A Wine Cellar Older Than the Colosseum: Ghetto and Trastevere

One of the stops is in a cellar that was already there before the Colosseum was built. You eat pasta with beef ragù in it, with a list of wines to go with them, which is a strange thing to do inside a Roman structure that predates the Flavian amphitheatre by more than a century. Ten stops in all, across three quarters: Campo de' Fiori, the Jewish Ghetto, Trastevere. Two of the places on the route are named, Da Enzo al 29 and Spirito Divino, both members of the Slow Food network. It opens with a porchetta sandwich in pizza bianca and a glass of red. Then the Passetto del Biscione, a covered passage most people walk past without looking up. In the Ghetto the food changes register, because the Roman Jewish kitchen developed separately: the ricotta and sour cherry tart from a pastry shop that has been making it for generations, eaten later with a glass of prosecco. Fried cod fillet and a supplì with white wine at a historic restaurant. Carciofi alla giudia, the whole artichoke pressed flat and fried until the outer leaves snap like crisps, eaten standing in the street. The route also passes the Portico d'Ottavia, standing since the 1st century BC, and Tiber Island, the only island in the river inside the city. Gelato at the end, with an explanation of how to tell the real thing. One difference worth knowing when you pick a departure: the morning tour includes a tasting at the Campo de' Fiori market, which is not running in the evening. The evening tour goes instead to a historic spot for Roman fried street food. The guide waits by the green newsstand with a purple Eating Europe bag.