Last Day in Rome

I think we might have had our favorite meal in Rome for lunch on our last day.  We started off the day by going to the Capuchin Church off Piazza Barberini, also known as the Church of Bones.  The kids found this a little creepy but the thousands of bones were used in a very decorative manner in their crypt (see above photo).  I highly recommend this and it's a really quick stop!

Then we wandered down the hill towards the Roman Forum and into Enoteca della Provincia di Roma for lunch.  We sat at a table next to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Trajan's Column and the Forum.  The restaurant featured local wines and all local products from the Lazio province around Rome.

We ordered the antipasti plate of salumi and local cheeses, which was excellent.  Then two different salads and two sandwiches, including a delicious porchetta sandwich that I enjoyed very much.

After the rejuvenating lunch, we wandered off into the Imperial Forum museum and were sad to learn that Trajan's Market was closed for renovations so we could wander around inside what I described to the girls as the world's first mall.  We enjoyed looking it from afar though, then called it a day and headed back to our apartment for our last evening in Rome.

The Great Gelato Round-Up

We like gelato - a lot.  What's not to like?!  Technically, gelato is denser and richer than ice-cream since it has a lot less air churned into it (~20% air vs ~60% air in ice-cream) and a softer texture.

Our first stop in Rome was Gelateria del Teatro, a newish hand-made place down an ivy-covered alleyway a few blocks from Piazza Navona.  Following our usual family pattern, Narisa had white peach and strawberry, Amara had stratiaccella and chocolate, Sean had puro (a super dark chocolate) and tartufo and I had lavender flowers/white peach and sparkling strawberry.  Plus we shared a surprisingly rich granita of mint and lime, that tasted of fresh mint leaves.  It was a great first stop - traditional flavors plus a few nouveau experiments that were lovely.  And rich, rich, rich!  We made multiple stops back here during the rest of the trip.

The next stop of note was Gelateria Corona.  I had lemon with basil and wild strawberry, Amara had chocolate and stracciatella.  The fruit flavors were excellent and the chocolate was also pronounced to be two thumbs up.

The third stop on the list was a little disappointing - Alberto Pica had been written up in multiple guides.  But it was just so-so.  I had chocolate and rice, which was a slightly odd combo - I also asked for pear, but I guess he did not hear me.  Amara really liked hers - hazelnut and chocolate which if she spooned carefully, combined into an excellent nutella-like concoction.

The next stop was San Crispino - chocolate meringue and Valrhona chocolate for me, peach and lemon for Sean, stracciatella and peach for Narisa and Valrhona chocolate and nocciola for Amara.  The shop was interesting - the gelato was kept in steel bins with lids so you couldn't see the actual gelato until you ordered it.  And the service was almost surly.  This was the gelateria featured in Eat, Pray, Love and most reports say it's gone downhill due to its enormous popularity, and the original proprietors are now too busy expanding their empire to maintain their previous quality levels.  I have to say the peach was amazing - I'd go back just for that one single flavor.

Frigidarium was another local gelato place, not as high profile as the others, but recommended nonetheless - plus an ideal location just 3 mins away from our apartment.  They had some excellent cream flavors including a vanilla caramel specialty and another vanilla swirled with nutella.  Plus they gave very generous servings! And you could get whipped cream or a chocolate dip at no additional charge. We went back there a few more times and concluded this was the best quality/value combo, although their flavor selection was not huge.

Venchi was a beautiful place we happened on - not written up anywhere but it seemed to have a big focus on chocolate flavors (and also sold other chocolate items).  It was such a pretty store plus interestingly enough, sold low cal gelato.  Which was quite delicious - plus we also tried their gianduja and chocolate flavors.  A nice find.  They had just run out of Azteca Chocolate though, I was sad.

We also stopped at Il Gelato one evening - almost too many flavors to choose from - 20 different kinds of chocolate alone.  Venezuelan, Madagascar, Columbian - you could get gelato made from sourced cocoa, and then labelled with % intensity!  It was a little complicated to choose and I was still rather stuffed from dinner.  It would have merited a return trip but alas, we were not in that part of town again.

Another place that came highly recommended was Giolitti, near the Pantheon.  Supposedly the successor to Il Crispino for best gelato in Rome, I found the service to again be surly, with almost a factory element with the huge lines of people.  The gelato was just ok.  By Day 5 here, I was getting pretty picky about the whole gelato experience!  Really nice flavors, but the hassle factor was too high to be overcome.

