Day One -- October 28, 2012
We were up early and happy to see that it was clear outside so our friend Paul could fly us to San Carlos (30 minute flight vs. 3 hour drive). We said goodbye to Tiger and Dusty and met Paul at noon for a nice flight to San Carlos. Our taxi was a little late, but we got to the International Terminal at SFO plenty early. We were surprised and happy to see that our Premium Economy seats got us Priority Check-In and into the Priority Security line which made for a very easy start for our trip. We were eating our traditional panini sandwich and toasting the start of our trip with a glass of wine and beer in no time! Our gate was downstairs and when we got to the gate we were a little worried to see that there was not an airplane at the gate. Our flight was listed as 20 minutes delayed and we were happy to finally see our airplane taxi in -- Air France only had one hour to clean up the airplane and get it ready for take off, but somehow they did it. Air France changed our airplane from an Airbus A340 to a Boeing 777 sometime after we made our reservations and made a mess out of the seating chart in the process. We had seats 11K and 12L and hoped to switch seats with someone in order to sit next to each other -- but found out that pretty much everyone in our section was in the same predicament! There was allot of bartering and switching going on and pretty soon everyone was sitting somewhere and we ended up next to each other in 11K and 11L! The 10+ hour flight went pretty fast even though neither one of us can sleep on these things -- we read some, watched the horrible Woodie Allen movie "To Rome With Love" and Steve Carell's movie "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World". We were also happy to find out that Air France had a dedicated bathroom for the Premium Economy section so we no longer had to walk back through the poor pitifull people in Economy to use their bathroom!
Day Two -- October 29, 2012
We landed at Paris CDG Airport almost on time and enjoyed getting to stretch our legs and get some fresh air while walking from Terminal 2E to Terminal 2F. We had about an hour to kill so we walked around some more and had a snack before they called our 2:00 PM flight to Rome. We were surprised that we were given a full meal on the flight and since we had just eaten something at the airport, passed on everything but the fruit and desert. After picking up our checked bag at Rome FCO we started following the signs for the long walk to the train into Rome which is called the "Leonardo Express". The tickets were 14 Euros each and we wanted to buy four (return also) so Mike tried to use his credit card, which was rejected. Luckily we had enough cash and were happy to see the train waiting at the bottom of the escalator although it was so crowded we had to stand for the 30 minute trip to Rome's Stazione Termini.
We got a nice cab driver for the short trip to our apartment, The Dolce Vita Residence at Via del Mancino, 11. After a little confusion in the elevator, we entered our home for the next ten nights, Apartment Federico Fellini (everything in the hotel had something to do with Italian movies).
We were very impressed with the big kitchen which had an oven and a clothes washer (very rare in Italy) and tons of counter and cabinet space. It was stocked with more plates and pots and pans than I intended to use since I don't really go on vacation to cook!
The apartment had a small living room with a sofa and chair and a dining room table with four chairs. We were very impressed with the HUGE bedroom with a beautiful vaulted ceiling. It also had a king sized bed, two closets, plenty of drawers, a desk and a makeup table. We were also extremely happy to see that the apartment had ductless air conditioners in the front room and the bedroom and that they had not been turned off -- which is very usual in Italy after September.
The front desk gave us directions to the DESPAR grocery store down the street and we headed down there to buy some beer, wine, paper towels and orange juice and then found a very crowded pizza restaurant at Piazza S.S. Apostle for a pretty good pizza. We were happy to go back to the apartment to finally clean up in our very large shower and unpack. We got in bed around 10:00 PM (after being awake for over 30 hours) and slept for four hours, got up for four hours and then slept for around three hours -- pretty normal first night.
We got a nice cab driver for the short trip to our apartment, The Dolce Vita Residence at Via del Mancino, 11. After a little confusion in the elevator, we entered our home for the next ten nights, Apartment Federico Fellini (everything in the hotel had something to do with Italian movies).
We were very impressed with the big kitchen which had an oven and a clothes washer (very rare in Italy) and tons of counter and cabinet space. It was stocked with more plates and pots and pans than I intended to use since I don't really go on vacation to cook!
The apartment had a small living room with a sofa and chair and a dining room table with four chairs. We were very impressed with the HUGE bedroom with a beautiful vaulted ceiling. It also had a king sized bed, two closets, plenty of drawers, a desk and a makeup table. We were also extremely happy to see that the apartment had ductless air conditioners in the front room and the bedroom and that they had not been turned off -- which is very usual in Italy after September.
The front desk gave us directions to the DESPAR grocery store down the street and we headed down there to buy some beer, wine, paper towels and orange juice and then found a very crowded pizza restaurant at Piazza S.S. Apostle for a pretty good pizza. We were happy to go back to the apartment to finally clean up in our very large shower and unpack. We got in bed around 10:00 PM (after being awake for over 30 hours) and slept for four hours, got up for four hours and then slept for around three hours -- pretty normal first night.
