Eating in the Ghetto and Under Pompey's Theatre, Four Hours

Four hours, seven stops, mostly at family businesses that have been in the same hands for a century or more. It begins in the Ghetto at the Turtle Fountain, with the carciofo alla giudia, the artichoke flattened and deep fried until the leaves go to glass, which is the dish this quarter gave the city. Around it: the new synagogue, the Portico d'Ottavia and the Theatre of Marcellus, Roman ruins with flats built into them. Then west to Campo de' Fiori. Pizza margherita and a light beer at one of the best known bakeries in Rome, with the difference between Roman and Neapolitan pizza explained while you eat both kinds of crust. Cured meats, cheese and a glass of wine near the square where the city burned its heretics. The stop that makes this walk is the next one. Somewhere under these blocks are the foundations of the Theatre of Pompey, and you eat pasta among them. It was in the hall attached to that theatre that Julius Caesar was killed. After that, tiramisu on the way to Piazza Navona, an espresso at Sant'Eustachio, open since 1938, and a gelato at Largo Argentina, where the remains of the same complex stand in a pit below street level, excavated under Mussolini and now full of cats.