THE MANY STORIED LAYERS OF ROME

Just as in a many-layered lasagna, timpano or tiramisu, Rome cannot be tasted in one bite.

- VICKY VELOSO-BARRERA

The city was built layer upon layer over millennia so that excavations yield a strata of older structures underneath. As when you savor a spoonful of tiramisu, where coffee liqueur-soaked ladyfingers vie for your taste buds with rich mascarpone and bitter cocoa, so the many facets of Rome crammed into its spaces demand your careful attention. For culture vultures, it's hard to take Rome casually when so many jewels of architecture and art are begging to be revealed. Add to that the Roman art of living where the simplest yet most perfect of meals, followed by the most ordinary of pleasures like the passeggiata — a stroll through cobblestoned streets — are sublime.

My experience of Rome, having visited several times through the decades, is also layered. In my teens the wonder of Rome lay in shops like Fiorucci and Sportmax offering trendy and affordable fashion (yes, back then!). To stretch our budget, we alternated days of sightseeing with shopping. By the nth church I concluded, with my blissful lack of appreciation, that all churches look the same. Which is not to say, 40-plus years later, that you won't get church or gallery fatigue if you pack your itinerary with the myriad churches, gallerias, palazzos and piazzas. But at least I now view the gorgeous ruins and Baroque architecture, with everything else in between, as more than just a way to stay away from the Via Del Corso and other temples of fashion.

When my sister and I were in our 20s, running our eponymous Vicky&Letlet Veloso boutiques, trips to Europe were both work and play. Italy was where we stayed the longest, and not just because of the fashion-lined streets surrounding the D'Inghilterra hotel where we always stayed. Nor was it because the Trevi fountain was a stone's throw away or the presence of handsome carabinieri. Mainly, Rome was far less expensive than Paris or London, which we also needed to visit for their own fashion points of view.