Simona Pacetti

Monti is my neighbourhood and I talk about it the way people talk about a relative, fondly and with complaints. I have lived on Via Panisperna for twenty years, above a shop that was a coal seller, then a wine bar, then a phone repair place, and now a wine bar again. That is Monti. Before guiding I taught Italian to foreigners for a decade, so I am used to explaining things twice without making anyone feel slow. My walks are about the Rome that people actually live in: the Suburra where Julius Caesar grew up, the Esquilino market where you hear Bengali, Chinese and Roman dialect in one aisle, Piazza Vittorio with its strange alchemists' door. I am not a historian. I am a storyteller with a lot of books at home. Now I show Rome live on a video call, phone in hand, and I answer questions as they come.