Italy’s Best Piazza?

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Begin your day in the center of Rome at Campo de Fiori outdoor fruit and vegetable market, one of Italy’s best piazzas -- maybe the best! Campo de Fiori is teeming with friendly people, tasty fruits, vibrant colors, animated conversations, varieties of vegetables, sweet smells, energetic vendors, local shoppers, and atmosphere galore. This setting is perfect, surrounded by very old buildings with cobbled pedestrian lanes leading off in all directions into a great neighborhood we shall explore next. This friendly and lively piazza is one of the major focal points of the city, just three blocks south of Piazza Navona.
Arriving any time in the morning is good, but earlier is better. Campo de Fiori makes a great start for our walk: it is the only main attraction opening by 6am and it is simply a wonderful morning scene. This magical Campo has multiple personalities, changing character throughout the day: Rome’s main veggie market in the morning, a ring of busy restaurants at lunch, peaceful in the afternoon, and a party scene at night.
Nearly all the vendors have worked here for years and know each other like family, making for a cooperative, communal attitude. Ladies traditionally do most of the trimming to get the produce ready for display, so watching their deft moves might give you a few ideas for speeding up your own food-prep techniques.
A special item that comes into season during the fall, usually October and September, is the truffle, the wonderful truffle of Italy. It’s quite expensive, perhaps $200 for a little piece, but more affordable as an ingredient of your meal in a good restaurant. The classic presentation is served freshly sliced onto a simple pasta dish with a plain oil or butter sauce, which allows the pungent, earthy truffle aroma to explode in your mouth. The finest truffles are the white variety from Piedmont, tastier than the more famous black French version.
Porcini mushroom is another specialty at the market, one of Italy’s unique wild foods offered primarily in the fall. These big fungi don’t travel well, so you generally don’t find them served fresh outside Italy. Most good restaurants in Rome will offer them in season, and the porcini mushroom is absolutely worth tasting, either as an ingredient in the pasta sauce or as a dish unto itself grilled to firm perfection. They have become so famous that some have been marginally cultivated in other parts of the world, and dried packets are widely available – but dried is nothing like the real thing.
The morning market is what makes the campo unique, so if you are an early bird trying to squeeze the max out of your Rome hours or someone waking up early from jet lag at the start of a trip, do consider coming here first thing in the morning, even as early as 6:00am when the vendors are just starting to set up their stands. In this pre-dawn bonus hour you will see all manner of oddball, wheeled devices being pushed, pedaled and driven into the still-dark piazza as merchants bring stands from their overnight storage in nearby warehouses. Crates of produce stacked high are delivered by tiny three-wheel trucks (more like overgrown mopeds). Umbrellas are raised, peaches arranged, white-smocked fish-vendors march in, conversations ring loud in the air with the fountains burbling and the antique lamp posts still shining in the dark blue, pre-dawn sky above. It is quite a free show.
It’s fun to just hang out and watch everybody getting set up for their morning’s work. By seven o’clock the vendors are fully open for business and the second act of this street theater has begun.
Don’t come too late because by mid-day most food stands have shut down -- the merchants have packed up their goods and pushed them back into the nearby warehouses for overnight storage. The center is clear, ready for the next act. Around noon it transforms into a popular luncheon piazza, encircled by a dozen outdoor restaurants which are fascinating to observe, and tasty, if rather touristic: fine for simple pizza, salad, pasta or drinks, and ideal for its people-watching atmosphere from an al fresco table. If you are hungry for excellent food, the adjacent lanes are sprinkled with better choices, such as Ditirambo, Costanza and Teatro di Pompeo.
The Campo de Fiore becomes a lively party scene in the evening when wine and beer flows like water and hundreds of people gather at the tables and stand in the plaza, chattering and laughing. It is beautifully lit, the fountains are going, restaurants are open, people are friendly and talkative, music is in the air, young and old share the space, and tourists are hard to find. It’s a very hip gathering spot for locals, hanging out, seeing and being seen. There are terrific cafés and bars all around the square -- drop in for just a drink or a complete meal at one of these busy spots, especially lively on weekend nights.