Getting Reacquainted
We’ve been to Rome before.
We were here in 2004 with Brother Joe and Dana for a 3-day whirlwind
tour of the Colosseum, Forum, Vatican, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Borghesi
Museum and all the other sites worth seeing in a short period of time. We sipped some rooftop wine and dined on
Roman patios and crammed as much as we could in a short period of time. This time we’re going to go slower, skip the
big sites and concentrate on neighborhoods and good food.
We’re on schedule for the above this morning as we settle in
for breakfast at a little after 9:00.
There is a nice breakfast buffet reminiscent of others in the past but
this time we have a couple serving guys who are concentrating on coffee. We’re easy today and they bring us each our
own pot of fresh strong coffee. After we
eat we move to the outdoor patio area where we find English language newspapers
and, of course, smokers. Nothing’s
perfect.
Our mission today is the immediate neighborhood of
Trastevere and we expect to know all of the nooks and crannies by the end of
today. We move towards the Tiber and
figure we may as well walk across the bridge.
Another couple blocks and we’re back in the Campo di Fiori, our home
square from 11 years ago. We got sucked
right back in to Rome. The market is in
good form this morning and we spend a good hour wandering among the booths and
local shops.
While we’re here we may as well go up to Piazza Navona, an
action packed center of activity on the east end of central Rome and we’re not
disappointed. We have magicians,
musicians, headless and legless posers and hustlers of every sort, and it is
barely noon. Well, so much for our
neighborhood tour.
As long as we’ve gone this far we may as well keep tripping
down memory lane. We move across the
river again, moving south into Vatican City.
St. Peter’s Square is packed this afternoon. The Pope did his Wednesday morning blessing
this morning which we’re sure added to the crowds. There is a really long line to get into St.
Peters Basilica, but because it was not on our list of things to accomplish
this trip we use our time just watching the action in the square. There are of course Catholics and “nons” from
all over the world who make this pilgrimage and fill the square every day. It is a real hodge-podge of folks and
certainly a lot of priests and nuns connecting with the home office. All very impressive.
It is now mid-afternoon which means we can still get in a
little tour of our neighborhood before packing it in for the rest of the day. Our first mistakes is going out the side exit
of St. Peters Square. Even though we
have found this street on a map we have become disoriented with the change of
direction and start the wrong way. After
a couple rechecks of the map we are still on the right street going in the
wrong direction. In fact we are off the
map. We ask the phone for help and Sami
tells us that we are now 30 minutes from our hotel in the other direction. We get the lay of the land and follow the
little blue line on the phone until we have a good idea of the direction. Sami burns a lot of juice on the phone so we
let her rest while we get started.
We walk for about 15 minutes looking for the river which
will be our final clue and then fire up the phone again to reconfirm. We are now 22 minutes from the hotel going in
the wrong direction again. To cut to the
chase this routine goes on for another hour before we finally get to our
neighborhood and we’re both tired and hangry, one more than the other. There is a little bar right around the corner
from our hotel where we plop down at 4:00 for a quick beer and bruschetta. We wanted to explore neighborhoods and we
have certainly done that. The guy at the
little bar even tried to overcharge us for our beer and snack—wrong day to do
that.
Finally our feet are up for a couple hours before our reservation
at Taverna Trilussa. This place is the
first recommendation in the Rick Steves Rome book for our area, and when we
asked the staff here for the best in the neighborhood they all agreed this is
the spot. We have a 7:30 reservation and
get a nice table on their terrace. John
picks a reasonable wine and we order the Arancini (rice balls with melted
cheese in the middle) as an appetizer.
This is followed by the Bomboloti Carbonara for John and the Spaghetti
Amatriciana for Mary or the other way around.
Either way we will swap plates halfway through. Can’t wait.
After our first couple tastes we both agree that these are about the 19th
and 20th best pastas we have had in the last two weeks. The carbonara sauce is not the rich creamy
texture it should be and the pasta is way short of al-dente, almost starchy. The spaghetti is merely ordinary at
best. We wish we would have gone back to
the great little local spot from last night.
We will add our voice to the on-line reviews.
The good news is that it is a short walk home and we know
the way. We curl up in our little urban
hacienda and will sleep really well tonight.
What did we learn today? When we take off our sweaters and
drape them over our shoulders, people speak Italian to us.
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