It Starts at Half Past Five, When Trastevere Wakes Up

The 5.30pm start is deliberate. It catches the hour when the quarter changes over: the shops still open, the tables being set outside, the first people arriving for a drink before dinner. Start at eight and you miss all of it. Four hours, on foot, more than five stops running from savoury to sweet. Italian starters and street food first, then a full dinner, eaten across family-run places rather than in one restaurant. Several have been in the same hands for generations, and this is the quarter where Romans still bring their families to eat on Sundays. The walking between stops covers the parts of Trastevere that are worth a detour. San Francesco a Ripa, which holds one of Bernini's last sculptures, the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, carved when he was nearly eighty and almost always empty of visitors. Tiber Island. Ponte Sisto. Piazza Trilussa. The guide is local and fills in what you are eating and why the recipe survived, which in Rome usually has more to do with poverty than with luxury. Meet in front of the church of San Benedetto in Piscinula, Piazza in Piscinula 40. The walk ends at the gelateria on Via Roma Libera.