WALK 2:

Campo de Fiori –

see other pages for: St Andrea, lanes – Chiesa Nuova, Via Giulia -- Farnese, V Giubbonari, Largo Argentina, Gesu – Ghetto, Fountain of Turtles, Potico Octavia, Teatro Marcello -- Capitoline, Forum – Colosseum, Monti

There is a special place in the heart of Rome that is an outdoor fruit and vegetable market surrounded by bars and restaurants. It's Campo de Fiori, one of the most popular gathering spots in town, from sunrise all day into the evening, and beyond midnight. What more could you want? This Campo has got it all.

It is Rome's oldest fruit and vegetable market, moved here in 1869 from the nearby Piazza Navona, but the origins of this space as a main piazza go back to the early 15th century. You will find some clothing stalls and souvenirs scattered among the food booths, including the tourist items like T-shirts. There's quite a lot of packaged foods, herbs, spices and dried pasta that you could bring home.

Campo de Fiori is certainly one of the world's great outdoor food markets, in the heart of Rome between the Piazza Farnese and Piazza Navona, very easy to find. It goes all day with different personalities from very early until beyond midnight. It's fruits and vegetables in the morning, with some olive oils and souvenirs.

Midday, it's a lunch area with restaurants all around it. In later afternoon it's free form, and evening it really comes to life with the restaurants and the wine bars, everybody out enjoying this Campo de Fiori.

Two-minute summary of the Campo.

We'll take you through the complete daily cycle of the Campo. You'll see the stands getting set up by the merchants in early morning and then get to work trimming and preparing the vegetables and fruits for sale. We'll talk to some vendors and get their perspective on working here…every morning, every day.

We'll have lunch at several of these excellent restaurants all around the Campo. And then stick around for the evening and have some wine at one of those many outdoor bars. You'll see how this Campo can be the focal point for Romans when they want to do some major celebrating, like the time Rome won the Italian football championship.

This has to be considered one of the best, most fun piazzas in all of Italy. Consider the diversity of what you've got here. The morning market, the great restaurants around it, the evening activities, the special events in the beautiful setting amidst these historic buildings, with charming pedestrian lanes leading out from it in all directions, conveniently located in the center of town.

This piazza has everything. Campo de Fiori is teeming with friendly people, tasty fruits, vibrant colors, animated conversations, varieties of vegetables, sweet smells, energetic vendors, local shoppers and atmosphere galore.

The main attraction here that draws in the visitors and the locals is the big selection of fresh fruits and vegetables of the highest quality. Not only are the merchants selecting and arranging and selling the produce, they're doing a lot of work to trim it so that it's ready for use.

It's really quite fascinating to watch these expert craftsmen do their work. Watching their deft moves might give you a few ideas for speeding up your own food prep techniques. They don't use any cutting boards. It's all hand-held. Here's an example of how fast and skilled this lady is in slicing her vegetable without even looking, while she's talking to us, carrying on a conversation, she's cutting automatically. Been doing it for so many years it comes without thinking or even looking. Some vendors will cut a variety of vegetables into the same dish to prepare for your vegetable soup.

“For supa? Si, verdura, Ah, si, si. Minestrone. Minestrone.”

Preparing these fresh vegetables in this skillful way makes it so easy for the customer to bring the items home and prepare dinner. Most of the people shopping here for this type of food are those residents who live in the immediate vicinity. You are probably not going to be cooking, unless you have a vacation rental. However, this is a good spot to just pick up some snacks, maybe fruits and olives, drink some more coffee. Take lots of pictures and just soak up that atmosphere.

The fruits are ready to eat and can be washed in the convenient drinking fountains at both ends of the compound. One favorite stand has green olives that are processed in fresh water and lightly brined. That gives them irresistibly buttery, sweet flavor, as found in Castelvetrano Olives, with a clean and refreshing taste, unlike fermented olives.

The clever merchant will offer some free samples to get you interested, so be sure to have a taste. You can buy a few small bags of these green olives and keep them for a few days for tasty snacks down the road. That same stand also has dried herbs and spices for pasta sauce. That can make an ideal purchase you can easily put in your suitcase and take home.

Herbs stay fresh for many weeks and makes a good gift for friends. When you get home, make some authentic Italian spaghetti sauce to remind you of your visit to this lively square. The little piazza is a great place for taking colorful pictures of bright red, yellow, purple, pink and green fruits and veggies, as well as candid people photos of the workers and shoppers, most of whom are so busy they won't notice or care if you're pointing your camera at them.

