Rome: Sunday 11/28

I am writing this post while riding the train from Rome Termini to Foggia (where we will change trains to get back to Termoli).  As we were walking from our hotel across the park to the entrance to the Metro (in order to take the Metro to the train station), it started to hail briefly, as it did the other night while we were drinking our wine.  The train was a few minutes late, which I think is a first for us (I know everyone complains about Italian trains, but honestly I don’t think we’ve ever had a truly bad train experience as of yet).  But here we are, on board and settled; they’ve already come around with sparkling water and baiocchi (hazelnut or chocolate covered cookies named after an old Italian coin; I think the particular brand we were served is ultimately owned by Barilla, more known in the US for its pasta-related products).  Our CDC vaccination passes have been checked (we don’t have the Italian Green Passes yet).  We should get to Foggia around 13:30 (1:30 PM), and arrive back in Termoli around 15:20 (3:20 PM).  

Here’s hoping we don’t return to Termoli to find our car has been towed.  Figuring out how to work the machine to pay for parking proved extremely challenging, and I think we may have only paid  up through Saturday.  We weren’t sure what you were supposed to do with the ticket/receipt - so we just left it on the dashboard. 

Anyway…yesterday, we had tickets to visit Castel Sant’Angelo at 12 noon.  We walked around the structure when we were here three years ago, but didn’t go inside; Paolo really wanted to visit it on this trip.  The only problem was that the tickets, which were ordered online, weren’t actually e-tickets to be stored on the phone - they expected you to print them and bring them with you.  Unfortunately, we were unable to print them at the hotel (it seems that the problem was an issue with the ticketing website), so we decided to just go there early and try to explain to the box office about not being able to print.  The gentlemen running the ticket office weren’t very happy with us, and they said they couldn’t print them, either (although they could see I’d paid for them).  They tried to get us to just go away and leave them alone; but as I was insistent, they eventually relented and, for payment of another 2 euros, they…printed the tickets for us.  So it all worked out in the end, as things usually do.

This former tomb of Emperor Hadrian/Papal fortress is worth the visit, just for the breathtaking views from the top, if nothing else.  But the whole site is pretty interesting, if you have a chance to see it.  There’s even a little coffee/wine/snack bar up near the top where you can take a break and enjoy the view, which we did.   I’d been a little worried about crowds with Covid, so was a little nervous about choosing to see a pretty major attraction.  Surprisingly, it was not at all crowded (as it was during our visit in 2018).  I’m not sure whether that was because of the time of year, the fact that it was Sunday, or if perhaps they only sell a limited number of tickets per day - perhaps some combination of those things.

Afterward, we walked down toward the Vatican, which we also visited back in 2018.  Because of Covid concerns about the crowds, we chose not to go to inside the Vatican museums or the Basilica on this trip, though we did want to walk around the area of St. Peter's Square.  We decided to have lunch at a nearby outdoor sandwich/burger shop.

Nearby fountain

Just another fountain on a nearby street that I thought was neat

As we were walking toward St. Peter’s Square, we noticed a Leonardo da Vinci museum.  So after lunch, we decided to investigate that.  Surprisingly, there were more people in that rather small museum than I would have expected.  The collection consists mainly of replica models of his various machines, and copies of his paintings; there was an interactive guide with headphones so you could hear about each item as you viewed it.  As museums go, it was quite ho-hum, in my opinion; Paolo enjoyed it much more than I did.

We found many of the restaurants near our hotel to be closed on Sunday evenings.  However, Paolo did eventually manage to find one within easy walking distance that was open.  I made the mistake of ordering the bistecca alla griglia (grilled steak) for my main course - it was an awful cut of meat.  I can't begin to guess what part of the cow it was from, but as far as I'm concerned, it should have stayed attached to the cow.  I really just ordered it on a whim; I don’t normally eat much red meat, but I do like a good steak every now and then.  Sadly, I have yet to have a truly good one in Italy (even the steaks for sale in the grocery stores are not like anything I would purchase back in the US; they look like what you might use to make cheesesteaks).  My first/pasta course was very good, though (I didn’t think to take a photo of it until after I’d finished it).  The tiny chocolate soufflé I had for dessert was pretty tasty as well.

And thus ends our little sojourn in Roma; here’s hoping we have no further issues with muffa in the apartment - and here's hoping that our car is exactly where we left it last week.

Rome: Saturday 11/27

We started our Saturday with a visit to the Basilica of St. Clement.  This site is very interesting because below the present day church (which dates back to the Middle Ages), there are several much older archaeological layers below, one of which is a church dating from about the 4th century. More ancient still is the mithraeum (a pagan religious site where worshippers of the god Mithras would sacrifice bulls to the deity).  Sadly, photography was not allowed down in the archaeological site.  We saw sections of old frescoes, fragments of sculpture, and an altar dedicated to the aforementioned Mithras.  There were also some mosaics and frescoes relating to St. Cyril and St. Methodias (St. Cyril is buried here).  You can view some of the things we saw here.

