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.