They are so used to being photographed that most will simply ignore you. But if you say hello and ask permission, you might get into a friendly conversation and maybe get to play with their pet dog. It's a place to meet some locals and strike up a conversation if you wish.

Most of the people are quite friendly and speak some English, but what you hear most of all is the beautiful sound of Italian when the vendors are shouting out their offerings. “Hey!”

 You can also buy some kitchen gadgets here that can make your cooking a little bit easier, as demonstrated by one of the long-term vendors at the Campo, a real character.

“Tell me, what's your name?” “Prospero, Prosperity.”

We spotted another kind of mechanized gadget for sharpening knives. He brings this old contraption right to the restaurants and homes to sharpen them on the spot. It's conveniently built right into his moped so it can get around quickly.

The truffle is a special item that comes into season during the fall, usually October and September. The wonderful truffle of Italy. It's quite expensive. Perhaps 200 euro for a little piece. Porcini mushroom is another specialty at the market, one of Italy's unique wild foods offered primarily in the fall.

These big fungi don't travel well, so you generally will not find them served fresh outside of Italy. They've got practically every kind of produce you could ever find in a European market. There's artichoke, asparagus, strawberry, fennel, zucchini, porcini mushrooms, plum, kiwi, tomato, radicchio, spinach, squash, cucumber, melon, fava beans, peas, garlic, leeks, green beans, potato, onion, Swiss chard, chocolate, mixed greens, apple, peaches, carrots, cabbage, pears and cherries. They've got everything.

The morning market is what makes this Campo unique. So if you are an early bird trying to squeeze the max out of your Rome hours, or perhaps you're waking up early from just arriving in Rome and having jetlag at the start of a trip, you should consider coming over here first thing in the morning. Even as early as 6 a.m., when the vendors are just starting to set up their stands.

Campo de Fiori gets going first thing in the morning, quite early, by 6:30 they're already setting up for business. By 7:00, they'll be in pretty much full operation. It's really quite interesting to watch the Campo de Fiori come to life.

They bring their goods in, in their little trucks and get everything set up before the customers arrive. In this pre-dawn hour, you'll see all manner of oddball wheeled devices being pushed, pedaled and driven into the still-dark piazza, as merchants bring stands from their overnight storage in nearby warehouses. Crates of produce are stacked high, delivered by tiny three-wheeled trucks that look more like an overgrown moped.

Seeing this busy activity so early in the day makes you appreciate the hard work of these merchants. They push all the stands in, set them up, work them all day selling produce, and then take them down later in the afternoon, and push the stands back into the warehouses again. Every day it's the same cycle.

They are not just arriving at the shop and unlocking the door, but instead have to drag in all of their equipment, assemble their shopping space, and then in the afternoon, take it all back down again and carry it away. Umbrellas are raised, peaches arranged, white smock vendors march in, conversations, ring loud in the air with the fountains burbling and the antique lamppost still shining in the dark blue, predawn sky above.

It's quite a free show. It's almost like a choreographed theatrical performance: dancers on the stage of the piazza working in a rhythm that's become automatic to them after doing this for so many years. The Campo de Fiori in the morning is endlessly fascinating, just watching the place come to life. In some ways this setup is more interesting than watching the market in full operation.

It is wonderful to observe this act of becoming, as all of the produce is brought in and the umbrellas are set up, they're shucking and cleaning the vegetables now, and it's really quite a lively scene. And this happens from about 6:00 every morning except Sunday morning when they're closed. And it's worth taking a look at if you're up early when you're in Rome.

In Rome, early in the morning, there are not very many coffee shops open, but the area around the Campo de Fiori comes to life pretty early like this. So here you can get some coffee. These little neighborhood coffee shops are a great place to start your day. If you're up early, early in your tour, you might be feeling a little bit of jetlag and wake up at 5 a.m. or 5:30. And that's a little too early for breakfast at the hotel, which usually starts at about 7 a.m.

So if you've got some time and you're staying in the center as we are, you can take a little stroll, have a look at the Campo de Fiori coming to life, and grab a coffee at one of these nice corner cafes that are already open by 6 a.m. It's rare in Europe, actually, to find cafes open at 6 a.m. Here at the Campo de Fiori it's different. This place comes to life early.

