Lined with neighbourhood trattorias, small shops and the occasional clerical outfitter, Borgo Pio is one of the most atmospheric small streets in central Rome, running for a few hundred metres between the Tiber and the walls of Vatican City just north of Saint Peter Square. The name and the layout date from the sixteenth century, when Pope Pius IV reorganised the surrounding quarter. The Borgo quarter, the medieval district that grew up beside the Vatican to serve the steady flow of pilgrims to Saint Peter, was one of the most distinctive parts of old Rome, with narrow lanes hugging the walls of the papal city and a population that mixed pilgrims, clerics, innkeepers and the workshops that served them. Much of the original Borgo was demolished in the 1930s to make way for Via della Conciliazione. Borgo Pio survived the demolitions and now offers a glimpse of what the wider district was once like. Stone-paved streets, three- and four-storey houses with ochre and pink facades, and an unpretentious row of bars and small restaurants give the street a neighbourhood feel that contrasts sharply with the grandeur of the Vatican basilica a few minutes walk away. Clerical outfitters cluster along the street, selling cassocks, birettas, chalices and other vestments and liturgical items to the steady stream of priests and seminarians from across the world who pass through on Vatican business. Souvenir shops selling rosaries and prints sit beside more upmarket religious goods retailers. The eateries along the way are mostly modest neighbourhood places, popular at lunchtime with Vatican employees and at dinner with Romans and visitors looking for a calmer alternative to the heavily touristed restaurants on the main piazza. Several quietly excellent small kitchens have built loyal followings. For visitors interested in the everyday life of the area around the Vatican, or simply looking for somewhere pleasant to eat before or after a visit to Saint Peter or the Vatican Museums, Borgo Pio offers an unusually intimate counterpoint to the grand axis of the Conciliazione, and its low-rise streetscape gives some sense of how the medieval Borgo would have felt before the twentieth-century clearances.

Type: Street

Address: Rome, Italy