Day Three -- October 30, 2012
After our usual breakfast of rolls and orange juice, we headed out on what I had planned to be a nice light first day in Roma. We headed down the large and very upscale shopping street of Via Del Corso to the Galleria Alberto Sordi. This was a very beautiful old shopping mall created in 1923 with a huge glass ceiling and two cafes mid-mall where I had a cappuccino and Mike had a tea. We then headed down Via del Tritone to the very large, noisy traffic circle that is Piazza Barberini. We went downstairs to the Metro station where we only had change enough to buy three Metro tickets at 1.50 Euro each. We took the Metro to the next stop, Piazza Repubblica and walked across the street to the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli where a very lively demonstration of some sort was going on with music, dancing and lots of chanting -- none of which we could understand.
The church was once the great central hall of the Baths of Diocletian (about A.D. 300) and was designed by Michelangelo in 1561 who used the baths' main hall as the nave keeping the original walls of the baths as the front of the church. The church was very beautiful inside with lots of marble, statues and pillars including eight red granite columns from the original baths.
In the marble floor of the church is a sundial and meridian line which was completed in 1702 and still keeps track of the time and date through a little hole high up in the wall on sunny days.
After lunch of a pannini sandwich, wine and beer we found our way to busy Via Nazionale and walked twenty minutes back to the grocery store to buy more wine, Kleenex, Ringos (kind of like Oreo cookies, but much, much better), bananas and water. We dropped the groceries off at the apartment and then walked towards the Pantheon and ran into the surprising Piazza Di Pietra.
Out of nowhere in the middle of "old" Rome, truly ancient smacks you in the face. The facade belongs to a 2nd-century temple to Hadrian that, having fallen out of use over the centuries, became incorporated into the side wall of the Stock Exchange and Chamber of Commerce! Excavation of the columns and basement area in 1925 revealed the full glory of the facade we see today.
We walked back to the apartment to clean up and to call Wells Fargo so Mike could figure out why his credit card was rejected yesterday and got it settled without much trouble. It was starting to rain a little when we left the apartment at 7:00 to walk back towards the Pantheon for dinner at Il Buco, Via S. Ignazio, which was a Tuscan restaurant I had read about. We split an order of spaghetti vongole (clams), veal picatta and roasted potatoes with a very nice bottle of Brunello di Montalcino wine. Mike and I are light eaters so we regularly split dishes and as is kind of normal in Italian restaurants, they feel we have not eaten enough, so we get free deserts! They served us a nice complementary plate of cookies and two generous glasses of Vin Santo wine (a sweet desert wine that is perfect for dipping cookies into). A family was sitting near us and Mike found out they were from Germany and we talked to them a little before we left for another restless night.
The church was once the great central hall of the Baths of Diocletian (about A.D. 300) and was designed by Michelangelo in 1561 who used the baths' main hall as the nave keeping the original walls of the baths as the front of the church. The church was very beautiful inside with lots of marble, statues and pillars including eight red granite columns from the original baths.
In the marble floor of the church is a sundial and meridian line which was completed in 1702 and still keeps track of the time and date through a little hole high up in the wall on sunny days.
After lunch of a pannini sandwich, wine and beer we found our way to busy Via Nazionale and walked twenty minutes back to the grocery store to buy more wine, Kleenex, Ringos (kind of like Oreo cookies, but much, much better), bananas and water. We dropped the groceries off at the apartment and then walked towards the Pantheon and ran into the surprising Piazza Di Pietra.
We walked back to the apartment to clean up and to call Wells Fargo so Mike could figure out why his credit card was rejected yesterday and got it settled without much trouble. It was starting to rain a little when we left the apartment at 7:00 to walk back towards the Pantheon for dinner at Il Buco, Via S. Ignazio, which was a Tuscan restaurant I had read about. We split an order of spaghetti vongole (clams), veal picatta and roasted potatoes with a very nice bottle of Brunello di Montalcino wine. Mike and I are light eaters so we regularly split dishes and as is kind of normal in Italian restaurants, they feel we have not eaten enough, so we get free deserts! They served us a nice complementary plate of cookies and two generous glasses of Vin Santo wine (a sweet desert wine that is perfect for dipping cookies into). A family was sitting near us and Mike found out they were from Germany and we talked to them a little before we left for another restless night.
Day Four -- October 31, 2012
We had a reservation for the 10:30 AM Eating Italy four hour tour so we were up early and headed out to Piazza Barberini in a light rain after a nice breakfast of a beautiful apricot tart, blood orange juice, coffee and tea. We took Line B to Termini Station and went up several levels to take Line A across town to the Piramide stop. Following the excellent instructions from Eating Italy, we went between the Piramide and the castle-like Porta S. Paolo for the five minute walk down Via Marmorata to our meeting point. We were a little early so we found a nearby Bar and had a cappucino and tea to wait for our 10:30 start time. We met our tour guide, Kate, who was British and had come to Rome twelve years ago for a three month stay only to meet and marry an Italian! There were three others in our group -- a couple our age from Scotland and their grown daughter who now lives in Australia. Three other Americans were signed up for the tour, but never showed up. Kate started out the tour by teaching us the Italian sign for a good meal -- smiling while you poke your pointer finger into your cheek and rotate it back and forth.
