DK Travel : Rome : The Spanish Steps and Villa Borghese

Here is rome at its most orderly and elegant, carefully laid out under 16th-century papal urban planning schemes. Baroque popes such as Leo X and Sixtus V redeveloped the all but abandoned area around the Corso, the extension of the ancient Via Flaminia from northern Italy, for their rapidly growing city. Romans now call it the Tridente after the trident of streets - Corso, Ripetta and Babuino - diverging from Piazza del Popolo. It’s an area stamped by a love of theatricality: the beautifully symmetrical Piazza del Popolo; long vistas that stretch down arrow-straight roads; the carefully landscaped Pincio gardens and the lush expanse of Villa Borghese; the stage-set backdrop of the Spanish Steps; the oversized and overwrought Trevi Fountain. It’s also Rome’s most stylishly self-conscious district, famous for its boutiques hawking frighteningly expensive high fashion. Artists have long made their home along Via Margutta, as numerous galleries and antiques shops attest, and Rome’s most elegant passeggiata (the traditional early evening see-and-be-seen stroll) unfolds down the length of Via del Corso.

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Palazzo Colonna

The gallery features work by Tintoretto, Lotto and Veronese.
Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti

Well-cut women’s clothing that is feminine yet powerful and modern.
Piazza del Popolo

Rome’s elegant public living room started as a trapezoidal piazza in 1538. In 1589, Sixtus V had Domenico Fontana build a fountain crowned with a 3,200-year-old obelisk – the 25-m (82-ft) megalith from Heliopolis, honouring Ramses II, was brought to Rome by Augustus. Napoleon’s man in Rome hired Giuseppe Valadier to overhaul the piazza to its current Neo-Classical look in 1811–24, a giant oval that grades up the steep slope of the Pincio via a winding road. Valadier also added the fountain’s Egyptian-style lions (see Santa Maria del Popolo).
Porta del Popolo

Michelangelo used the Arch of Titus as the model for this gateway.
Prada

The most highly priced of the top Italian designers. A Milan fashion house making minimalist, slightly retro clothing.
Remainders

Does exactly what the name says: sells overstock books at up to 50 per cent off their original price, including lots of luxurious art catalogues and coffee table tomes.
Santa Maria dei Miracoli and in Montesanto

Carlo Fontana was responsible for these late 17th-century “twin” churches, although Bernini guided him in the decoration of the more elaborate Montesanto.
Santa Maria del Popolo

A priceless lesson in Renaissance and Baroque art, architecture and sculpture can be found in this spectacular church.
Santissimi Apostoli

This 6th-century church, restructured in 1702–08, has a trompe-l’oeil vault above the altar.
Shaki

Post-Modern wine bar serving salads and sandwiches with a few tables outside. They also have a very good speciality foods store at Piazza di Spagna 65.