We also tried the special tartufo flavor and fancy sundaes at Tre Scalini, a pretty cafe right on Piazza Navona with a view of Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain.  With sundaes running at €13, it's a pretty pricey stop, but you are paying for the atmosphere of being right on the square.

And finally, Fiordiluna in Trastervere - we had stopped by earlier in the week and it was closed, so a return trip was in order.  Again, a nice place, but nothing completely memorable.

So, that's it for our Rome gelato experience.  Even walking 30,000 steps a day, I am pretty sure I have gained a few lbs.  Thankfully, there is not a scale in sight so I won't worry about it!

The Pantheon and Shopping on Via Condotti

Our last two days in Rome were "lazy days" as my family likes to call them - that means that I don't have anything in particular booked and allow them all to sleep in and laze about in the morning.

So around noon, we finally headed out to the Pantheon - which we had seen multiple times at night but finally got to visit during the day.  The oculus, as the 9 m circle in the roof is called, was very cool and sent an enormous shaft of light into the dark interior.

At lunch at Maccheroni, I had their special pasta with black truffle.  Not the best choice on my part since it was 90+ degrees out and the heavy pasta lunch made me a little ill.

But then I rallied for the afternoon shopping expedition.  Trying to avoid the nightmarishly crowded area of the Spanish Steps, we wandered down Via Condotti - in and out of all the lovely designer boutiques.  I ended up at Louis Vuitton where I unwisely purchased a beautiful limited edition purse.  The transaction took about an hour due to complicated export paperwork that needed to be filled out for the purse, because it was partially made of exotic material (python in this case).  But I was a good enough customer to be offered champagne while I waited (Moet, I was told) and they were shocked when I asked for cold water instead!

Galleria Borghese

The Galleria Borghese is located in the middle of a large park called the Villa Borghese in northern Rome. It's a small museum, so pre-booking tickets is mandatory to visit it.  I had made our reservations a couple of weeks before, in a last burst of trip planning activity.

We took a little electric bus up to the museum, thanks to Ron in Rome, who has a beautiful blog with a focus on the transportation system.  And a great list of gelato places to visit, but that's for another post...

The museum itself was in a beautiful building in a corner of the park.  We had tickets for a timed entry from 3-5 pm.  That's it.  You entered at 3 pm and they herded the stragglers out right at 4:55 pm, so the next group of people (with the 5-7 pm tickets) could enter.  Oh and you had to store all your bags, including cameras, water, cell phones etc.

We were one of the last groups to leave, we spent every single minute in the museum and could easily have stayed longer.  It's especially known for a few key Bernini sculptures and some lovely Caravaggio paintings.  The girls really enjoyed it - with the Bernini's Apollo and Daphne sculpture being their favorite.  The audio guides made the art come alive with backstories and the calling out of particular details.  It turns out that Cardinal Scipione Borghese was not a very nice man - when he saw a painting that he especially liked, he would threaten the owner or artist with prison, unless the painting was turned over to him.  He did this a number of times!

I loved the trompe l'oeil ceilings in every room with paintings and backdrops linked to the themes of each room.  Alas, I couldn't capture this on film since I was camera-less, while the gift shop items did not focus on the ceilings.

After we were herded out of the museum, we rented a four person bike and spent a pleasant hour exploring the park grounds.

Il Passetto de Borgo

So those Dan Brown fans out there will be familiar with Il Passetto de Borgo - the 800 meter long secret passage that links the Vatican to the old Papal fort of Castel Sant' Angelo.  I really wanted to go down this passage, so arranged our visit to correspond with the special opening times for this tour, as listed on the Rome tourist bureau web site.  It's only open 2+ months a year, during the peak summer tourist season.

Alas, when we arrived, I learned that particular website was not to be trusted - for opening times at least.  We went in anyway, and enjoyed wandering around the old fort that began life at Hadrian's Mausoleum in 130AD.  It was an especially interesting building since it combined some traditional castle elements, but also had some papal apartments on the luxurious side situated in the middle.

The views of St. Peter's were really lovely and their little bar/cafe was a great place to rest for a while.

Now, do we pay handsomely again and come back another evening for Il Passetto only?  Still thinking about it...

4 Coins in a Fountain

We went to a spaghetteria for dinner last night, Spaghetti dell' Archetto.  What is a spaghetteria, you might ask?  Well it's a restaurant that specializes in spaghetti, offering 137 different sauces (Narisa counted!) - which was almost paralyzing in terms of choice.

