I first visited Rome in 1997. Though it wasn’t my first trip to Europe, I was … well, thrilled would be a mild descriptor.

My wife Mary Pat Treuthart was in Florence to teach in the Gonzaga in Florence program, which at that time was offering students a junior year abroad experience. She took the train down to Rome and met me when I arrived at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport. Then we traveled by train back to Roma Temini before cabbing to our hotel near the city’s famous Spanish Steps.

I don’t remember much of that first day, except for our walking through the city’s crowded streets – no matter what season, Rome’s streets always seem to be crowded. At one point near dusk I spotted the wondrous site of The Pantheon, lit up as it was in the growing darkness.

I remember well the next morning, though, as I sat alone at the rooftop restaurant of our hotel, enjoying my first bona fide Italian-made cappuccino. Coffee has never been the same for me since that first sip.

(By the way, my friend Matt and I argue all the time about which coffee is better, Italian or French. Though he won’t admit it, he never wins. How could he?)

Since that first visit, I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited Italy several more times. In fact, I’ve been there so many times that I’m one of the few people I know, besides Mary Pat, who has visited all 50 U.S. states and all 20 regions of Italy.

And though I do have my favorite spots – Florence, Trieste, the whole of Sicily, the Lipari Islands and the island of Pantelleria, the city of Pescara in the Abruzzo region – I always love returning to Rome. Some of my most fond memories are from there.

Here is one of the best of them: In 2011, two years after I left the print edition of The Spokesman-Review, I was hired by Bloomberg Government, the Washington, D.C.-based news organization. My friend Ken Sands was an editor there, and he was instrumental in my snaring the job (which consisted mostly of my working remotely, from Spokane, as an aggregator and copy editor).

Anyway, when in October of that year Mary Pat was awarded a month-long scholar-in-residence position at a Rome law school (Luiss Guido Carli School of Law), I was able to work out of Bloomberg’s Rome office, which sits just off the Piazza del Popolo (I almost added “historic Piazza del Popolo,” but virtually everything in Italy is historic).

Since the apartment that we rented was about a half hour’s walk from the office, I would rise every morning at 6, shamble to the bus stop in the dark and then ride to the Piazza del Popolo where I would begin my workday at 7.

There’s so much to unpack here. First, I would usually arrive in the piazza well before the Bloomberg office opened. I would wait around until the caffetteria sitting next to the office opened its own doors so I could enjoy my morning cappuccino and brioche (which basically is a croissant).

I soon learned that another caffetteria across the piazza was a favorite of the great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini – the guy responsible for such great movies as “8½,” “La Dolce Vita” and “Amarcord.” Many mornings I would imagine a scene featuring the man, even though he had already been dead for some 17 years. Nevertheless, I would picture him sitting there in the sun with a scarf stylishly draped across his shoulders, sipping an espresso and discussing some future project.

But, back to reality … when I would leave work in the early afternoon, I preferred to walk home just so I could make my way through the scenic Villa Borghese gardens. Sometimes I would go out of my way just so I could walk past the Piazza di Spagna, site of the popular tourist site the Spanish Steps. It was hard not to feel a bit special, walking along wearing a tie (a Bloomberg requirement) and thinking, “Look at all these tourists. I’m a working guy … in Rome!”

Here’s another special memory from that stay: It marked the fall of the fourth iteration of the government of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On the night Berlusconi resigned, Nov. 12th, Mary Pat and I were out walking. We could hear the crowds gathering, both pro- and anti-Berlusconi, all over the city. I made sure to guide us away from any trouble, which goes against the instincts of a born journalist (which, to be honest, I never have been).

But back in the office, I witnessed a scene that could have come straight out of a movie – though likely more something directed by Howard Hawks than anything by Fellini.

I was sitting behind my computer terminal as the typical office buzz of business filled the room. Bloomberg Television played on the big-screen TV that loomed prominently over the office, playing the latest market news, while reporters around the room either talked to each other or to someone they were interviewing over the phone.

That was when the office director’s phone rang. I heard him identify himself (he always spoke in a booming voice), pause for a second and then – almost as if he were auditioning for a part in “His Girl Friday” – say the following:

“I don’t have time for this! I’m a journalist and the Italian government is falling!”

And with that, he slammed down the phone with the kind of force that, if he were an actor in a stage play, would earn a round of applause.

I kept waiting to hear someone yell, “Cut!” No one did, of course.

But to this day, I imagine hearing it … though I prefer to hear it in Fellini’s voice.