44 ESCAPE SUNDAY FEBRUARY 19 . 2017 . ESCAPE.COM.AU DESTINATION ® ITALY

FAST FOOD Eating out in Rome is a Piazza cake when you’re on the back of a scooter

RENATA GORTAN

y arms are wrapped tentative tourists who haven’t yet tightly around the learnt the secret to crossing Italian waist of a guy I just met streets – to move forward and let the and I’m fighting the traffic flow around you. It’s a urge to close my eyes remarkably effective strategy once as he weaves his you get over the fear of being run over. MVespa through multiple lanes of Although Rome is a great walking traffic on the packed streets circling city, with most of the main Piazza Venezia. monuments within a 20-minute stroll Italian drivers seem to think of road of one another, the advantage of markings as suggestions rather than riding shotgun on the back of a rules, which explains the five cars scooter is that you get to see more of it. travelling through three lanes. It must Michele picks me up from my also be why no one bats an eyelid as accommodation in Trastevere and we suddenly zip out from behind a takes me across the Tiber to Fiat to balance in the narrow gap Esquilino, the neighbourhood near between a van and a Mercedes-Benz, Termini station, and past Santa Maria all in the name of beating Rome’s Maggiore for our first stop at Panella. notorious traffic. This pasticceria was established in Slowly, though, I learn to lean into 1929 and is one of the oldest bakeries the turn as we take a corner a little in Rome. Breakfast in Italy is a simple faster than the speed limit and my affair, usually coffee and a pastry. grip loosens as I get used to the While it’s acceptable to order a bumpy rhythm of riding on cappuccino up until 10am, swap it for cobblestone roads, so that by the end the house specialty, cafe con la repurposed as MACRO, the Museum aren’t adventurous enough to dive only one arm hangs on as the other cremina. Instead of milk, your THE ABATTOIR IS of Contemporary Art of Rome, the into a big, intimidating bowl of offal takes photos. It seems as though the espresso is topped with zabaglione, buildings are still connected with the but want to taste it, it’s more palatable cavalier Italian attitude to road rules whipped eggs and sugar, making for a THE INSPIRATION tracks and hooks that transported when wedged between bread. is contagious. sweet, creamy kickstart to the day. carcasses from one building Testaccio’s market is home to street The Vespa belongs to Michele Every Italian city has its signature BEHIND MODERN to another. food vendors such as Mordi e Vai, who Bartolini, a born-and-bred Roman breakfast pastry and in Rome it’s ROMAN COOKING The abattoir is said to be the serve tripe, oxtail and meatballs in a who’s showing me the sights on a maritozzo con la panna, an oval inspiration behind modern Roman panino. Or try nearby Trapizzino, Scooteroma food tour of the brioche filled with lashings of cream. cooking. Its poor workers lived in the where delicacies including tongue Eternal City. Traditionally, a man would hide a surrounding housing projects and and salsa verde are stuffed in bread A decade after first coming to present for his lover in the cream and they would get the leftovers, the offal triangles that are the love child of a Rome, I’m back and want to see the she would show her affection by that no one else wanted and so found tramezzino, bread sandwich and city from a new vantage point. As a calling him her “maritozzo,” which ways to make it taste good. It’s why pizza base. backpacker who once stood dazed came from the Italian word for history, and arrive in Testaccio, a once you’ll see the quinto quarto – fifth A benefit of my private tour is that before the pedestrian crossings at husband, “marito”. poor and now-hip Roman quarter of the animal – on menus all Michele takes requests. I want Piazza Venezia, too scared to step out We hop back on and head south, neighbourhood. A 10-minute drive over Rome, the most popular being porchetta, the Roman specialty of in front of cars that didn’t slow down, past the Circus Maximus where from the centre of Rome, it was home tripe alla Romana, with tomato sauce, whole stuffed and roasted pork, but it’s thrilling to be zipping past Michele stops to recount its bloody to an abattoir until the ’60s. Now mint and pecorino. For those who it’s not a scheduled stop so I swap the

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