Rome is probably one of the most popular destinations among tourists. Those who visits Europe for the first time can’t avoid to make a stopover in Italy, mostly visiting Rome, Florence and Venice.

But the Rome I’m trying to describe here is not the one of tourist circuits, where everything seems either too muffled or too shining. I’m talking about the city waiting to be discovered in all its facets.

Campidoglio

The first time I went to Rome I was 6 years old, it was also my first flight ever. We went to Florence because my mother, who has a children’s clothing store at that time, had to visit the “Pitti Bimbo” exhibition and we stopped few hours in Rome. I keep some faded fragment of that trip, yellowed like the photos in my parents' house. At the age of 10 I went back to Rome whit a school trip and then I received a great disappointment: I waited days to finally see Campidoglio square to admire the statue of Marcus Aurelius. I do not know why, maybe some documentary or history book, but I knew that in that square there was the largest equestrian statue in Rome. But that year, 1984, the statue was removed for restoration. Whenever I am passing by the Vittoriano, I can’t avoid to think back to that empty plinth.

Tiber river

The history of Rome is very closely linked to the history of the river Tiber and its whims. The great river, used until recent times for the carriage of goods inwards and towards the sea, influenced the development of the city with its floods cycles. Near to Tiber Island, Ponte Rotto (broken bridge) bears witness to one of the many attempts of umans to overcome the force of the water.

A flooding brings to the valley that ripped upstream, nullifying what is encountered on its way. At downstream, only a few shreds of what it used to be remains.

It was after a flooding that I meet Ahmed, 20 years old, from Tunisia. He was arrived in Rome a few weeks before we met, still looking for a job and full of good wishes; but the city not always appears welcoming to foreigners. Welcoming tourists, who bring good money, stay tree days and then leaves is one thing, different matter is to give hospitality to who wish to stay here and build a new life, especially if you start from the very lower step. Ahmed used to work in Sardinia, in the kitchen of a villa at Porto Rotondo, but in Rome he can barely find something underpaid and with tough working hours.

People

Where are the Romans? Well, for sure not in the city downtown. In the center you can find either tourists or those who moved in for work.