We were given this map showing the route and locations of the seven different locations we would be visiting on the tour for ten different tastings! The tour takes place in the Testaccio neighborhood, which is one of Rome's most authentic neighborhoods, away from the tourist crowds.
We started out the tour at Barberini, a pastry shop making edible works of art since 1945. There we had a cornetto (looks like a French Croissant, but is much better) and a tiramisu in an edible chocolate cup. We next went to Volpetti Piu where we had a slice of pizza marherita. We then went to Volpetti which has been Rome's #1 gourmet food shop for over 40 years. We stood outside the crowded shop and tried some Roman prosciutto (prosciutto di San Daniele) which just about melts in your mouth, some salame al Barolo (made with Barolo wine), some pecorino al tartufo cheese (with truffles) and some parmigiano reggiano cheese. We then were given some time to go into the store and shop if we wanted to because it would be closing at 12:30. We then walked over to the famous Testaccio Fresh Food Market with over 70 family-owned fresh food stands. We picked up a bowl of fresh diced tomatoes and basil from one of the vegetable stands and took it over to the bread shop where we were given fresh grilled bread and garlic to make our own bruschetta. We then went to one of the cheese shops where the owner diced up some mozzarella di buffala cheese she had just made that morning and added it to the rest of the tomatoes so we had a fresh Caprese salad! We then stopped at the Dess'Art stand where we watched Costanza fill little cannoli shells with fresh ricotta filling and then ate them. We then walked over to Flavio al Velavevodetto which is built into the side of Monte Testaccio. Monte Testaccio is a small hill that is actually a 115-foot-tall ancient trash pile made of broken testae -- earthenware jars mostly used to haul oil 2,000 years ago. For 500 years, rancid oil vessels were discarded here and slowly Rome's lowly eighth hill was built! Because the caves dug into the hill stay cool, trendy bars, clubs, and restaurants were built here, including the Restaurant Flavio al Velavevodetto where we got to sit down and which has a glass wall at the back where you can actually see the layers of jars that make up the monte. At the restaurant we were served two different kinds of wine and three pastas -- cacio e pepe, amatriciana and carbonara. By this time Mike and I were starting to feel overly full and we still had several places to go! We then walked by the huge slaughterhouse for which this neighborhood was once known which is now a site for concerts and home to a branch of the MACRO contemporary art gallery. We then walked to 00100 Pizza where we tasted a fried rice croquet (Mike and I had to split one) and then to Giolitti da 1914 which has been a gelateria for nearly a century making all of its gelato by hand and in-house -- and even though we were awfully full we DID NOT split our gelato. We were told that in Rome you are guaranteed two flavors of gelato per cup at no extra charge and the owner was quite a showman saying he would not let you mix flavors that he did not feel were good together.
Not everything on the tour had to do with eating -- the Mark Antony/Cleopatra scandal (30 B.C.) brought exotic Egyptian styles into vogue and a rich Roman magistrate, Gaius Cestius, had this pyramid built as his tomb, complete with a burial chamber inside (although he was never buried there). Made of brick covered in marble, the 90-foot structure was completed in just 330 days. While smaller than actual Egyptian pyramids, its proportions are correct. It was later incorporated into the Aurelian Wall and now stands as a marker to the entrance of Testaccio.
The Cemetary for the Burial of Non-Catholic Foreigners (Protestant Cemetary) is a tomb-filled park running along the wall just beyond the pyramid. The cemetary was established in 1732 during the peak of the Grand Tour -- an era in which many northern European and North American poets, artists, and scholars settled in Rome and has more than 4,00 graves. It is also the home to a cat sanctuary and it was fun trying to pick out the cats sleeping on the graves.
One of the most famous graves is the tomb of John Keats (1795-1821) in the oldest section of the cemetary, but there is one thing missing from the tombstone -- his name! His last request was to be placed under a tombstone bearing no name or date -- only the words:
Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water
His best friend, the artist, Joseph Severn, is buried next to him.
We had planned on going to Eataly (more on it later) which is in this neighborhood after this tour, but we were so stuffed that we couldn't stand the thought of looking at more food!
