Day 3 - The Roman Empire

After staying up until the middle of the night before, studying to prepare, we woke up early to take a tour of the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and the Coliseum.  We ran across the river, and jogged past the Circus Maximus on the hottest day of our trip (mid-nineties) to make our early departure time for the tour. 

The Forum is an amazing experience.  Nestled between Rome’s seven hills, on a hot busy day, teeming with tourists, we found ourselves transported.  The bleached bones of the ruins, worn by wind and time, lay as they fell.   The Republic’s great monuments now serve as its headstone.  The forum still buzzes with laughing children running through the tall grass, the aged, walking gingerly over uneven rocks, and young couples lost in each other’s company;  but there is a palpable sense of time in the forum- while we may not seem to change, we come and go, and the long march of time- time as measured in the life of stone- will see new families, new civilizations return to our fallen monuments.

When Rome fell into decline, the city was largely abandoned: Rome’s population dwindled to an estimated 19,000.  The buildings of the forum were scavenged for materials, and eventually, the entire forum was buried, to serve as cow pasture. Ruins that poked up above the dirt were sawed off to allow for level ground for better farming.  The forum

was not excavated until the 20^th century.

The Palatine Hill was more or less shutdown that day, but we can report that it is hill-y.

The Coliseum is almost exactly what you expect, so if you have ever wanted to go, it is worth it, and if you have not wanted to go, you too can trust your instinct.  You also probably already know all the interesting little details about it, from the elevators, retractable roof and flooded stage for sea battles, so there isn’t too much to report except the following: the reason it is in such poor repair is because it was pillaged over the years for materials.  In times of war, the metal rods that connected the giant stones were excavated and used for weapons.  The entire forum is pock-marked from metal scavenging, and you can stick your index finger in every hole and feel were a metal joint was removed.  Eventually an earthquake hit, and the side from which the most metal was harvested collapsed.

After our tour we had a hearty lunch.  On a previous trip to Rome, Chris was told by a professor that you know you are in an authentic Roman restaurant when the walls are painted pale yellow, and covered with bad art.  Our lunch was at the quintessential authentic Roman restaurant, and we had an amazing lunch of melon and prosciutto, foie gras, and a particularly memorable pesto gnocchi. 

We headed back to the apartment, where we spent a few hours hanging out on our balcony, chatting about our morning, and napping.

That night we returned to Roma Sparita, this time for pizza.  We were not disappointed, and we spent a long night laughing, eating, and drinking house wine.  Full, tired and a little sun burned, we turned in to rest up for day four.  

Day 2 - Festa della Repubblica

Day two in Rome started in the late morning with a parade.  The second day of June is the Festa della Repubblica, which commemorates the 1946 vote to determine which form of government would succeed Fascism: Republican government beat out the monarchy by about 8% in the popular vote.  The celebration is marked by a military parade through the center of Rome, down the Via dei Fori Imperiali. The Via dei Fori Imperiali, a grand and wide street evoking the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, was laid down by Mussolini for just such an event.  The magnificent street was intentionally laid through ancient Roman ruins to provide an imperial backdrop for the Fascist nation’s display of might.  It draws a straight line from the Coliseum to the Piazza Venezia, and symbolically, from the empire of Ancient Rome to the Fascist Italian empire.  They are still excavating ruins from around the road, which bulldozed incalculable ruins for the opportunity to draw such a contrast.

The parade itself was as grand as the setting, with tanks, missile carriers, beret doffing special forces units, soldiers in wet suits and scuba gear, horse mounted officers with flamboyant plumage on their helmets, and a squadron of fighter jets streaking the colors of the Italian flag overhead. 

After taking in the parade and some ruins along the way, we had a pizza lunch.  The check arrived with a several euro “cover charge,” a de jure tourist tax we anticipated having to pay once or twice on the trip.  We recognized it as a sort of bogus tourist charge and were willing to pay; however, not without first watching another American couple have a hilarious exchange with the waiter trying to figure out exactly what they were being asked to pay.

