A Trastevere Tasting Walk, Timed for Sunset

The hour matters here more than the itinerary. Trastevere is built in ochre and burnt red, and at sunset those walls take the light directly and hold it for about twenty minutes before the street lamps come on. Walking the alleys then is a different proposition from walking them at noon, when the same streets are in flat shade. The route is a tasting walk through the quarter Romans rate highest for food, taken at that hour, on cobbles and through the alleys rather than along the main streets. What you get out of it is a working knowledge of where to eat in Trastevere for the rest of your stay, which in a quarter with this density of restaurants is worth having before you pick one at random. Sunset is not a fixed hour, and that is the first practical consequence of building a walk around it. In Rome it falls just before half past four in early December and close to nine at the end of June. The departure time moves with it through the year, so check the time given for your own date instead of assuming a standard evening slot. The meeting point is not in Trastevere. Vicolo dell'Aquila is a lane off Via dei Cappellari, on the Campo de' Fiori side of the water, which means the quarter is reached on foot across the Tiber rather than started in. The name says as much: Trastevere is trans Tiberim, beyond the Tiber, and the walk gets there the way the name suggests. What is included is more than the word tasting implies. Wine, food stops, gelato and a dinner are all in the price. Read it as the whole evening's eating, and do not book a restaurant for afterwards. No duration is published for this one, which is another reason to leave the rest of the night open. This one is marked not wheelchair accessible and asks for a moderate level of fitness, which follows directly from the route: alleys and cobbles, with steps in places, are the reason for walking Trastevere off its main streets in the first place. Dietary requirements go in at the time of booking. Twelve people at most, guided in English, and the operator asks you to phone ahead if you are running late.