in the arena

Rome guide & love musings

I’ve had my heart broken three times, not once by a suitor’s sword—I’ll explain. Bien sûr, I collected battle wounds skipping around the West Village in my day but bruises fade.

When beats drop on breakup anthems, my mind scrolls not the faces of my ex’s, I’m not sorry to say. Instead I see blurred visions of Amalienborg Palace in the wake of my Copenhagen chapter… the plush velvet curtain descending on my final bow as a ballerina… flickers of a pulsing stage light at the Palais Garnier the day I lost a family member. These losses are sacred… appreciating scars in my memory real estate.

When Ella sings of love, I think of cities I’ve called home and a career that quite literally, shaped me… what brutiful relationships. In a world that fetishizes storybook endings, I find it freeing to honor alternative sources of love… to expand the realm of heartbreak.

As someone who long identified as “perpetually single,” I found fairytale love in other forms… solo-strolling around Europe, dancing to Chopin, biting into comté. To be honest I searched long and swiped hard for partner-shaped love but mostly, dating was a game I burned out trying to play.

Fast forward 34 waltzes around the sun, I’ve found myself in an exquisite partnership and I know this to be true: love knows no bounds or boundaries, it knows better.

We spent this past Christmas together in Rome—a city I’d visited once before in the confusing heights of my singledom—and while slow-circling the Colosseum, I recalled this bit from Brené Brown’s Rising Strong:

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

I share this vulnerably with anyone out there seeking romantic love…this week can be especially triggering. Trust me, I know. I most certainly had my ass kicked (more than once) but I stayed in the gd arena. I chose courage. Don’t give up, don’t settle, and don’t discount love’s daily manifestations, it’s there in first sips and first kisses, alike.

If you’ve made it this far, you deserve my 🧈 Guide to Rome! Pin & plan your next trip to the eternal city and get in the actual arena ;)

Rome City Guide linked on Google Maps

Rome.

Eat.

• Caffè Perù: breakfast like a local—sneak some homemade whipped cream in your coffee & get the honey cornetto (Italy’s answer to a croissant, not the same, not above it ;)

• Otello: thrice-recommended for lunch/din… order fried artichokes & any pasta

• Trapizzino | Trastevere: snack/lunch on a “trapizzino,” a pizza-sandwich hybrid, you’ll want the chicken cacciatore

• Rimessa Roscioli: the Oxtail Rigatoni here keeps me up at night, hands down best meal of the trip

• Da Francesco: if you order one pizza in Rome (lol ;) let it be here—there’s a radicchio & blue cheese situation that will bring you to your knees

• Trattoria Da Enzo al 29: go early/make rez & be sure cacio e pepe is on the table

• Testaccio Market: grocery shop like a local here, 100+ gourmet food stalls—stop for a glass and *Spaghetti all’assassina* you’ll be so glad you did
  *"assassin's spaghetti" or "burnt spaghetti" is crispy, burnt spaghetti that's
  cooked in a pan with tomato sauce and chili flakes, how savage ;)

• Il Gelato di San Crispino: seasonal gelato that you’ll finish too fast, 2min from Trevi Fountain

Pray.

• Basilica of Saint Mary of Minerva: a lavish gothic church we “stumbled upon” en route to Pantheon

• Saint Peter’s Basilica: time stops here…savor it.

• San Luigi dei Francesi: France's baroque national church in Rome, don’t miss the Caravaggio’s

  
  …pop into literally any cathedral. They’re sprinkled all over the city and will quite immediately and dramatically take your breath away.

Love.

• Trevi Fountain: throw a coin, make a wish…

• Campo de’ Fiori: in the heart of Old Rome, stroll through the city’s most divine food & flower market (not far from Piazza Navona, go there too ;)

• Galleria Borghese: a dreamy villa-turned-museum housing the best of Bernini, stroll the gardens with a gelato before/after

• Piazza Navona: a bustling 17th century piazza alive with ornate fountains and humbling architecture

See.

• Pantheon: an undeniably humbling feat of architecture, don’t miss

• Vatican Museum: give yourself at least 3 hours to get lost & found here… an endless stroll of Renaissance masterpieces that ends casually, at the Sistine Chapel

• Colosseum: obviously

• Spanish Steps: breathtaking lookout from the top, go at sunset

Stay.

• Trastevere: Rome’s “Williamsburg” (respectively) … Grab an AirBNB or boutique hotel along the Tiber river, enjoy hip crowds, cobblestoned streets, and being a 20-30min walk from pretty much everything

🧈 Tips 🧈

1. There’s never enough time in cities like Rome, our trip was 6 days—reserve an Omnia Pass ahead of time which allows you to book main attractions by the bundle and includes a double decker bus ticket. We chose the Colosseum, the Vatican, and Sistine Chapel.

2. I love reading historical fictions that take place in cities I visit—Kate Quinn’s Mistress of Rome was an absolute page-turner through the Eternal City…

3. Run up an appetite along the Tiber! See here for a preview & pics.