We walked the busy streets up the Quirinale, the tallest of Rome’s seven hills, up to the Quirinale Palace, the President’s residence.

The square features an obelisque from Augustus’s mausoleum and two ancient roman statutes of Castor and Pollux, which have traveled from square to square in the city over the millennia. A rain broke out, and the entire square rushed under awnings nearby, waiting for the storm to pass.

After a short while, we ventured further down the Quirinal, stopping in the Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, which had some amazing works by Bernini.  The clouds under St. Peter’s feet appear so light and fluffy it is inconceivable that they were carved of marble.  We then went to a church next door, the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, with a haunting but empty crypt Borromini designed for himself, but did not ultimately come to occupy.

On the way back we stopped at the Largo di Torre Argentina, a busy square right in the center of Rome, were cars, buses and scooters zip around four large Roman temples excavated below street level.  The ruins also serve as a cat sanctuary, and hundreds of cats can be seen lounging among the ruins.

We had dinner at an amazing restaurant right next to our apartment in Trastevere, Le Mani in Pasta.  A small and charming restaurant with an exposed kitchen, charming staff and amazingly fresh local produce and seafood (we were introduced to some lively crustaceans in the offering); it was wonderful.  We had some amazing buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto--honestly the best mozzarella we have ever had.  The pasta was fresh, homemade, and bright, and Chris had a steak cooked in green pepper sauce and Dave had a traditional Roman veal saltimbocca.  The quality and quantity of the food was overwhelming, and the delicious local Lazio wine helped make the whole meal an embarrassment of riches.  We are proud to report that we were able to at least finish the mozzarella. 

Stuffed, slightly sun burnt and happy, we waddled back to the apartment (one door down from the restaurant) to rest up for another day of delighting in each other, sun, ruins and overeating.

Day 1 - Trastevere

Our trip was bifurcated, with five days in an apartment Trastevere and five in an apartment in Campo de Fiore.  

We arrived in Trastevere in the early afternoon after having been up all night on the flight.  Even the drive from the airport was exciting as we shot through Ostia, past the Pyramids of Cestius, and into the winding streets of Trastevere.

Trastevere is a romantic neighborhood tucked “beyond the Tiber” (the literal meaning of Trastevere) to the city-center’s southwest.  Trastevere maintains its quiet charm with tight winding cobblestone streets, keeping the city’s modern day hustle and bustle at bay.   Rome’s street vendors, fast flitting scooters and buses, street choking tour groups, and impatient Romans are largely absent from the quit streets of Trastevere.

We picked the apartment in Trastevere for its large flowered fourth floor terrace, looking over romantic old rooftops, churches, bakeries (oh my god- the smells coming out of that bakery) and piazzas.  We would spend hours on the terrace chatting, taking in the sights, sounds and smells, and just enjoying each other in Rome.

 

On Wednesday afternoon, we went out for their first Roman meal:  to Roma Sparita, a little restaurant around the corner from our apartment in a small, peaceful piazza.  Still shaky with using the little Italian we knew, and disappointed that the old world brick pizza oven was still heating up for dinner, we ordered whatever pastas the waiter thought were the best.  We wound up with a tagliatelle cacio e pepe and an amatriaciano con lardo (which is what it sounds like, but really good).  Happy and stuffed, we retreated for a nap.

After resting and gussying up for a fancy dinner, we hiked up the Gianicolo, walking up winding, sidewalk-less roads in the dark, stopping every few hundred yards to take in a monument, ruin or the view, including San Pietro in Montorio.  Chris looked fetching in the light of speeding headlamps as we ascended the hill on the side of the road.

We finally arrived at Arco Antico, an upscale restaurant at the hill’s summit, featuring haute modern cuisine.  We had amazing asparagus soup, nut-encrusted lamb and the best carbonara we would have the whole trip (the key seems to be using guanciale—pork cheek—instead of pancetta, and in this case, a whole metric ton of white truffles). 

Honeymoon: Blastoff

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

(The first in a series.)