We started out the tour at Barberini, a pastry shop making edible works of art since 1945. There we had a cornetto (looks like a French Croissant, but is much better) and a tiramisu in an edible chocolate cup. We next went to Volpetti Piu where we had a slice of pizza marherita. We then went to Volpetti which has been Rome's #1 gourmet food shop for over 40 years. We stood outside the crowded shop and tried some Roman prosciutto (prosciutto di San Daniele) which just about melts in your mouth, some salame al Barolo (made with Barolo wine), some pecorino al tartufo cheese (with truffles) and some parmigiano reggiano cheese. We then were given some time to go into the store and shop if we wanted to because it would be closing at 12:30. We then walked over to the famous Testaccio Fresh Food Market with over 70 family-owned fresh food stands. We picked up a bowl of fresh diced tomatoes and basil from one of the vegetable stands and took it over to the bread shop where we were given fresh grilled bread and garlic to make our own bruschetta. We then went to one of the cheese shops where the owner diced up some mozzarella di buffala cheese she had just made that morning and added it to the rest of the tomatoes so we had a fresh Caprese salad! We then stopped at the Dess'Art stand where we watched Costanza fill little cannoli shells with fresh ricotta filling and then ate them. We then walked over to Flavio al Velavevodetto which is built into the side of Monte Testaccio. Monte Testaccio is a small hill that is actually a 115-foot-tall ancient trash pile made of broken testae -- earthenware jars mostly used to haul oil 2,000 years ago. For 500 years, rancid oil vessels were discarded here and slowly Rome's lowly eighth hill was built! Because the caves dug into the hill stay cool, trendy bars, clubs, and restaurants were built here, including the Restaurant Flavio al Velavevodetto where we got to sit down and which has a glass wall at the back where you can actually see the layers of jars that make up the monte. At the restaurant we were served two different kinds of wine and three pastas -- cacio e pepe, amatriciana and carbonara. By this time Mike and I were starting to feel overly full and we still had several places to go! We then walked by the huge slaughterhouse for which this neighborhood was once known which is now a site for concerts and home to a branch of the MACRO contemporary art gallery. We then walked to 00100 Pizza where we tasted a fried rice croquet (Mike and I had to split one) and then to Giolitti da 1914 which has been a gelateria for nearly a century making all of its gelato by hand and in-house -- and even though we were awfully full we DID NOT split our gelato. We were told that in Rome you are guaranteed two flavors of gelato per cup at no extra charge and the owner was quite a showman saying he would not let you mix flavors that he did not feel were good together.
Not everything on the tour had to do with eating -- the Mark Antony/Cleopatra scandal (30 B.C.) brought exotic Egyptian styles into vogue and a rich Roman magistrate, Gaius Cestius, had this pyramid built as his tomb, complete with a burial chamber inside (although he was never buried there). Made of brick covered in marble, the 90-foot structure was completed in just 330 days. While smaller than actual Egyptian pyramids, its proportions are correct. It was later incorporated into the Aurelian Wall and now stands as a marker to the entrance of Testaccio.
The Cemetary for the Burial of Non-Catholic Foreigners (Protestant Cemetary) is a tomb-filled park running along the wall just beyond the pyramid. The cemetary was established in 1732 during the peak of the Grand Tour -- an era in which many northern European and North American poets, artists, and scholars settled in Rome and has more than 4,00 graves. It is also the home to a cat sanctuary and it was fun trying to pick out the cats sleeping on the graves.
One of the most famous graves is the tomb of John Keats (1795-1821) in the oldest section of the cemetary, but there is one thing missing from the tombstone -- his name! His last request was to be placed under a tombstone bearing no name or date -- only the words:
Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water
His best friend, the artist, Joseph Severn, is buried next to him.
We had planned on going to Eataly (more on it later) which is in this neighborhood after this tour, but we were so stuffed that we couldn't stand the thought of looking at more food!
It was starting to rain pretty hard on the walk back to the apartment from Piazza Barberini and I was kind of disappointed that we were not seeing any Trick-or-Treaters like we had seen in Florence and Venice -- probably due to the rain. After resting up and cleaning up it was still raining pretty hard so we decided to just go to the La Cabana Restaurant next door. We split the veal saltimbocca, a mixed salad and the house white wine. Again, I guess the restaurant felt we were not getting enought to eat and we received a free appetiser and soup! Mike got a very good reaction from our waiter when he gave him the finger in the cheek sign while we were eating our very good veal dish! After dinner we had a nice talk with a couple from Austria who were sitting behind us.
Day Five -- November 1, 2012
November 1st was All Saints' Day, a National Holiday throughout Europe, commemorating all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven (?) so I knew we would have to stay away from churches and church run museums. After another nice breakfast of rolls, blood orange juice, coffee and tea we headed down Via delle Botteghe Oscure to the small uncrowded Museo Crypta Balbi.
The "crypta" was an enclosed porticoed courtyard behind the stage of the Theater of Lucius Cornelius Balbus (13 B.C.). You can go underground and see the ruins, but what I thought was neat was the upstairs rooms that displayed what the historical center of Rome looked like in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, up to today and is made up of material discovered in the course of the archaeological excavations. During the different periods of use after the theatre was no longer in use, and consequently the crypta, this area was used as a dump and burial place, the site of two churches, and a religious institution to assist the needy young girls of the city -- which was called "The Confraternity of the Pitiful Virgins"! Despite its treasures, the Crypta Balbi wasn't a particularly large museum which is kind of nice -- and something I appreciated more after we went back to the Vatican Museum. There are several "wells" down which you can look to see the lowest excavated levels.
It was after 1:00 and we were starting to get hungry and thought the Jewish ghetto section of Rome might be a good place to go on this very Catholic holiday -- but unfortunately so did allot of other people. We finally found a pizza restaurant that had outdoor seating and had a so-so pizza (where we found out that pepperoni in Rome means red bell pepper, not spicy sausage!) with wine and beer. There were several very large family groups seated in our section and it was fascinating to watch as platter after platter of food was brought out and passed around the tables -- I don't know how they eat all that food without getting fat.
