Wifi for budget-minded American travellers in Rome (i.e., those not staying at four-star full-service hotels) is still, for the most part, a future-tense thing. It took me over four hours of wandering around and getting lost before finding an internet “point” (i.e., walk-in salon) that offers wifi for people carrying laptops. 95% of Rome’s internet environments are still offering 2001 technology with rented flatscreens. Forget wifi — they don’t even offer ethernet cable plug-ins! I asked the guy at the desk if he knows of other operations like this one (which I’m sitting in, just up the hill from Piazza Barberini). “Places like this are rare,” he said with a certain resignation.
