Seventeen years ago, actress and political activist Susan Sarandon went to Rome and experienced a miracle. Arriving to film Mussolini & I, she was already a star from her performances in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pretty Baby, and Atlantic City. Born and raised in New Jersey, she started life as Susan Abigail Tomalin. Yet in Rome she was reborn, falling in love not only with the city, but also a Roman, who fathered her first child. “I just fell in love with the light and the people and the food,” she remembers of her first visit. “The fact that there’s so much history … . It’s reassuring that when you have evidence of the past, it somehow makes you feel there could be a future.” She returned to the U.S. and broke through the Hollywood actresses’ normally dreaded age-40 barrier with a series of strong, sexy roles, including The Witches of Eastwick, Bull Durham, and Thelma & Louise. Then she won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Dead Man Walking. This month, Sarandon’s back as the voice of Ivy, a wise dog who provides guidance to a confused beagle puppy tapped for spy duty in Cats & Dogs, a family comedy combining live-action puppetry and computer imagery. Though Sarandon now lives in New York with actor Tim Robbins, their two sons, and her first child, daughter Eva Amurri will always remain, at heart, a citizen of Rome. Here’s a weekend with Susan Sarandon in the Eternal City. FRIDAY LODGING “The De La Ville Inter-Continental hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. It’s smaller, which I love. It’s actually where I got pregnant, which was like a miracle for me. It’s one of those hotels that have little tiny balconies. If you’re in the front, you overlook the whole city, and if you’re in the back, you overlook one of those strange, magi- cal little views of everybody’s laundry hanging out. I stayed in the room where Lennie Bernstein had stayed. There was this amazing light and the birds were all singing. It’s just idyllic.” DINNER "Quinzi & Gabrielli is still the best, most fabulous seafood restaurant. The best fish you could ever imagine and the best oysters. It’s in the old part of the city, very close to the Pantheon. You can’t get any better than that. Another great fish restaurant, almost on the level of Quinzi, is Alberto Ciarla. In Rome, the restaurants don’t change like they do in New York or L.A. About 10 yards from Quinzi is La Rosetta. That’s also fish. Then, we have the old showbiz places like Dal Bolognese on Piazza del Popolo. When I was doing The Tempest, John Cassavetes brought everyone there to eat.” NIGHTLIFE “Of course, everybody just walks around. Go to the Piazza Navona, which has a medieval circus atmos-phere with performers all year round. I remember going there to people-watch on those nice, balmy nights. The Fontana dei Fiumi is the fabulous fountain in the middle of the piazza, where all the kids run around late at night. If you’re with kids and not dieting, you can get great gelati, ice cream in all sorts of flavors. Tre Scalini on the Piazza Navona is famous for the tartufo chocolate dessert. Somehow, you can eat and eat in Italy and you never gain weight. Piazza Santa Maria della Pace, Square of the Peace, is a La Dolce Vita kind of place where everybody goes. It’s full of paparazzi and bars like Bar della Pace. The Trattoria Pizzeria della Pace is also there, a great hangout. Try the pizza bianca.” SATURDAY ESPRESSO “There’s nothing like getting up in the morning and having one of those incredible espressos. In Rome, there isn’t such a thing as what you think of as breakfast in America. You get a croissant and cappuccino at the local bar. But you can sit and people-watch at the Raphaël, a really old, tiny hotel, which is lovely. Also, the Fonta delle Tartarughe, Turtle Fountain, is a beautiful place to begin your day.” SIGHTS “I love the Colosseum, and so do my kids. All of these cats used to live there. The Colosseum is a very dramatic sight. You can get books that have a plastic sheet that shows the city the way it used to look before it was in ruins. Then you pick up the sheet and see the ruins. You get a rush from being inside these old buildings, which have such a strong presence, such resonance. And then you go nearby and there will be somebody dressed in a gladiator costume, an actor, getting a bottle of water in his Spartacus outfit.” MUST-SEES “I saw the Sistine Chapel before and after it was renovated, and I have to say it was so bright when they finished painting it. That’s a must, but it’s very difficult because of the wait — especially during the tourist season. There are a number of other chapels that have amazing paintings — lots of very ornate angel happenings all over the place — that are lesser known. The Galleria Borghese museum is in the middle of the 17th-century Villa Borghese park. Then, of course, you have the Vatican Museum, which is sort of the Disneyland of Rome. There are lines around the block.” LIVING LIKE A ROMAN “The trick with Rome is just to get brave and start wandering around. You come around a corner and you’re in some fabulous piazza. And every view you get when you look out your back window — and I’ve lived in a number of apartments there — is just enchanted. Between the light and the food and everyone seeming to be in love, it’s just a magical place. It’s a good antidote to the lives we have in the busy cities, because you really can’t get anything done, even if you wanted to. Every-thing closes down for hours during lunch. I’ve always joked that if it said ‘One Hour Photo,’ you’d have to figure out which was the one hour where you could actually get anything processed.” LUNCH "You’ll find the real