Elena Elohina is a «Roman at heart»—from Saint Petersburg, a bachelor’s and master’s graduate of SPbU and the La Sapienza University, a professional guide in Rome and Vatican City. She has lived in the Eternal City for over 15 years and knows the local culture and language well. She runs a popular blog about Rome, where she tells about unknown places in the city. The book is written based on her own experience and tours she provides for individual travelers.
Rome is an amazing city where eras stack on top of each other like in an «historical lasagna». You should study it not horizontally, the way we’re used to during trips—collecting places and museums—but vertically, looking at the layers of each monument, like examining a cross-section of an ancient oak with many rings. Romans rush to work past houses trapped in the walls of ancient columns, sit in parks on antique sarcophagi instead of benches, build new houses on old foundations, and decorate the square with fragments of marble statues from the city. They are so used to this that they don’t even notice.
Time has left such a strong «trace» here that it would be unfair to ignore it for the city. All of this is like doors into pantries full of unexpected worlds—almost like a wardrobe into Narnia. To get there, you just need to be curious like children: notice an old inscription on a wall, or an almost erased fresco on a building facade. Not ceremonial squares and fountains, but often something unremarkable can tell the most fascinating story— but only to those who are ready to hear it.
• Is it true that in Rome statues talk?
• How do you visit cloistered nuns?
• Where were poisons cooked for alchemists, and tinctures for the Pope?
• Where did honest courtesans pray to have their sins forgiven?
• How to find Caravaggio and Raphael masterpieces without buying a ticket to the museum?
You’ll find answers to all these and many other unexpected questions in the audiobook!