Roma, Roma, Roma.

Ruins everywhere, and medieval, renaissance and baroque times in layers above, walls looking like some scenographer worked very hard to create the right patina, but it was just time that worked hard on it.

In the Basilica of San Clemente an Irish priest in the 19th century dug himself down through a hole in the wall of his old church and found an even older church below, and then a cultic site and Roman homes below there again. The hole is still there, like a real version of the fresco of Jesus crawling down into the underworld just meters away from it.

We “did” tons of sites. But being a tourist isn’t only looking. I like the play, like eating dinner picnic style by the door in the bedroom, because that’s where the light is best.

The last morning I walked around in our neighborhood, the fruit lady at the market thrilled I came back for more of the orange peaches. It surprises me how many craftsmen and -women are at work around in small shops, even in a touristy city center like this; leather workers, seat weavers, framers, mosaic makers, purse makers, furniture builders, butchers and bakers. And prices of both things and food seem frozen, half the price of similar things in Amsterdam.

It’s my third time in this city, every time for short visits, first time I was 17 and we had pasta, saw Colosseum and left after one night. We were too unprepared and too tired. The second time I walked through the Vatican breastfeeding my one year old in the midst of the crowds to avoid a screaming baby: - The way God wants it, some clergyman told me. But I’m a simple traveler. Just as when I was younger it is those walks early in the morning around the block, going by a bar to buy bus tickets and coffee, watching the butcher work on a hanging piece like it’s been done since the beginning, that’s when I feel I see the city, that I’m a tourist the way I enjoy it the most.