from Rome: repeat performance

Sunday morning. In an hour we’ll be taking a train. I’m at the desk in the small hotel lobby, talking to the proprietor, Pierfrancesco.

You have a fantastic place here, I tell him.
Oh, I’m so glad you feel that way! This place is my baby. We’re still working out the kinks – we’ve just been open for a year! – but you know, this is my home. I grew up in these apartments. I still live here! Next time, you have to also try my restaurant. [We didn’t go this time because it’s a short drive from the center of Rome.]

Next time. How soon will “next time” be? It took me five years to return to Rome. Next time. Maybe next year? Is Rome a place you go to, again and again, with excitement? Like, say, Paris?

In the last day here, I begin to see the appeal of being here just to be here. And as the small details of the city began to emerge, so, too, does my love for those details.

We have no particular agenda for Saturday. The day is, as they all are, sunny and beautifully warm.

Our breakfast is leisurely. A chocolate croissant, a cappuccino, a yogurt. By the time we set out, it is almost lunch!

Up one street, down the next. I am used to seeing the delivery vans with all those flowers. I recognize them. I like them.





We turn left on the Via del Boschetto It’s a street with small shops, most selling clothing, most made right on the premises. Some vintage fabrics, some new. I am smitten with a pair of sunglasses. Blue rims. They match my blue earrings perfectly.

Stunning! The woman tells me, smiling.
Yes, sure, but after Rome, when I ever wear them? My life at home involves bike riding to and from work, to and from Ed’s farmette, to and from the grocery store. Where in those routines do blue rimmed sunglasses fit in?





We stop at a Botega del Café for lunch. This is a meal that at home is terribly insignificant. So much so that I rarely bother to eat it. But here, in Rome, it is all important. And why not? Is there a better way to spend a midafternoon hour than at an outdoor table? Over a plate of paper thin prosciutto, covering the sweetest melon slices on the planet?










We walk some more. Pausing to watch a changing of the guard. Pausing at our ice cream place, San Crispino (honey and bergamot!).





Did I say our ice cream place? We have one now?

Up one street, down the next. Some are crowded with tourists, or even tour groups, with characteristic matching hats...






...some are empty. Except I never have to wait long to spot a family scene. Always the families. A girl tugging at her father’s arm, a grandfather type telling a story. A mother laughing. Eight people in one doorway, eight conversations taking place at once.





We stop at the Salotto Bar and drink squeezed orange juice and crushed mint leaves from tall glasses.





The Salotto is cool and very quiet. Run by an Italian-Swedish couple, it exudes calm in this chaotic part of town.





Refreshed, we’re ready now for a quick return to the Trevi…





… and to the Navona.





A few quick errands in a shop or two make me realize that I left my credit card some stops ago, at the lunch café. We’re happy to retrace our steps, to take one last look at the small little square, to glance over at the early evening aperitif drinkers.










Families. You don’t leave them behind. Even if their drink is still from a bottle rather than from a tall flute.


We had on the very first day here decided that our last night in Rome should be at the Maccheroni. Somehow the mood of Rome began for us there, over the roasted artichokes. This time we’re at a table outside. Crowds try to get a table, but we are the privileged few (calling in advance gives you the coveted outdoor space), the ones right by the wall with the sign where someone had scribbled Maccheroni troppo buoni.





Pierfrancesco from our hotel later tells me that Maccheroni’s proprietor keeps the place open year round. He never closes! Three hundred and sixty days a year, he serves dinner! (Which are the sacred five where no one even considers eating out?)





The wait staff is efficient and playful and so very knowledgeable. Eat the cheaper cut of beef (over arugula, with cherry tomatoes). That’s what we eat! And try this wine from Lazio. You’ll like it. (We do.) I look at the bowl of pasta carbonare placed in front of my daughter and I tell him – that’s too much! He pats her on her stomach. She can use some food. Besides, you can both go running tomorrow!


Go running? No, tomorrow we head north, for two nights in Bologna before my girl flies home and I fly to meet up with Ed in Scotland.

Rome, you are magnificent!

from Rome: commerce and conversation

It is a Friday, so it’s not as if I am thinking market thoughts (those are, for me, a Saturday deal). But we decide that this day should have elements of commerce: that we should walk the narrow streets in the footsteps of the locals – to the market, to the store, to the lunch hangout – all that.

But the day begins and ends with people who are very much like us – outsiders.

We are late breakfast eaters. I’d say we bring in the rear here. Something to do with my blogging and our sleep patterns. On this day, there is only one other pair in the breakfast room by the time we amble toward the espresso machine (our hotel is very small – just 15 rooms, but it has the essentials: great espresso and WiFi). Two friends, slightly older than me, from Scotland.