On our way out of the ghetto we ran into the Teatro di Marcello which we had discovered in 2007. This theater started by Julius Caesar in 50 B.C. and completed by Emperor Augustus around 13 B.C. was transformed into a fortress in the 11th century and a Renaissance palace was added to the upper levels in 1519! We heard from someone that one of the apartments was for sale for 40,000,000 Euros -- we would have to win the Super Lotto several times to afford that!
The relatively well-preserved remains of two temples survive side by side next to the Tiber River in the shadow of Rome's ancient cattle market.
The Tempio di Ercole, dedicated to the hero and demi-god Hercules and made of Greek marble survives because it became a church around the 12th century. The round structure, 49 feet in diameter, is Rome's oldest marble temple, dating to the second or early first century B.C.
From the pretty Giardino degli Aranci (Park of the Oranges) where the oranges were not ripe for picking we had beautiful views of the Trastevere (which means across the Tiber).
At the top of the hill is the palace of the Knights of Malta which is not open to the public. There is a key hole in the doorway that you can look through and see the exact same view that we had from the Orange Garden and for some reason there was a line to look through the key hole, but no line to stand in the beautiful orange garden and see the same view -- go figure!
We walked back down the hill, through the ghetto and found a nice place to have our afternoon gelato and wine near Largo di Torre Argentina. Largo di Torre Argentina are the sunken remains of four republican-era Roman temples from the third to second century B.C. Today, the columns, walls and steps are home to a cat sanctuary, with many of the contented and fat felines walking around the ancient stonework.
After resting a little we headed back to Il Buco Ristorante where we split an order of raviolli with salsa di noci (a Ligurian walnut sauce) and Mike had an order of oso bucco with roasted potatoes and I had a bowl of riboletta soup, again with a nice bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. We again got a nice plate of cookies and vin santo wine so didn't have to order desert!
The "crypta" was an enclosed porticoed courtyard behind the stage of the Theater of Lucius Cornelius Balbus (13 B.C.). You can go underground and see the ruins, but what I thought was neat was the upstairs rooms that displayed what the historical center of Rome looked like in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, up to today and is made up of material discovered in the course of the archaeological excavations. During the different periods of use after the theatre was no longer in use, and consequently the crypta, this area was used as a dump and burial place, the site of two churches, and a religious institution to assist the needy young girls of the city -- which was called "The Confraternity of the Pitiful Virgins"! Despite its treasures, the Crypta Balbi wasn't a particularly large museum which is kind of nice -- and something I appreciated more after we went back to the Vatican Museum. There are several "wells" down which you can look to see the lowest excavated levels.
It was after 1:00 and we were starting to get hungry and thought the Jewish ghetto section of Rome might be a good place to go on this very Catholic holiday -- but unfortunately so did allot of other people. We finally found a pizza restaurant that had outdoor seating and had a so-so pizza (where we found out that pepperoni in Rome means red bell pepper, not spicy sausage!) with wine and beer. There were several very large family groups seated in our section and it was fascinating to watch as platter after platter of food was brought out and passed around the tables -- I don't know how they eat all that food without getting fat.
The Tempio di Ercole, dedicated to the hero and demi-god Hercules and made of Greek marble survives because it became a church around the 12th century. The round structure, 49 feet in diameter, is Rome's oldest marble temple, dating to the second or early first century B.C.
The other temple, the rectangular Tempio di Portunus, is dedicated to a harbor god and built in the fourth or third century B.C. from local tufa (volcanic stone).
We walked by the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin because I wanted to test Mike by having him stick his hand in the Bocca della Verita (Mouth of Truth) like in the movie "Roman Holiday", but there was a long line of people waiting to do the same thing!! We then climbed up the steep Aventino (Aventine Hill) which is one of Rome's "seven hills". It was a nice uncrowded leafy residential district with wide-ranging views of the city.
From the pretty Giardino degli Aranci (Park of the Oranges) where the oranges were not ripe for picking we had beautiful views of the Trastevere (which means across the Tiber).
At the top of the hill is the palace of the Knights of Malta which is not open to the public. There is a key hole in the doorway that you can look through and see the exact same view that we had from the Orange Garden and for some reason there was a line to look through the key hole, but no line to stand in the beautiful orange garden and see the same view -- go figure!
We walked back down the hill, through the ghetto and found a nice place to have our afternoon gelato and wine near Largo di Torre Argentina. Largo di Torre Argentina are the sunken remains of four republican-era Roman temples from the third to second century B.C. Today, the columns, walls and steps are home to a cat sanctuary, with many of the contented and fat felines walking around the ancient stonework.
After resting a little we headed back to Il Buco Ristorante where we split an order of raviolli with salsa di noci (a Ligurian walnut sauce) and Mike had an order of oso bucco with roasted potatoes and I had a bowl of riboletta soup, again with a nice bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. We again got a nice plate of cookies and vin santo wine so didn't have to order desert!
