Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Roman Lunch

Rome is full of the unexpected. The Eternal City, known for exquisite cuisine, smooth fashion and crazy drivers, can also boast that it’s people, at times fiery and flamboyant, are capable of being completely above the influence of trend or vogue.

This stylish and well-groomed man, crisply attired in a tan suit, has chosen not a swank café on the Via Venetto, but the solitude of some rubble, no doubt the remnants of a structure that fell down, or was brought down in a clash of legionnaires, hundreds maybe thousands of years ago. The location affords ample sunlight, providing warmth and light for reading his paper, as well as a handy place for his orange.

In the United States, these ancient pieces of architecture would have been hauled off to a landfill or ground up into cement long ago, instead of being left alone in some quiet green patch of the city, where someone can sit on them and enjoy a sunny lunch.

CF