Rome blog for Bed & Breakfast Chaplin Hostel

8 Porta Portese Tips

This Rome information blog about the Porta Portese fleamarket in Trastevere is written for the guests of the B&B Chaplin Hostel Rome and the Bed and Breakfast Little Italy.

The Porta Portese flea market: Big crowds in small spaces, pickpockets, gypsies, aggressive stallholders, chaos… Here follow some tips on how to best visit Rome’s liveliest Sunday morning spot.

1. Get up early and avoid the biggest tourist crowds.

2. Bargain! The word “tourist” is written in large letters on your forehead so the price of things doubles as soon as the stallholder lays his eye on you. Getting something for less than half of the original asking price is not exceptional in Porta Portese.

3. Before starting to bargain, try to figure out for yourself how much you would be willing to pay for an object. Unless you are an expert, you will not know its real anyway, so just, so begin by using your own common sense.

4. Speak English. Being friendly and using your humble and respectful mouthful of Italian just puts you at a disadvantage and increases your chances of being humbly and respectfully taken for a ride.

5. Be extremely careful for pickpockets, especially after 10am, the peak time of the Porta Portese flea market. Like most streets in the ancient part of Rome, the ones in Trastevere are extremely narrow and you will be forced to shuffle rather than walk through the crowds: a paradise for pickpockets and gypsies.

6. Do not keep your wallets in your back pockets, keep your backpack and phot camera in front of you where you can see them, and hide your valuable possessions underneath your clothes, or leave them in the room of your hotel, hostel or bed and breakfast.

7. Obvious, but still: nothing, really nothing offerd for sale at the Porta Portese flea market dates from ancient Roman times.

8. Buying a fake Louis Voutton-bag or Rayban-sunglasses can get you fined. This is rare, but when it happens, play the dumb and humble tourist game.

9. Do not be afraid, be careful, otherwise you might forget to enjoy the market and Porta Portese is well worth it.

This Rome information blog about the Porta Portese fleamarket in Trastevere is written for the guests of the B&B Chaplin Hostel Rome.

Porta Portese, the biggest and most colourful flea market of Rome and Italy, is held every Sunday, in the quarter of Trastevere, around the Via Portuense and the Via Ippolito Nievo.

Over two thousand dealers have stalls at Porta Portese and you can buy anything at the flea market, from antique wardrobes to the tiniest and most banal household goods.

There is an atmosphere of semi-illegality at Porta Portese: Between the official market stalls the “vu-comprà”, in the past mostly Africans, nowadays also many Chinese and Bangladeshi immigrants, have set up their blankets and cardboard boxes with fake sunglasses, CD’s, DVD’s, hand bags and cheap jewelry.

Professional thieves are meanwhile trying to sell the cell phones and photo cameras they stole in the course of the week in the center of Rome or on the same day at the market itself.

Officially the Porta Portese flea market starts at 5am every Sunday morning and continues till more or less 2pm, but in reality many stalls start packing up 1 or 2 hours earlier than that, especially when it rains or during the hot Rome summer months when the Romans abandon the Eternal City in droves.

Both the crowds and the, sometimes rather aggressive, stallholders can be quite overwhelming, so in a separate Porta Portese blog entry I have written some tips on how to deal with the market.

From the Chaplin Bed and Breakfast the Porta Portese market can be reached by taking the 64 bus from Termini to Largo di Torre Argentina, and then taking the number 8 streetcar.

Trastevere

Trastevere got its name because of the quarter’s location – in a bend in the river Tiber (tra is between, Tevere is Tiber, hence), which flows through Rome.

During daytime the quarter is fairly quiet, but at night Trastevere is one of Rome’s liveliest areas, thanks to its narrow, winding streets, picturesque little squares and especially its growing number of restaurants, cafes and pubs.

Trastevere’s first inhabitants

Until the beginning of the 20th century Trastevere was really a no man’s land, plagued by malaria and continuous floodings, mostly populated by pickpockets, prostitutes and sailors waiting for their next ship.

The first ones to find permanent abode in Trastevere were Jews and freed slaves. Initially the Jews were mostly traders who managed to earn a living thanks to the vastness of the Roman empire. After the empire’s fall they stayed in Trastevere (In the Vicolo dell’Atleta the remains of an old synagogue can still be seen.)

Trastevere’s main tourist attractions

The Christians were also welcomed in Trastevere. The first basilica dedicated to the virgin Maria can therefore also be found in Trastevere. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which started its existence as an inn, is one of the main tourist attractions of the quarter.

Other sights worth visiting are the Villa Farnesina, the Palazzo Corsini and the Orto Botanico (Botanical Gardens).

Rome’s biggest market

Every Sunday morning Porta Portese, Italy’s biggest flea market, takes place in Trastevere. From the most insignificant household goods and trinkets to antique furniture (not always equally antique, to be sure, so be careful), if it exists, it will probably be sold in Trastevere. Bargaining is definitely recommended, since blond hair and foreign languages are well known to cause instantaneous inflation of prices. It is best to arrive very early in the morning, when there are no that many people yet. Towards 10 or 11am it will be impossible to move without rubbing shoulders with other people. Quite a few of those shoulders, incidentally, are attached to arms and fingers that are very adept at opening zippers and emptying pockets, so once more, be careful.

From Chaplin Bed and Breakfast to Trastevere

To reach Trastevere from Bed and Breakfast Chaplin Hostel Rome you need to take bus 64 of 40E from Rome Termini to Largo di Torre Argentina, where you take tram 8. Until 8pm there is also a direct bus from Termini, the “H” bus, which is far less frequent though.