Day Six -- November 2, 2012
We got a late start (my fault -- I think I have trouble using an alarm clock on vacation) but somehow managed to walk to Piazza Barberini and catch the Metro Line B, transfer to the Metro Line A at Termini Station, get off at the Piramide Metro Stop and walk through the maze of tunnels to the train station Roma-Ostiense to catch the 10:22 train to Bracciano. It was nice to see the bright green rolling hills dotted with small towns, olive groves and lots of sheep for the one hour trip. I had read the Bracciano was a summer resort and somehow expected it to be small and quaint, but it was actually very commercial and crowded on a steep hillside. We walked into town toward the castle (where Tom Cruise and Katie Holms were married) looking for a place to eat a quick lunch, but everything was so hectic we decided to go back toward the train station and look for a place to get a sandwich. We found a nice Bar (named The American Bar) and each had a ham and cheese toast with wine while we watched an episode of "CSI Miami" with Italian subtitles on TV! We went back to the station to look for a taxi stand, but it was empty when we found it. The girl at the Bar spoke pretty good English so we went back to ask her if she could call a taxi for us to take us the short distance to the Italian Air Force Museum. She said her phone was almost out of minutes and when we told her we had a cell phone but weren't sure how to use it to call Italy (we had only used it to call home) she looked at us like we were nuts! She took our phone and expertly called a taxi which came in about fifteen minutes.
The Italian Air Force Museum was opened to the public in 1977 and is located on the shores of Lake Bracciano (a large volcanic lake) at the historical airport of Vigna di Valle where the first airship construction yards in Italy, the first Italian seaplane base and the first air-sea rescue base were established. The museum consists of four big hangars and has over 60 airplanes, an extensive engine collection and hundreds of historical objects recounting the history of Italian aviation.
There were lots of airplanes and engines in the museum that we had never seen before (and quite a few that Mike had never heard of either), but the most beautiful and fascinating were Macchi experimental seaplanes to compete for the Schneider Trophy. Our favorite was the Macchi M.C.72 (closest airplane on the right) which was built in 1931 and was powered by a Fiat 24 cylinder engine reaching a maximum speed of 440.681 mph (even with those big floats as drag) -- a record that still stands today!
We decided to try and take the bus back to Bracciano when we found out the bus stop was right in front of the guard house at the entrance to the airport. As we were waiting for the bus, two men walked up to wait for the bus. Mike somehow had a nice conversation with the men who did not speak any English and found out they were policemen, one from Milan and one from Sicily. They were very impressed that Mike was a pilot since it is very expensive to fly in Europe. The bus was pretty late and one of the men called the central bus station only to find out the original bus had engine problems and they were trying to get another bus out our way! We had the business card from our taxi driver and asked one of the men to call him for us and were soon on our way back to town and the train station (we offered to share the taxi with our new friends, but they said they wanted to wait for the bus). We were just able to catch the 5:07 train and made it back to Roma-Ostiense Station by 6:30.
Since it was Friday night and rush hour, we were not looking forward to getting on the crowded Metro and were thinking of walking over to Testaccio for dinner (the Roma-Ostiense train station is connected to the Piramide Metro stop by tunnels) when I remembered reading about a new branch of Eataly which had just opened in June and was supposed to be across from the Roma-Ostiense train station. We had been to the original Eataly in Turin in 2009 and were overwhelmed by it at that time so did not know what to think about this branch which was supposed to be even larger!
This branch of Eataly is located in a 17,000 square foot building that was built in 1990 as the Air Terminal Ostiense to handle traffic from the 1990 World Cup but fell on bad times from the beginning. While the powerful exterior of the Air Terminal remains, the enormous open halls of the original have been filled in and three floors added with 23 eating places, 40 areas devoted to teaching about food, 8 spaces where they make mozzarella, fresh pasta and bread, a coffee roaster, a brewery, 14,000 products for sale, hundreds of employees and an anticipated 6 million visitors per year (think IKEA for foodies).
The carts are small plastic double carts and you move yourself and your cart from floor to floor by way of long flat escalators.
After gawking at the housewares, vegetables and fruit, bakery and chocolate counter downstairs, we made our way to the second floor and marveled at the number of different pastas for sale before making our way to the Ristorante "Della Pizza". We found a table and Mike took that table number to the cash register where he ordered our pizza, wine and beer. He had barely made it back to the table before our drinks were delivered and shortly after that our delicious wood-fired pizza was delivered by the young energetic servers. We enjoyed watching the continuous parade of shoppers and lookers walking by as we ate. We walked around some more after dinner and Mike noticed that the Ristorante "Il Pesce" on the third floor had raw oysters -- so for desert he had three raw oysters (which he said were some of the best he had ever had) and we each had a glass of Proscesso wine!
After working our way out of this huge "spectacle of food" we had to work out way through the tunnels under the train station to come out at the Piramide Metro stop and make our way back to our apartment. It was my dad's birthday so I was able to figure out how to use our cell phone and call him for a nice talk. He wondered if we had heard about Hurrican Sandy which hit the East Coast after we left and I told him we had four English speaking television channels so that is pretty much all we had been seeing.
