2763 Candles

Rome today celebrates her 2763rd birthday, this counting back from the legendary city founding in 753 BC.  The city is in the midst of an annual 10 day celebration sponsored by the Ministry of Fine Arts wherein every national museum plans special events and charges no admission fees for visits (incidentally, a rather tidy savings for travelers, several hundred dollars easily for a family of serious sightseers.)

Wisteria and poppies are in full bloom across the city, and tiny daisies everywhere dot the grass.  At dawn and in the evenings, the swallows fill the silvery skies with their hauntingly beautiful cries.  Restaurant tables are now set outside at lunch. Linen clothes (violet and cream this season’s colors) and bewitching sandals fill windows.   This is a lovely time of year to visit Rome.

We’re off tonight to enjoy the traditionally superb fireworks, set off on the Pincio hill at Villa Borghese, and to toast our home, surely the world’s most intriguing capital, on her birthday. Tanti Auguri Roma !