Scotland! I say, as I show them to work the espresso machine (it’s their first morning here). I’ll be heading there soon!
Oh, very wet. All May, it’s been cold and wet.
Which part of Scotland are you from?
(They mention a small village at the foot of the highlands, north of Glasgow.)
I’m going that way!
Very wet, they repeat. And the midges, you know about midges (yes I do: they’re swarms of biting bugs that come out in late spring and drive you nuts)?
I should think they’re just starting… the other chimes in.
But it’s beautiful there! I remember it being quite beautiful!
Oh yes, quite. You know, some try to protect against the midges, but you really can’t.

And there you have it: a northern European’s take on life. The midges, the rain, the resignation that this is what spring offers.

We wave a cheery good bye and scoot out.

Now, for the Mediterranean side of things. First of all, the Campo dei Fiori, What’s fresh and regional here right now? The beans. The artichokes. The Roman cherries.















And who sells here? Take a look:




















We purchase some cherries and watch people meet up by the fountain for a quick chat. Before it’s time to officially sit down and continue the conversation over lunch.

Lunch. Each day, this is an important decision for us. Where to eat the midday meal. On this day, I let my daughter lead me out of the maze of streets in the Centro Storico until we come to this block:





On the corner, there is a dazzling little place with tables spilling out over the cobbles, ivy on the walls, lively chatter of friends and a good deal of welcome shade (it’s been in the 80s consistently; and sunny; and for the first time this year, I feel blissfully warm).





We order prosciutto, melon, tomatoes, arugula, focaccio – all the proper ingredients of a perfect midday meal.











We listen to the conversation of the lunching handful (it’s a tiny place), understanding just enough to keep us entertained, but not enough to really follow the storyline. But the music of the dialogue is lovely. I always like to think that in college, I studied an instrument: I studied Italian.





We end with an espresso and head out.

So what’s an afternoon walk like here? Well, it's melon yellow, warm, very pretty.





We make a lot of quick darts into stores. I’m in search of sandals. My cheap old French pair finally fell apart last year and I have been deeply disappointed with Madison’s offerings. I want something feminine! – I tell the clerks there. We sell comfortable sandals that pay attention to the support.. bla bla bla… Yes, great, but why can’t it look pretty and delicate and colorful? Why is everything here brown or black?

Italy, like France and Spain, cares about how the shoe looks on a woman’s foot. How quaint is that!

Finally, I find something that is comfortable and colorful.





But wait, there is a gelato stop as well. With this very original, very delicious flavor: crema al Barolo chinato (translated: Barolo wine ice cream with cinchona). Oh, and strawberry sorbetto. And so long as we are expanding our diets to include ice cream and pasta daily (in addition to, you know, the main courses and desserts) why not add some delicious cream on top? We join others who stop their shopping long enough to take in a cup of the good stuff.





Was this day only about commerce and food? No. Rome doesn’t allow you to forget your surroundings.

We pause at the Piazza Navona (along with others who pause to take photos, or just to stretch the legs a bit)…










…and we walk down to the Pantheon to get that sense of humility that comes from being in this most daring structure in the country. Perhaps the world. Imagine: the dome was built in 125 A.D., without the tools and knowledge that we have today and yet it is said that had it been built now, it would surely have crumbled over time. The biggest brick dome, the most copied, the finest -- in the history of architecture, it really outshines them all.





There is an opening at the center of the dome. When it rains, the water pours down and empties out through the twenty two small holes in the ground.

We stand in awe of all this and I expect if we come here again (yes, we must!), we’ll stand in awe again. Rome is like that: awe repeats itself, even if you’ve been there, seen that, done that.

And now we take the familiar turn, up the Spanish Steps – a razzmatazz of people and voices and hot sun and cool waters for foot dipping (just a little yukky, if you think about it)..






It's time for us to rest for a minute at the hotel. Because it’s another long walk in the evening as we head out toward the island in the middle of the Tiber, for dinner at the Sora Lella.

Oh, but let me explain that an evening walk here isn’t just about the time it takes to get somewhere. And it’s not only about darting traffic at crosswalks (we are getting, unfortunately, braver with this: we are up for the challenge! We’ll make them stop!). It is about passing these, in the fading light of the disappearing sun.















The Sora Lella is the most traditional of our dinner choices. We order pasta and lamb stewed in rosemary and we drink the local wine and it is all extremely good.















Next to us, there is a couple – two guys from the Netherlands, each pink as anything from too much Roman sun on the first day here. One is gregarious and outgoing and it’s not long before he strikes up a conversation with us. The other smiles patiently in the way that you do when you think your partner is really a tiny bit embarrassing, but you love him (or her) anyway.