The Italian Air Force Museum was opened to the public in 1977 and is located on the shores of Lake Bracciano (a large volcanic lake) at the historical airport of Vigna di Valle where the first airship construction yards in Italy, the first Italian seaplane base and the first air-sea rescue base were established. The museum consists of four big hangars and has over 60 airplanes, an extensive engine collection and hundreds of historical objects recounting the history of Italian aviation.
There were lots of airplanes and engines in the museum that we had never seen before (and quite a few that Mike had never heard of either), but the most beautiful and fascinating were Macchi experimental seaplanes to compete for the Schneider Trophy. Our favorite was the Macchi M.C.72 (closest airplane on the right) which was built in 1931 and was powered by a Fiat 24 cylinder engine reaching a maximum speed of 440.681 mph (even with those big floats as drag) -- a record that still stands today!
We decided to try and take the bus back to Bracciano when we found out the bus stop was right in front of the guard house at the entrance to the airport. As we were waiting for the bus, two men walked up to wait for the bus. Mike somehow had a nice conversation with the men who did not speak any English and found out they were policemen, one from Milan and one from Sicily. They were very impressed that Mike was a pilot since it is very expensive to fly in Europe. The bus was pretty late and one of the men called the central bus station only to find out the original bus had engine problems and they were trying to get another bus out our way! We had the business card from our taxi driver and asked one of the men to call him for us and were soon on our way back to town and the train station (we offered to share the taxi with our new friends, but they said they wanted to wait for the bus). We were just able to catch the 5:07 train and made it back to Roma-Ostiense Station by 6:30.
Since it was Friday night and rush hour, we were not looking forward to getting on the crowded Metro and were thinking of walking over to Testaccio for dinner (the Roma-Ostiense train station is connected to the Piramide Metro stop by tunnels) when I remembered reading about a new branch of Eataly which had just opened in June and was supposed to be across from the Roma-Ostiense train station. We had been to the original Eataly in Turin in 2009 and were overwhelmed by it at that time so did not know what to think about this branch which was supposed to be even larger!
This branch of Eataly is located in a 17,000 square foot building that was built in 1990 as the Air Terminal Ostiense to handle traffic from the 1990 World Cup but fell on bad times from the beginning. While the powerful exterior of the Air Terminal remains, the enormous open halls of the original have been filled in and three floors added with 23 eating places, 40 areas devoted to teaching about food, 8 spaces where they make mozzarella, fresh pasta and bread, a coffee roaster, a brewery, 14,000 products for sale, hundreds of employees and an anticipated 6 million visitors per year (think IKEA for foodies).
After gawking at the housewares, vegetables and fruit, bakery and chocolate counter downstairs, we made our way to the second floor and marveled at the number of different pastas for sale before making our way to the Ristorante "Della Pizza". We found a table and Mike took that table number to the cash register where he ordered our pizza, wine and beer. He had barely made it back to the table before our drinks were delivered and shortly after that our delicious wood-fired pizza was delivered by the young energetic servers. We enjoyed watching the continuous parade of shoppers and lookers walking by as we ate. We walked around some more after dinner and Mike noticed that the Ristorante "Il Pesce" on the third floor had raw oysters -- so for desert he had three raw oysters (which he said were some of the best he had ever had) and we each had a glass of Proscesso wine!
After working our way out of this huge "spectacle of food" we had to work out way through the tunnels under the train station to come out at the Piramide Metro stop and make our way back to our apartment. It was my dad's birthday so I was able to figure out how to use our cell phone and call him for a nice talk. He wondered if we had heard about Hurrican Sandy which hit the East Coast after we left and I told him we had four English speaking television channels so that is pretty much all we had been seeing.
Day Seven -- November 3, 2012
We slept in and took care of some things at the apartment so didn't get out until around 11:00. We walked down the street through the mobs of people taking pictures of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument from across the street to Rome's first Jesuit church, Il Gesu. The church was consecrated in 1584 and embodies the aesthetics and emotion of the Counter-Reformation -- which I guess is very anti-Protestant because almost every painting or statue in the church had some Catholic saint smashing or killing a Protestant!
We then walked back through the Vittorio Emanuele Monument mob to see the Galleria Colonna, a collection of 15th to 17th century paintings assembled by the Colonna princes (an old Roman family), now on display in their palace, which is only open from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM on Saturdays.
If you have seen the movie, Roman Holiday, this beautiful private palazzo, with its 17th-centry Sala Grande, is already familiar to you. In it, Audrey Hepburn, playing a princess, held a press conference where she said goodbye to the handsome reporter she'd fallen in love with, Gregory Peck. Many of the beautiful, lavishly decorated and frescoed rooms competed with the art itself.
We had decided to head to the Monti neighborhood to look for a place for lunch and as we were crossing the street in front of the Museo dei Fori Imperiali we noticed there were no lines or crowds there. This museum housed in buildings from Trajan's Market was not open the last time we were in Rome so we decided to check it out. Emperor Trajan (A.D. 112) excavated a large part of the Quirinale hill to accommodate the structure's semicircular recess. The market is set on three separate street levels and the site is a maze of more than a hundred offices and halls.
