has passed after my arrival and I felt it was time for some networking and socialising and well, I was also dying for a glass of good “Moscow Mule”. That’s when I opened my google map and saw a bar called Salotto 42 among my saved places; I lived on Via del Babuino back then and I found it as a good idea to take a walk to Colonna and check the bar out.

When I reached Piazza di Pietra I saw a large group of people standing there, drinking their cocktails and talkng to each other (they were all the guests of the bar), I went inside, got my desired “Moscow Mule” and fell in love with the place.

Then there was this,mmm what you call the “Meet Cute”, but not quite regular one… in my life nothing happens in a regular way, maybe that’s just my karma, or fate, whatever you call it….

As I said… it was totally not your average “meet cute”… He was 52 and I was 26 and it lasted 2, almost 3 romantic days.

The second day we had the most romantic date one can imagine, and even though I knew it was not going anywhere, it was perfect the way it was.

After the dinner and rejecting the invitation to his place, we ended up in his car, totally drunk with a bottle of white wine and two glasses. That’s where my romantic tour on the Roman hills started.

I don’t really remember the exact speed we reached, but man, he was driving fast.

And next thing I knew, we were puffing on “Gianicolo” hill, me, him and Frank. Not only Frank, but he was also singing perfectly… I was under his skin, he did it his way….. but among all of these tunes following us, “It was a very good year” stayed with me, it plays in my mind every time I think of that day (I have to tell you I don’t think about it much, but when I do, it makes me smile)

Then there was MAGIC… The experience you don’t want to miss, the magic that will take your breath away, it really took mine. We reached the top of the “Aventine Hill”, he asked me to get out of the car and I did so, he told me to close my eyes and I did so, he then told me to follow him and open my eyes and I did so…. and it was magic, what I saw was magic and you should see it too… I turned to him and we kissed.

The final destination was the fountain of Trevi (he said after midnight is the best time to visit the fountain, there is nobody there and you can tell Trevi everything you’d like, he’s the best at listening)

We tossed the coins and made a wish…

The next day there was a casual lunch in Hotel de Russie, a walk on Via Margutta (that’s when I found out I was walking on Fellini’s and his favourite street) and the visit in Rome’s one of the oldest restaurants somewhere in Prati, a family business, visited by the greatest Italians of all time.

Somewhere between Hotel de Russie and Via Margutta I found out he was a TV and movie star, a national sweetheart, colleague and student of Vittorio Gassman, and Steve Mcqueen, there I found out he was a man from old, beautiful era, living his life with beautiful, exciting memories and I knew, that’s how I prefer to keep him, as my beautiful and exciting memory from my Roman Era.