One of the cafes next to the Campo provides delivery service of coffee to the merchants. The waiter is from Bar Farnese. He gets an early start and works all day and brings his drinks as much as 100 meters away from his cafe to his clients. No payment made, just put it on the tab. And then move along to the next customer. This guy moves very quickly, and those cafes provide welcome hospitality to the traveler, who is trying to wake up in this early dawn visit to the Campo.

When returning to the Campo, you might walk through a covered passage, a tunnel through the building underneath what had been the ancient theater of Pompey. There are still a few remnants of that theater in the neighborhood. You might get lucky and have a chance to see how they make these cobblestone pavings, trimming the rocks by hand and placing them into sand. There's no concrete, cement or asphalt.

This square has a long history. During the time of the Renaissance it was very much the center of Rome. This was downtown Rome, and it was the main market square. You have some important buildings around it, some palaces. One block over is the Piazza Farnese, which in its day was the largest and most important palace in the city. It housed the Farnese family, who produced several popes, very important and wealthy people. And so this was the heart and soul of Rome in the 1500s and the 1400s.

The Campo has served various purposes including being an execution field. This is where Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake. That bronze statue high on a pedestal in the middle, it's the hooded, brooding Giordano Bruno, a philosopher who was burned at the stake on this very spot for heresy in 1600. He agreed with Galileo in the great dispute with the church that the earth was not the center of the universe.

Bruno's thoughts went well beyond Galileo He speculated that not only is Earth a small object in a very large universe, but there might also be other universes, something modern astronomers are considering today. He looked up at the sky and saw stars that he imagined were just like our own sun. Pure heresy to the church. So they executed them.

Many other people were executed here, particularly in the 17th century, for various sorts of what could be minor offenses people were hanged, they were stoned, and they were burned. It was a big popular activity for the audience. There were people staying in hotels nearby just so they could be close to the executions, which could happen several times a week.

In those days, people were not locked up for a serious crime. They were exterminated. Further back in history, in ancient Roman days, there was not a lot going on in this location. It's believed this may have been a meadow with flowers growing. That's the name, Campo de Fiori, which means field of flowers.

There was a significant building right next to the Campo, the Theater of Pompey, a huge building, seating perhaps 20,000 people and taking up as much land area as the Colosseum. You can see the curve of the theater in some more recent buildings constructed on its site. Some traces of the theater are still left inside a few restaurants, such as Hostaria Costanza, with an interior that includes part of the original theater. Costanza is one of many fine restaurants surrounding the Campo de Fiori.

One of the top-rated gourmet eateries next to the Campo is Ditirambo, offering authentic Roman and Italian cuisine in the historic center, just a block from Campo de Fiori in front of Palazzo Della Cancelleria. You know the pasta is fresh because they're making it right in the dining room. Penne arrabbiata is one of those Italian dishes that you can enjoy forever. We came in the mid-afternoon, but if you're here for dinner, make reservations.

Another classic restaurant, a block from Campo de Fiori that's been here forever is Grotte del Teatro Pompeo. I've eaten here many times, and it's always been a big success for my groups with homemade pasta and very efficient service.

It can be fun to get two kinds of fresh pasta on your plate for some variety. And yes, they also have porcini mushrooms. They're also located on the site of the ancient Teatro di Pompeo. Returning into the Campo de Fiori now, for the last restaurant on my list of places that we've enjoyed.

There are many good restaurants right on the Campo, and one of the best is restaurant Virgilio. It has excellent food, the perfect location with outdoor tables right on the piazza and really friendly service. OK, granted, for you restaurant purists out there, you can get a better meal in Rome, certainly. But these restaurants around the Campo have that one essential, unique ingredient, and that is this wonderful location.

Pizzeria Virgilio was quite fine, a great spot to eat. You know, in picking a restaurant, of course, you want to have good food, and they have good food here. And you'd also like to have some kind of ambiance, some kind of a setting. So this turned out to be a perfect spot. Of course, these are rather touristic restaurants on the Campo, but I have had a lot of great experiences with the food and also with the friendly workers here.

They are really happy to have you as their customer. And the pasta is fresh, homemade, the pizzas are delicious, and the service is quite good. When you include the busy scenery, if you're sitting at an outdoor table for your lunch, looking out at the activities of the Campo, this is a wonderful combination and it makes a great place to eat, including Carbonara, a legendary restaurant at the end of the Campo.