After some nice appetizers of bruschetta and pizza bianco, our very large portions of spaghetti came.  Almost American-sized portions!  Amara had a gorgonzola sauce, Narisa had a boring but excellent bolognese, I had Pasticciati (see photo above for description, bottom right) while Sean had something else which didn't turn out to be as spicy as he thought it would be.  All in all, an excellent (if extremely carb-heavy) meal.

After dinner, we strolled up to the Trevi Fountain where each of us threw in a coin over our left shoulder.  As you should know, that ensures that we will all return to Rome one day.  The fountain was especially beautiful at night, all lit up.

Then on to San Crispino, the gelateria featured in Eat, Pray, Love.  But you'll have to wait for my mega-gelato post to hear more about that...

Vatican City and the Sistine Chapel

We awoke to a very cloudy day that soon turned into a heavy thunderstorm.  So we used that excuse for a late start and lounged around for a few hours in the morning!

After a short stroll to St. Peter's Square, we looked around for a while, marveling at the long lines to get into the basilica.  Then we went around the corner to the Vatican Museums, where we had a reserved ticket for a guided tour.  Again, we marveled at the huge long lines to get into the Museum - why do people not plan better?!  There are now about a billion resources that will tell you to prebook your tickets or come right at opening time - they will give you step-by-step instructions on how to avoid the long lines.  And yet, all these people were prepared to wait well over an hour - I just don't get it...

On the other hand, our guide seemed to be a thwarted Italian actress and the 3 hour tour of the Vatican Museums was hurried in spots where we would linger, and lingered excessively in spots that seemed to be rather mundane.  Suffice to say that the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel were lovely and well worth it.  I was a little worried that we would be herded through the latter at a brisk pace (which would not have been surprising, considering how crowded the whole museum was).  But we weren't at all - we found some seating on the side and gazed up at the ceiling for a long time.

The payoff for the tour was the ability to take the right side exit from the Sistine Chapel (supposedly just reserved for group tours although no one seemed to be checking due to the sheer volume of people going through) directly into St. Peter's, bypassing the other security line and avoiding the circuitous walk around the Museums to get back to St. Peter's.  We took full advantage of this (once again, this is all laid out in vast detail on any number of websites).

Once in St. Peter's, we immediately got in a short line to head up to the dome - €5 per person if you walk all the way up, €7 per person if you take the elevator up half way.  We opted for the latter and found ourselves on the walkway inside the Basilica, and then climbed more stairs to get to the exterior terrace on top.  Lovely views and a very cool experience.

The cathedral itself was magnificent and immense.  Unfortunately, the nave was blocked off for mass, so we didn't quite get to wander everywhere we wanted to.

We ended our visit with a photo of Narisa standing on the border of two countries:

Dinner in Trastevere

Sunset view of St. Peter's from the Ponte Sisto crossing the Tiber

We wandered out for dinner around 8:30 pm and headed over the Ponte Sisto to the Trastevere area of town.  Younger, hipper and waay livelier, it was a fun area for dinner.

We headed to a craft beer house known for their pizza - thereby ensuring Sean's happiness as well as the kids.  Bir & Fud, besides having a silly name, was a nice space on a small windy street.  We consumed multiple pizzas and many small little fried appetizers.  Sean says it's the first decent beer he's had in Italy!

When in Rome...

Castel Sant' Angelo

We are staying in an apartment behind the Piazza Navona for 6 nights, located on a narrow pedestrian-only street called Via del Governo Vecchio.  Here's the link to the apartment.  I must stay it photographs much more spacious than it is in real life, although there is really nothing specific I can complain about!  The location is superb and the air conditioning a welcome respite from the summer heat of Rome.  We are in fact within spitting distance of no less than 4 different gelato shops - something we intend to exploit fully in the next few days.

After a quick stop at the apartment, we were off in search of food.  We had some decent pizza at a cafe near the Piazza, followed by the first gelato stop of the trip.  Must devote a whole post to the quest for gelato later...

Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain at Piazza Navona

We strolled around all the little artist stalls and started out our shopping adventures by buying a watercolor of Rome for each girl.  Then we found a small supermarket and I did some grocery shopping - one of the tasks I enjoy most about our travels!  This was a Carrefour Express but had all the essentials we needed.  My interesting fact of the day is that bread is sold by weight - so they have huge country loaves and you tell them you want about so much, the lady slices off the appropriate hunk and weighs it to assess your price.  Same thing with breadsticks, boules and rolls.  It will be interesting to see if this is just a Rome thing - since I don't remember weighing bread when we were last in Tuscany.

8 pm and the kids are fading fast, we kept them up for as long as we could - here's hoping they sleep all the way through the night!