All Roads Lead To Roma
www.stuardtclarkesrome.com

A comprehensive web guide to Rome and Vatican City.

 

     

Benvenuto!  Welcome to All Roads Lead To Roma, a web site devoted to my favorite city . . . Rome!  I have had a love affair with this fascinating city for well over 30+ years and I wanted to share a lot of what I have learned through my experiences in my travels to Rome and Vatican City with all of you.  I have read a lot of material about Rome, but I have never come across any description more apt until I found Dr. Alan Epstein's book entitled, As the Romans Do:

     "Imagine being three thousand years old.  Suppose by some mysterious process you managed to avoid the limitations of mortality, and year after year you keep going, adding more and more experiences to your life until you have no choice but to repeat them because you have exhausted all possibilities.
     You are the very essence of what it means to be human.  You have had more than your share of victories and defeats, triumphs and tragedies, moments of glory and those of abjection, times when you wish you had never been born and times when you want to go on forever.  You have loved and lost, have abandoned and been left behind, been rich and poor, skinny and fat, lived high on the hog and been forced to scramble for a few morsels of stale bread.  You have seen it all, done it all, regretted it all, and then gone back and done it all again.
     You are la citta' eterna, Rome, the Eternal City."

"The geography of Rome is fairly easy to understand, once you give up the American notion of the grid.  Instead, think of a series of concentric rings that emanate from the very center of the city and continue indefinitely until you are completely out of Rome and into the countryside.  If you stand, say, at Piazza Navona in the center, you are probably twenty or thirty minutes by foot from most of the places you'll want to see - the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Piazza di Spagna, St. Peter's, the Trevi Fountain, Castel St. Angelo, Villa Borghese, Trastevere - because they are all within the confines of the first ring.  And, of course, even if the monuments did not exist, the many streets leading to and from these places are themselves worth the trip to the city, tightly packed, narrow, winding alleys down which one can meander endlessly, aimlessly, as if one had been transported to another time; tiny passages that enclose residences, shops, and services of every kind, in which real people are living real lives as housewives, teachers, bakers, restauranteurs, taxi drivers, and clothing designers."

Rome was not built in a day and you certainly cannot see all of Rome even in 30 days.  But, whatever time you have to explore this most fascinating ancient city is worth the time, whether it be for a couple of days, a week or two, or more.  I have put together this web site out of pure love for this city in the hope that you will find it interesting enough to want to visit Rome for yourself.  You will find a vast amount of helpful information, each categorized under the separate pages linked below to help you navigate better and plan your trip.  So sit back, enjoy, and above all come back often because I try to add items of interest from time to time.  Godere!  (Enjoy!)
(The photo above is of Dr. Epstein and myself at Piazza di Spagna.)

I want to take this opportunity to thank the Vatican Museums web site for designating All Roads Lead To Roma as a "RECOMMENDED SELECT SITE".  I deeply appreciate it.  You can visit their extensive web site by way of a link on my Links page.  (Stuardt-Mikhail Clarke, 2002)

I would also like to thank The Honorable Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome, for his kind letter of March 30, 2005.  You can view it here.

This is one of my favorite restaurants in Rome.  It is a little hostaria-pizzeria not far from the Vatican Museums at Via Leone IV, 60, and it also is not far from the Ottaviano Metro station (Line A).  This little restaurant is family-owned and operated and has not only great food but wonderful atmosphere.  A lot of the locals go here, so you know that it is an exceptional restaurant.  Another thing I love about Dino & Tony is that they treat you  like family.  The food is excellent and the service is superior.  You can get more information about Dino & Tony on my Dining, Shopping, and Lodging page and can view where they are located in relation to the Metro station and the Vatican by going to my map of the area (number 13, click here).  They are open late for the after-theater crowds as well.  When you go, tell them you saw mention of them on the All Roads Lead To Roma web site and that Stuardt sent you.  You won't be disappointed, I guarantee it!

The very first web award I received was the award shown above.  Since then, I have received over 50 web awards.  There are so many that it takes too long to download so I relocated them to their own page.  If you are interested in viewing them, please click here.  To all of those who have given me awards over the years, I wish to thank you very much; they are all very much appreciated.  If you want to check out the award that I have given from time to time (Blue Diamond CyberAward of Excellence) and those who have received it, click here.