Rome, as opposed to the tourists’ Rome, in the upscale neighborhood Parioli, which has several fantastic restaurants. One is Celestina, which is the hip, trendy place where all the soccer players and everybody go. It’s hard to get a table, but it’s really worth it. If you want to have an American meal, there is Jeff Blynn’s, named for a former top male model who owns it. It’s like Morton’s in L.A. — great traditional American food.” SHOPPING “Campo de’ Fiori is wonderful. When I was living in Rome, that was the marketplace where I went. There’s a day you get your chicken, a day you get your flowers, a day you get your bread. It’s on one of the most beautiful little squares, which, at night, is the most popular place for young people. There are three wine bars, one better than the next, all on the square. All of the great designers are on the Via del Corso, Via Condotti, and Via della Croce — the Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive of Rome. But I prefer the little stores in and around Piazza Navona. Many of them are on a charming street, Via del Governo Vecchio, which has little antiques stores, boutiques, and mom-and-pop shops. That street is like a time capsule. Antica Officina di Santa Maria Novella has been around forever. It’s a really old pharmaceutical company from Florence, which makes something called Poivere per Bianchire le Carni, which means something like ‘the dust to whiten your skin.’ It’s the most amazing face mask. From this, they built an empire of natural products. Also, Pineider is probably the oldest stationery store in Italy. They did stationery for the Medicis.” TRANSPORTATION "Going in and around the older parts of the city on a motorcycle is the best. It’s hard to get around in a car. With a bike, you can break all the rules and get places much quicker — going down stairs and through one-way streets. I did it on a motorcycle in the romantic summer of my pregnancy. Up and down all the little streets the wrong way. I must say that the parking rules are crazy. You park up on sidewalks. It’s just a free-for-all. Parking is impossible, and with a car you’re stuck in traffic. You really do better on foot.” DINNER “The hottest place in town is ’Gusto near Piazza Augusto Imperatore. It’s a very successful L.A./New York-style trendy restaurant. It’s quite big, with tables tight under the columns of this modern-looking square. We used to go to the Tuscan restaurant Nino with Gore Vidal. It’s right at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. We would sit there all night long and have a fabulous dinner, and then everybody would start singing. There are a lot of places where you never see tourists, where the Romans live: Prati, a residential area comparable to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which has Cesare, a really, really wonderful Tuscan fish and meat place. Il Matriciano is a very special place, one of the top five restaurants in town. The owner, Alberto and his sister, Rosetta, know everything about everybody. If you want something known, you go to the restaurant and tell them about it. A week later, everybody will know.” NIGHTLIFE “Goa is a great club in the Ostiense area. One of my favorite areas, besides the old part of the city, is Trastevere. It’s very much like the SoHo of Rome. There are galleries and pubs, and it’s funky and quite international. But the real Roman rite is to get a pizza after the theater or the movies. One of my favorite pizzerias is Nuova Fiorentina in the center of Prati. Amazing pizza, amazing food — not too big, not too small, just right — and you’re sure to run into writers or intellectuals or someone you know from television or the movies.” SUNDAY EXCURSION “The Appian Way is incredible. Just outside of the city, it becomes an old paved Roman road just the way it was during the gladiator era. You’ll find the same landscape as you’d see in movies like Spartacus. The ruins and the catacombs line both sides of the street. If the Colosseum gives you a feeling of ancient Rome, the Appian Way makes you feel that you’re still in ancient times.” ONE MIRACULOUS NIGHT IN ROME “In the summer of 1984, I was working on a film in Italy with Bob Hoskins and Anthony Hopkins and an international cast. It was eventually shown as a TV movie in the U.S. called Mussolini & I. I played Mussolini’s daughter. I met up with Franco Amurri, who’s now a writer/ director still living in Rome. Franco was working for Leonard Bernstein, translating his opera, which was being done in Italy. I was with another friend and I ran into him and we started dating. I was all over Italy that summer: Lake Como, Verona, everywhere, filming this thing about Mussolini, and spending time with Franco in Rome. We basically did Rome on a motorbike. That was the magic summer when I conceived my daughter. When I tell people that she was conceived on the Spanish Steps, they always have this image of us actually prone on the Spanish Steps. But in fact, it was in a room at the De La Ville hotel atop the Spanish Steps. It was more than magical. It was a miracle, because I was told I couldn’t have children. Eva was born in March 1985. I stayed in Italy, living right off the Piazza del Popolo, and then near the Piazza Navona once my baby was born. I always tell people who have been trying to conceive but haven’t that they should just go to Rome and eat and drink and be merry, and miracles will happen. I wasn’t looking to get pregnant, and I wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant. What does that tell you about Rome? If you want to start a family, that’s the place to go. If you want to start your life in any way, I recommend Rome.”
Source: http://americanwaymag.com