Along the streets, taverns or shops selling food once occupied the alcove-like indentations. The museum, which traces the history of Rome's Fori Imperiali, forms part of the site. Each room covers one of the imperial forums.
There are also several places you can climb for panoramic views of the Forum and Coliseum across the street.
We went around the back of Trajan's Market into the area called the Monti and soon ran into a restaurant with some huge dead fish displayed in the window, Corte del Grillo at Salita del Grillo, 2. Mike was fascinated by the fish and the menu looked good so we went inside for an excellent lunch where we split a spagahetti vongole (clams) and each had an order of breaded lamb chops with yogurt sauce and baked potatoes with a nice bottle of Falanghina Feudi di San Gregorio 2011 white wine.
Feeling very happy, we walked through the quiet Monti neighborhood to the hectic and crowded area around the Coliseum. We were thinking of spending some time on Palatine Hill which we had seen before, but the lines were so long we just kept on walking. We risked our lives by jay-walking across the very busy Via di San Gregorio and found our way up the steep Clivo di Scauro to check out the Case Romane del Celio -- the Roman houses of John and Paul who had been officers at the court of the Emperor Constatine and who were martyred and buried on the site of their home.
In 1887, Padre Germano, excavating beneath the church, uncovered a fascinating site comprising more than twenty rooms, some of which were richly decorated with paintings dating from the third through the twelfth centuries.
It was fun climbing up and down stairs and walking through the giant maze of rooms beneath the foundation of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, but I wish there had been some explanation of what we were seeing!
We walked back along the grassy park-like Circus Maximus and found our way back to our favorite gelato shop at Largo di Torre Argentina for our afternoon gelato and wine break. After stopping by the ruins to say hello to the cats, we went to the DESPAR grocery store to buy a mixed green salad, pasta e fagioli soup, fresh bread and some of our favorite Santa Margherita pinot grigio wine for dinner at the apartment. After dinner Mike got out the directions for our clothes washer which were in Italian and did a good job of washing a load of clothes to hang up on the nice folding clothes rack.
We then walked back through the Vittorio Emanuele Monument mob to see the Galleria Colonna, a collection of 15th to 17th century paintings assembled by the Colonna princes (an old Roman family), now on display in their palace, which is only open from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM on Saturdays.
If you have seen the movie, Roman Holiday, this beautiful private palazzo, with its 17th-centry Sala Grande, is already familiar to you. In it, Audrey Hepburn, playing a princess, held a press conference where she said goodbye to the handsome reporter she'd fallen in love with, Gregory Peck. Many of the beautiful, lavishly decorated and frescoed rooms competed with the art itself.
We had decided to head to the Monti neighborhood to look for a place for lunch and as we were crossing the street in front of the Museo dei Fori Imperiali we noticed there were no lines or crowds there. This museum housed in buildings from Trajan's Market was not open the last time we were in Rome so we decided to check it out. Emperor Trajan (A.D. 112) excavated a large part of the Quirinale hill to accommodate the structure's semicircular recess. The market is set on three separate street levels and the site is a maze of more than a hundred offices and halls.
Along the streets, taverns or shops selling food once occupied the alcove-like indentations. The museum, which traces the history of Rome's Fori Imperiali, forms part of the site. Each room covers one of the imperial forums.
There are also several places you can climb for panoramic views of the Forum and Coliseum across the street.
We went around the back of Trajan's Market into the area called the Monti and soon ran into a restaurant with some huge dead fish displayed in the window, Corte del Grillo at Salita del Grillo, 2. Mike was fascinated by the fish and the menu looked good so we went inside for an excellent lunch where we split a spagahetti vongole (clams) and each had an order of breaded lamb chops with yogurt sauce and baked potatoes with a nice bottle of Falanghina Feudi di San Gregorio 2011 white wine.
Feeling very happy, we walked through the quiet Monti neighborhood to the hectic and crowded area around the Coliseum. We were thinking of spending some time on Palatine Hill which we had seen before, but the lines were so long we just kept on walking. We risked our lives by jay-walking across the very busy Via di San Gregorio and found our way up the steep Clivo di Scauro to check out the Case Romane del Celio -- the Roman houses of John and Paul who had been officers at the court of the Emperor Constatine and who were martyred and buried on the site of their home.
It was fun climbing up and down stairs and walking through the giant maze of rooms beneath the foundation of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, but I wish there had been some explanation of what we were seeing!
We walked back along the grassy park-like Circus Maximus and found our way back to our favorite gelato shop at Largo di Torre Argentina for our afternoon gelato and wine break. After stopping by the ruins to say hello to the cats, we went to the DESPAR grocery store to buy a mixed green salad, pasta e fagioli soup, fresh bread and some of our favorite Santa Margherita pinot grigio wine for dinner at the apartment. After dinner Mike got out the directions for our clothes washer which were in Italian and did a good job of washing a load of clothes to hang up on the nice folding clothes rack.
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