If you need a break from the tourist crowds of Rome, escape into a museum…Not the Vatican museum or the Borghese, but smaller ones,
like my favorite, the Palazzo Barberini, where Audrey Hepburn lived in Roman Holiday.
Climb these stairs designed by Borromini…
Imagine what life was like back in those seventeenth century days when the Barberini family lived and partied here. Now the rooms are the Galleria Nazionale dell’Arte, hung with paintings by Raphael, Caravaggio, Lippi.
A lovely morning stop, followed by lunch at Colline Emiliane (Via degli Avignonesi 22, 06/481 7538), for specialties of the Emilia Romagna region.
Oh how I want to go!! A friend of mine is going for Thanksgiving. There really is SOMETHING magical about Italy.
We were a few blocks away from the Palazzo Barberini, It was a wonderful museum, especially the fresco in the big room, with the couches you could lie back and look at the ceiling. it is hard to believe anyone actually lived there. I spent time walking around the back area which was going through renovation. really quite beautiful.