Via Condotti

VIA CONDOTTI
If luxury had an epicenter, these few square blocks would be it. 

Even if you haven’t arrived in Rome flush with a year-end bonus, don’t leave without making at least an anthropologist’s tour of V. Condotti (1), into which more famous – name shops and historic addresses are squeezed than seems legal—starting with the face- off of Yves St. Laurent, at no 77 and Dior at no. 73-74 opposite, followed in head-spinning succession by Prada, Bruno Magli, Gucci, Bulgari, Cartier, Valentino, La perla, Louis Vuitton, Armani, Ferragamo, Mont Blanc, Hermès, Valentino again, Versace, and a few you may never have hears of – like Battistoni, at no.61A, where the Duke of Windsor had his suits tailored. 

Arrive at dusk, when the gleaming glass storefronts twinkle like diamonds and shoppers crisscross the 

pedestrian-only street with the avid glee of the boys let loose in the pleasure park in Pinocchio.

 Stop into Caffè Greco (2) at no. 86 for an aperitif and a sniff of the air once breathed by Gogol, Goethe, Stendhal, Byron, and Baudelaire, then continue your shopping tour with a right onto equally luxe Via Bocca di Leone (3), following it to Via della Croce (4), which adds food boutiques and restaurants to the neighborhood mix. Cut back across Piazza di Spagna to Via Borgognona (5), where you can visit Laura Biagiotti, “the queen of cashmere,” at no. 44 and finish your walk with a stroll up Via Frattina (6), where shoes are a big attraction, and which ends most somberly at the palazzo housing the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (7).