In a way, Italy began from the first announcement of the Alitalia flight crew, while still on the ground in Abu Dhabi.

It is rare to hear Italian on the Arabian Peninsula, and to most Americans it is a delightful language. Round and rhythmic, almost like poetry with its cadences and energy. Wonderful to hear at any time; more so when it has been a year or two.

The Italian carrier not long ago instituted a daily nonstop between Rome and Abu Dhabi, and we took advantage of that to return to Italy’s capital. For the first time in a generation, for me.

Day 1 showed me a side of Rome I had never seen — the Trastevere neighborhood.

The flight: Simple and direct. Alitalia has been losing money forever, and it was a sort of no-frills flight, but it was a modern piece of Airbus equipment, with a 2-4-2 layout (and nearly full), and the entertainment package was quite broad (I finally saw Lincoln and watched The Hangover for about the fourth time). We were on the ground  5.5 hours after leaving, having lost about 30 degrees of temperature to the good, from 102 Fahrenheit to 72 — which was a key part of the plan.

We were met at the airport by a driver who took us on the harrowing 45-minute ride into the city, depositing us at the unremarkable front door of the apartment complex we will stay in for a week — in a semi-gritty neighborhood on the western side of the Tiber (Tevere), and shown up 35 steps to our one-room place with a bit of a view where we plan to stay for a week.

We soon realized we were on the northern edge of the district, probably closer to the Vatican than to Trastevere’s increasingly well-known restaurants and pubs.

The walk down the cobbled streets to the tourist havens took a fair bit of time, and we decided to have a late lunch at Gli Amici, above, on the Plaza de Egidio. I had buffalo mozzarella with cherry tomatoes and a bit of oil, and it was quite nice, with a large glass of Peroni beer. Leah went straight for the linguini with clams, not the last time that will happen.

We also went to Fior de Luna, a gelateria which seems to be in the running for “best gelato in Rome”, in part because of its careful use of ingredients. I had the gelato classic, lemon, and it was excellent. Best in Rome? Way too early to tell.

We returned to the room for a bit of rest, and then we went back out (about a 15-minute walk, to the main tourist stuff) to see if we could find a shop that sold tickets to the Lazio v Sampdoria soccer match tomorrow. That took us through some different bits of the neighborhood, and had us going up and down Viale Trastevere, looking for this fabled office, and being redirected several times by locals puzzled that we should be looking for Lazio tickets there.

Trastevere is, without question, a touristy place. Which is good and bad. Good, in that in a fairly dense area you have a choice of dozens of competitive restaurants in a semi-charming old-time setting. Bad in that you often are maneuvering through throngs of tourists on narrow streets, and contributing to the crowding.

The tightness of the neighborhood cannot be overstated. The cobbled streets might be 12 feet wide, with people walking on either side, and to try to negotiate those streets on any vehicle bigger than a motorcycle is a bad idea.

We pretty much collapsed after the second trip to the bustling part of the neighborhood, and a return along the shady lane next to the Tiber. We stayed in the room, aside from a run to get some panini sandwiches and drinks, and by 10 p.m. we were fried.

Tomorrow, we begin looking around at some of the traditional sights here, and maybe some of the less-traditional.

First blush? Rome is not Paris, our usual spring retreat since moving to Abu Dhabi in 2009. But what city is?

Let you know as we go.

Oh, and late in the evening I heard that Wigan won the FA Cup, defeating Manchester City, and I was quite pleased by that.

One of our English football correspondents did a nice job of summing up the unlikelihood of it all, as outlined here ahead of the match.