10.13.2008

Bella Roma - part 1

Your one stop Roman shop - from Popes to emperors with every she-wolf and coliseum in between

I feel like I left part of my heart in a sunny palazzo in Rome. What an amazing place and what an amazing trip we had. Here is a rundown by day for the first half of the trip, accompanied by photos.

DAY 1 - SATURDAY
We had arrived at Marco and Pasquale's apartment around midnight on Friday, so we woke up not knowing where we were or where anything else was either. So we took off walking without a map and promptly came returned to the apartment 20 minutes later to fetch the map after already getting lost. Cut to two hours later when we finally stopped walking in generally the right direction to get pizza (delicious) and caffeine (necessary) and just like that found a metro stop which took us into the center. We decided to go to the most cheesy tourist attraction first, the Trevi Fountain, but turned the wrong direction upon getting off the metro and had to seek shelter in a cafeteria during a brutal thunder and lightning storm (more pizza and my first panini of goodness). When the rain stopped we actually got on the right track and managed to find something! Here I am after tossing my coin, though at this point I wasn't too interested in returning to Rome.

How wrong I was. The rest of the day was fantastic. 
We dodged rainstorms to see the Pantheon -- I loved that we were constantly semi-directionless, so we wound up approaching it from the back, which is very impressive and gives an idea of the scale and age much more than the front does. It is beautiful and bizarre. We got coffee at Tazza d' Oro, one of Rome's best coffee shops, I bought boots because my feet were cold in their ballet flats and no socks, and we wound up having afternoon wine in the cloisters at Santa Maria della Pace completely by accident. The Caravagio paintings at San Luigi dei Francesi were right out of my art history books and stunning. We wound up wandering the fancy fashion streets by the Spanish Steps at nightfall (after Tom had more pizza) and ate dinner at one of Fellini's old haunts. And then we caught the metro back to the nearest station and walked 30 minutes or so to the apartment. I don't think I ever fell asleep faster.

Day 2 - SUNDAY

Exterior and interior of Santa Maria in Trastevere

The morning dawned sunny and cool, and we woke up more mass transit savvy, as we managed to catch a bus directly to the Porta Portese flea market. It. Was. Huge. The best things? Tables filled with used handbags for three euros each and tables of cashmere sweaters for 30 euros each, but really, there was something fairly fabulous at every turn. I left with one used handbag and Tom left with a new backpack, so we let our eyes do the shopping instead of our cash. After the market we wandered through Trastevere and visited one of the coolest churches of the trip, Santa Maria in Trastevere. We lunched al fresco where I discovered that rucola, fresh pear slices, Parmesan and lemon juice is a delicious salad to accompany a nice white wine. And on the pear theme, after lunch I had the most amazing pear gelato -- it had the grit that fresh pears have and all the sweetness too. For an ice cream fanatic, I was in heaven, especially because I had a scoop of pistachio as well. To work off dessert, we walked up the Janiculum hill for the view of Rome below. 

Nuns making me smile on Janiculum hill

Three nuns from my favorite order (I like their habits the most) were up there too, which made me a little giddy. We continued the walk up more hills into a large park, where we wandered amidst the roman statuary and assorted grottoes -- in a way it reminded me of the backyard pool area of our next door neighbor during the 70s, all random stone figures and a strange sense of nothingness (though none of the statues we saw in the park were of a boy peeing, so that was different). There was a cricket match going on at the top of the park, so that was cool too. Back in Travestare, we had pizza (are you getting the theme?) and suppli' (fried rice balls -- the Roman bitterballen but better) before heading back to the neighborhood for more pizza at the place downstairs from the apartment. Fabulous day.

Day 3 - MONDAY

Pompeii head, columns and mini coliseum 

Pompeii mosaic room and storage room

We got up early and caught the train to Naples, en route to Pompeii. I won't bore you with the travel particulars, but know that we were right on form, catching the wrong commuter trains and having to backtrack, getting lost and running late (only after taking advantage of the Sephora in the Rome station). But we got there with time to wander. It was beautiful and strange, but I wish I had gone to Herculeam instead, as I hear it is better preserved and a
bit less crowded. That said, it was very, very cool and a place I had imagined seeing since I was a little girl. After a semi-stressful trip back to Rome, I found us a restaurant serving Neapolitan food in dining room decorated in quintessential seafood restaurant grotto style and a singer. Fabulous. The food - great. The atmosphere - great. The song "Volare" - beyond great. On the way back to the train station we passed a hotel that looked cool so we went in and got a room for Tuesday through Friday nights just to be a little closer in. 

Day 4 - TUESDAY
Evil smile in the Coliseum, Forum column and headless vestal virgin

Roman Ruin Day!!! We hadn't seen the Coliseum at all yet, so there were proper awe-faces made when we exited the metro station and saw it straight ahead of us. We were so struck by awe, in fact, that we had to get coffee and pastry before taking it on. Very cool, but the Forum was cooler. It is so vast and so evocative that you can easily imagine what it must have been like 2,000 + years ago. Yes, that's a two with three zeros after it. And tour groups still flock there. What have we done today that will be worthy of touring in 2,000 years? Hmmm? Dinner that night was seafood risotto followed by pork roasted with pistachios and figs. 

Forum beauty

Gladiator

I will work on the text and images for part 2, but here is a preview: the Pope, scolding old people for breaking rules, wandering, food, wine, sun, coffee, beauty, fabulousness. Where to next???

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