Along with all of the fruits and vegetables and restaurants, the Campo has become a major shopping place for souvenirs, T-shirt and carrying bags, which are always great items to purchase because it's so easy to pack them. They are not expensive, they say Italy, even if they're made in China, and they make terrific gifts when you get home. Various other clothing items and packaged foods like dried pasta and olive oils.

There are a lot more vendors selling merchandise now than there had been five or ten years ago. It seems like nearly half of the booths in the Campo are not for food, but they are for clothing, gadgets and various kinds of souvenirs., t because there is much less food sold here now, this market has fundamentally changed in character, away from a place that used to be where locals would come to buy their produce for the day. Now, there is much less of that because the food has gotten more expensive, while the market has become more touristic. Yet still, a colorful and excellent place to visit.

There is a residential neighborhood all around the Campo for many blocks, in the old apartment buildings which have become extremely expensive. This area has gotten gentrified where only the wealthy can afford to live here in the center anymore, making them some of the main customers that keep these produce stands going.

Later in the afternoon things get quiet in the Campo as it settles into that typical local rhythm of siesta. But then the action picks up again before twilight as the city comes back to life. The Campo is a lively party scene in the evening when wine and beer flow like water and hundreds of people gather at the tables and stand in the piazza, chattering and laughing.

Evening also makes a good time to have dinner. There are terrific cafes and bars all around the square, and side alleys extend out with even more restaurants.. So do drop in for a drink or a complete meal at one of these busy spots. It's especially lively on weekend nights. In the evening, it's beautifully lit. The fountains are going. Restaurants are open. People are friendly and talkative. Music's in the air.

Young and old share the space and tourists are somewhat hard to find. It's a very hip gathering spot for locals. The atmosphere is casual. You're not going to see gentlemen wearing suits and ties or ladies in high heels walking on the cobblestones. It's all very comfortable and laid back. Even the dogs are having fun, happy to play with each other. Some souvenir stands are still going and nearby shops stay open until eight or 9:00

The pedestal of Bruno's statue makes an ideal place to sit down, have a chat and do some people-watching. The Campo is one of the last of the open-air large food markets in the city. Most of them now are enclosed under a roof. Plus, there's about a hundred very small neighborhood corner markets, many of which are open air.

Sometimes there are special gatherings, maybe political demonstrations, or celebrations. I was here years ago, the day that Rome won the National Soccer Championship, and they hadn't won in about 15 years. It was insane. This was the main rally and it was packed, standing room, singing, cheering, waving their banners. It was the most exuberant, happy crowd I've ever experienced in my life. Way beyond Times Square at New Year's Eve.

A couple of workers in the market had some very interesting insights into the current status and future of this marketplace.

“This is the most the ancient market of Rome,” says Sonia Proietta, a long-time merchant here. “It is about the 14th century. It's very important to, you know, to the traditional fruitsellers in Italy, because I think in about 20, 20 years it will disappear. There won't be nothing out there of Roman characteristics.

- So the color, the perfume, the shouts and everything concerning the market will be over. Some people call it progress. I think that to be happy with the history and with the lives that we are living now and to get along with it. We are all friends anyway. We know each other about 20, 25 years. So, it's quite fine. One big family.”

- Very upscale, expensive neighborhoods. Very expensive. Very. Million euro. And it wasn’t like this when I was a child. Just the poor people lived in the center of Rome.

- The very first that came here in Rome and bought the houses was the American people. It was the American people. Smart. Wall Street. New Yorkers.

I also talked with Rosanna Farina, who owns and operates the newsstand on the Campo.

- How long have you been working here at the Campo? 

- 30 years, at the Campo de Fiori. This shop was my grandmother’s.

- You've seen some changes here at the Campo de’ Fiori, but is it still a food market?

- Now it is a special touristic market. Touristic market? Yes, yes. But local people come still to buy food?

- Yes, but the market, the vegetable, the fruits, are so expensive. Expensive. Yes. The vegetables here, expensive. For normal people that live in Rome, I don't shop here.

- Yeah, you buy outside.

- Near my home, outside.

- Even though you work here.

- I work here, but I don't live here. And I have my garden with my vegetables.

Continue on to St. Andrea della Valle