After sixteen years at the head of the federal government, the Chancellor is on vacation in Rome. Until now, for Angela Merkel, the beauties of the capital were just a sequence of images that she collected from the windows of the cars that took her to the palaces and political meetings. Now it’s finally time to delve into the monuments and alleys, as announced last October during the “farewell visit” in his public role, first to the Vatican by Pope Francis and then to the Palazzo Chigi. He said to Prime Minister Draghi: “My love for Italy will continue, I will stay in Rome, I will return in a different guise”. Said and done. Yesterday early in the morning she left a hotel in the Trastevere area, followed by a “light” escort and the same Germanspeaking couple who will help her to decipher the places of art and archeology. They had been spotted together the previous day walking the streets surrounding the Pantheon, stopping in front of the obelisk in Piazza della Minerva (carved to a design by Bernini). Informal clothing: jeans, shoulder bag and a lot of curiosity in the eyes. Yesterday, on the other hand, Angela Merkel’s attention (again wearing one of her iconic colored jackets) was drawn to the Michelangelodesigned Porta Pia: her tour is a tour off the clichés, off the basics. An exception is the lunch break in the Piazza del Popolo in a room of the Dal Bolognese restaurant. A great classic. Text by Roberta Petronio. Photo service BenvegnùGuaitoli
