ROME AND “THE ITALIAN BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN” - LUCIANO LIGABUE

During the pandemic my husband and I spent a lot of time listening to music. We discovered that there’s a whole world of pleasure outside of UK and US musicians and Italian music became a regular and favourite feature. When we were in Rome last October (sorry never got round to writing the blog for that trip, but it was fabulous albeit very crowded – everyone seemed to be in Rome enjoying a post-covid break!), we came across a lot of music in restaurants and on the radio, and one of the artists that captured our attention was Ligabue. I call him the Italian “Bruce Springsteen” but I guess his style is more a cross between a younger Rod Stewart or Bon Jovi – whatever, he is very very GOOD! So we decided to go back to Rome and see him live in concert.

Like Antigua earlier in the year, this was another trip where a heatwave greeted us! We stayed at the hotel Capo d’Africa again, which is located just a few blocks away from the Colisseum and our room was a lovely suite with a large terrace (so nice to sit outside but be sheltered by the parasol). Unlike last year when we walked for miles, toured the Colisseum and Forum and generally covered every square mile of Rome, we didn’t do much walking around (it was too hot, the pavement was literally melting, and we’ve done all the famous sites in the past), but we did venture back to Trastevere which is so less touristy than the main centre of Rome. Here we sat in the welcome shade outside our favourite little bar, Bar San Calisto where they seem to live in days gone by, their coffees sell for 1 Euro and Peronis for 1.50 Euros!. A new thing we also enjoyed was a visit to the Romeow Cat Café. I adore cats but had never been to a cat café before, and it was truly delightful.

On the evening of the concert we set off on our carefully planned route to the Stadio Olimpico. First a taxi to Piazza del Popolo where we paused for some refreshments, then a tram to the stadium. All went smoothly until on arriving at the stadium we realised that the entrance for our seats was right round the back – and it’s a huge stadium - and so we had to walk of what felt like miles in what was still 35 degree scorching heat. (If we go again we will get a taxi ALL the way to the stadium!). When we eventually got in and seated we were both drenched, and had never been so pleased to see a bottle of water in our lives! The excitement built up and we were treated to an incredible show of energetic music and fabulous light displays. He is hugely popular in Italy and very easy on the eye too!! After the concert we two bedraggled and buzzing little concert goers got the tram back to Piazza del Popolo but found a very long queue for taxis but none arriving, so we popped into the very posh Hotel De Russie up the road to ask if the bar was still open to wait it out – regrettably it wasn’t. Now, whether that was due to our dishevelled appearance or the fact that the bar actually WAS closed, we will never know, but they did kindly call us a taxi and we managed to get back to our hotel in time for a nightcap!

On our last evening we paid our regular visit to the iconic Harry’s Bar – a haven of movie memorabilia and home of very fine dining, not forgetting the famous Bellini. Arrivederci Roma and Ligabue – you were both fabulous