Traveler’s Notes . . .

Rome’s mayor decreed that Piazza del Popolo should be a piazza for pedestrians only, banning the cars that had turned the city’s largest square into a giant parking lot. The decree took effect last week. The 16th century square, with its ancient Egyptian obelisk, has undergone a $2.1 million restoration. . . . Thirty rare photographs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown prior to the devastating 1906 earthquake go on display Saturday through March 28, 1999, at San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. Information: tel. (415) 863-3330. . . . We knew there were a lot of golf courses in the Palm Springs area, but are there really 94 of them? That’s the count given last month by the Palm Springs Desert Resorts Convention and Visitors Bureau, which covers Palm Springs, Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage and other resorts in Riverside County.