Rome day 3: ghetto, Trastevere, Triton, Quattro Fontane

Par Gabriel Goldberg 7 June 2026 6 min read

Day three in Rome on foot. This time I wanted to climb the city through its fountains and parish churches — from the Jewish ghetto to the alleys of Trastevere, then from Bernini's Triton to the Quattro Fontane crossroads. A day to understand that Rome reads as much in baroque marble as in the lap of water and the hum of a guitarist on a bridge. Portico d'Ottavia: the gateway to the Jewish ghetto Portico d'Ottavia, an Augustan precinct that became the threshold of Rome's Jewish ghetto. The walk starts at the foot of the Portico d'Ottavia , raised by Augustus in honour of his sister Octavia and rebuilt by Septimius Severus in 203 AD — that's the inscription you still read on the pediment. For centuries the building housed the ghetto's fish market; today its Corinthian columns open onto Via del Portico d'Ottavia , the spine of Rome's Jewish quarter, the oldest in Western Europe (instituted in 1555 by Paul IV). As in Trastevere I walked the day before , Rome here refuses the postcard: carciofo alla giudia , memory of the October 1943 round-up. Fontana delle Tartarughe: quiet elegance on Piazza Mattei The Fontana delle Tartarughe, designed by Giacomo della Porta (1581), with bronze ephebes by Taddeo Landini. A few steps away, on the silent Piazza Mattei , one of Rome's most beautiful Mannerist fountains: the Fontana delle Tartarughe , designed by Giacomo della Porta in 1581 and cast in bronze by Taddeo Landini . Four ephebes lift small turtles into the upper basin — added in 1658,…