I did not see a sign in the present-day basilica indicating photos weren’t allowed…because it was, as it turned out, hidden in a corner next to the confessional, which we didn’t encounter until we were almost through with the visit.  So I did get some pictures (oops):

Since the basilica is more or less in the neighborhood of the Colosseum, we wandered in the direction of same and stopped for lunch at a nearby restaurant, mostly just for the view - because why not?

As we'd already enjoyed an excellent guided tour of the Colosseum on our previous trip to Rome, we opted not to revisit it at this time.  Instead, we chose to visit a museum we’d seen advertised in the elevator of our hotel as being one where there might not be big crowds (which turned out to be correct):  the Barberini Palace, which houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, or National Gallery of Ancient Art.

We were really surprised that it wasn’t busier; there were many excellent works of art on display, including a copy of a lost Holbein portrait of Henry VIII which I have encountered only in books until now:

There were a few other famous paintings that caught my eye as well:

After we went through the museum, we took a brief stroll through the grounds before heading back towards the Metro station.  

Once we got back to Piazza Barberini (not far from the metro station) we decided to stop for a glass of wine and a people-watching session.  We had hardly gotten in our first sips when out of nowhere, it started pouring rain…and all hail broke loose!

Although we were under umbrellas at the table, they did little to protect us from the sudden onslaught from the sky, so we scrambled inside.  And once we got settled there…it stopped.  Sigh.

For dinner we went back to Il Lampadario, where I had a first course of gnocchi with clams, followed by shrimp cooked in cognac; both were very good, although I probably shouldn’t have had the shrimp as I think I had a (thankfully mild) allergic reaction to them later.

I’ll write a separate catch-up post to describe today’s adventures; but I will mention here that I spoke with Nicoletta today, who assured me that the landlords have addressed the mold issue and it is safe to return to our apartment.  We are sad to be leaving Roma tomorrow but hopefully we can come back for a few days again sometime soon(ish).

Rome on Black Friday 11/26

(American) Thanksgiving is not a thing here; Black Friday shopping, however, seems to have caught on.  We noticed that many of the shops we passed had signs in their windows referencing “Black Friday” or “Black Weekend” sales. We didn’t take advantage of the sales, but it was interesting to note.

We managed to get up early enough to head to the “American-style Buffet Breakfast” the hotel offers.  They have basic pastries, cereals, yogurt, fruits, as well as sliced lunch meats and cheeses.  Happily, in addition to what I think of as "American" OJ (that is, orange-colored - arancia bionda), they also had my favorite red orange juice (arancia rossa) that I only ever seem to get in Europe.  I’ll take the European-style OJ over the bland orange stuff any time.

As we were walking across the park that is between our hotel and the entrance to the Metro, we heard the sounds of a jet (or jets?) in the sky above us and saw this:

We have no idea what this was all about; but the Italian flag colors striping the sky were pretty, anyway.

We headed to our first stop:  the Mausoleum of Augustus.  This was not open to the public when we were last here in 2018; the site is currently still under renovation, but you can now visit it with an official tour guide.  It really was worth the visit; I was interested to learn about how the site has been used over the centuries (as a castle/fortification; for bullfighting; as a concert hall).  

Afterwards, we went across the street to visit the Ara Pacis Augustae (The Altar of Augustan Peace), which was also very interesting:

Since I’m a huge I, Claudius fan (of both the book and the BBC miniseries from the 70’s) I always have to get a picture of Claudius wherever I find him…we’ve seen statues similar to this one in other museums.

In case you haven’t picked up on the (subtle) theme here, I/we have been choosing sites to visit that we think are off the usual tourist radar and thus won’t be too crowded.  So our second adventure of the day was a visit to a very interesting but seemingly little-known (to tourists) museum:  Centrale Montemartini, located in a former power plant!  It was pretty amazing (and not at all crowded).  We really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the ancient with the modern:

Old School PopeMobile.  For some reason they included an exhibit about the first Pope (Pius IX) to have his own train cars

We managed to pack a lot of history into the day, without having to mix with any huge crowds (good because COVID), although there was another couple who shared our tour guide at Augustus’ Mausoleum…from Texas, USA.  Note that the wife of this couple needed some lessons on how to wear a face mask…that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

For dinner we ended up at one of the bar/restaurants next to our hotel, and enjoyed a leisurely cocktail hour/dinner/digestifs while making friends with the waitstaff (I need to get a picture with those ladies before we leave; they’re just the sweetest!):

I’ll need another catch-up post to describe what we did today 11/27 (another sort-of off-the-beaten-path museum).  For tomorrow, we have tickets for Castel Sant’Angelo, which we only saw from the outside in 2018.  This one may be a little more crowded than what I’d personally like to experience, but Paolo has his heart set on it so I couldn’t say no…