We talk about wine and I mention how much I love the whites of the region. The dessert comes, the espressos follow and the tiny room settles into a comfortable rhythm of an ending day. The two waiters are almost done with the work of making us happy. The proprietor looks in, satisfied with the sound of the friendly mixture of Italian and (in our case) English.

It’s late and we have a long walk back. Across the bridge, up one hill and then another and another, all the way back to our room with the crisp white sheets. Shoes kicked off, tumble in, sleep.

from Rome: red, white and orange

Rome is a handful of neighborhoods, slapped together on very lumpy terrain. Each is separate and distinct. Not at all like its neighbor. Some are so separate and distinct that they aren’t really part of Rome at all (the Vatican comes to mind, but also the hip and artsy Trastevere on the “other” bank – if you’re from Trastevere, you identify yourself as such, rather than saying that you are Roman).

Thursday was the day for neighborhoods on that “other” bank – the one that is at one end basically white (the Vatican)…




… and at the other -- burnt orange (Trastevere).












[Why do I include red in the subtitle? At least two reasons: my daughter’s roving form in red gave a rosy sheen to the entire day.





…and, I want to pick up on a comment from Ann’s blog [where she linked to Ocean Rome posts and a reader noted:

Those are excellent photos but they do little to covey the sensation of sheer terror that is the unavoidable price one pays for daring to walk near the street at rush hour.

Gratefully, the natives seem to understand this and hardly give a second glance at lame tourists like me inching their way along storefronts, gritting their teeth with their backs against the wall, hyperventilating pure auto exhaust and digging their fingernails into solid granite.

I read it and thought: how true. At any street crossing, there is always the possibility that blood will spill due to some unfortunate encounter with a car or motorbike. Crazy traffic is so much a part of life here. I’ll throw out this comparison between three cities – all with the law that on crosswalks, you must stop for pedestrians:

In Madison, drivers who know that this is the law do stop. Many drivers, especially those over, say, 80 and under, say 20, do not appear to know the law. Watch out for that demographic.

In Paris, they’re lambs dressed as wolves. They rev up engines and roar across the city, but if you’re bold and venture out on a crosswalk, they apply brakes quickly and stop. You can count on it.

In Rome, they are wolves. They roar across the city and come straight at you as you cross. They don’t slow down. They know the law and at some level they want you to live, so I do believe they will stop if you ignore their aggressive show of force, but to me, they’ve won the psychological battle. The only way to cross is to hide to the side of equally aggressive pedestrians and let them take the hit for you. After all, you’re the guest here.

While crossing the bridge toward that “other” bank, I note that an enterprising fellow is offering rides on his cycle-taxi.





I cannot imagine a more hellish way to see the city. Thankfully, my girl and I have strong legs. We avoid cars, cycles, all of it. We walk.]


Our other bank ramble has the necessary foods to keep us going. Pizza with porcini mushrooms and arugula, and fried zucchini blossoms on the side…










...and, continuing down the list of people’s favorite gelato places, we sample some on this side of the river, at the “Old Bridge.”





This time I pick strawberry and coffee.


We had made the decision to bypass the Vatican museums. Both of us had been here in the past and neither wanted to commit a day for it on this trip. If in my images of Rome I include the Vatican, it is also true that the Vatican isn’t merely a separate chapter of a book, it is an entirely separate book. And so we stroll through St. Peter’s Square, we admire, we comment on our memories of the place, take some photos, watch others take photos…




…and we move on, along the Tiber (so different in spring than in summer! You could almost think that you’re in Paris here, no?)…






… to Trastevere.





Trastevere is thankfully mostly a pedestrian zone (though apparently scooters have the same rights as I do, which truly is not fair as their horse power is not equal to my horse power, even after all that pasta and gelato). It is also very very pretty.





And if I said that I associate burnt orange with it, that perception is especially strong at evening time. At this café , everyone was drinking freshly squeezed juice, as if on cue. We dare not be different.





We poke into churches, rest just a little, walk up one street and down the next, taking it all in, taking photos, watching others -- indeed, entire families -- take photos...










... and finally, as the sun begins to disappear behind the tall Roman pines, we head up the hill behind Trastevere, to where the views are grand…





…and the parks are expansive, with ample opportunities for more strolling…






...or solitary book reading under the pines...





…and the roar of the city grows to a very quiet hum, which is sort of remarkable, given the mess of cars and motors out there, in the gut of the city.


We eat dinner up here, west of Tevere at Antico Arco. Gnocchi with seafood, meats, wine from the region and this for dessert – with a touch of saffron. A perfectly orange moment.





The walk back to the hotel is long from here. But we’re not going to wilt now. Down the hill, across the river, up another hill. People are still out and about, still eating, now in the shadows of the night, white shirts against the deep orange-red walls of an ancient city.




It’s midnight. Shoes off, white sheet pulled loosely against the cooler night, I fall asleep.