What Finding a Bench Tells You About a City

One of the easiest ways to understand a city is to try to sit down

My wife and her daughter went to the Vatican Museum in Rome. I didn’t join them.

All I wanted to do was find a bench, sit down, and watch the urban theater unfold. Bonus points if the bench was located in an area where locals outnumber tourists.

I quickly discovered it’s next to impossible to find a bench in Rome. And the ones that do exist aren’t great. In fact, they’re not really benches. They’re concrete blocks that make sitting for any period of time awkward and uncomfortable.