We did not start any of the writing until after we returned from dinner.......which was an extension of a late afternoon in the garden with wine under the setting sun. Now the prospect of 'blogging' comes with some alarm.
We will try. Continuing in a backwards mode, we had a very nice dinner with a 'core' group......a bit older than the young group at the next table, but undeniably comfortable. It included David, Alan (weird), Joe, Cathy, Jeff, Eleanor, Geronimo and Gio. No need to go into details here.....all nice folks.
Before that we had spent a very nice hour (+) sitting out in the back lawn area with some nice vino and a great brand of potato chips! It is very cool that the swallows come out around 7:00 and are enchanting to watch.
The day itself was quite wonderful. We will flip back to the beginning here to mix things up!
- woke early around 7:00
- normal 'yoga' and coffee.......and then a nice breakfast of toast, prosciutto and strawberries.
- a bit of email and internet news work
- headed downtown in the car to explore the area around Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori.
- were totally amazed to find a parking spot 100 yards from the Museo di Roma at the end of Piazza Navona. We cannot believe it was a legal spot, but we took a chance. The traffic and parking in the City is totally crazy. We were prepared to just go to a very nice hotel and tell them to park it for us. They have no parking garages of any kind in the center of the City.
Enough of the bullets. We first went to the Museo di Roma to see the Canaletto exhibit. It was absolutely incredible, and we got there just after 10:00 so there was not a problem with the crowds. Sorry for the barrage of images, but this guy really knew how to paint!
After that we strolled around the Piazza Navona. It was a bit eerie, as has been the case with a lot of this trip, in that we had a strong sense of understanding of the place and the spaces. While the years have intervened, we have been to these landmarks on multiple occasions and the familiarity drifts back fairly quickly. In the Piazza Navona, Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers has not changed......and it seems like we were here not long ago.
The same with the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone. We have always been Borromini admirers and the experience was reinvigorating, but not as deep as before. It only took us 20 minutes to readjust.........totally ok, but a bit of a revisit.
Same with Tre Scalini, what has always been the City's premier gelato destination magnet. We walked by without much urge to spend our 'tourist' energy on their famed Tartufo gelato. It was fun to reconnect, but without any urgency of participation.
We drifted over to the Pantheon, probably our (my) favorite ancient building in the city. We had heard that the City was going to start charging admission on May 1st, so we wanted to get in before it became more commoditized! The lines were evident, but it all moved fairly quickly and we were in and out in a relatively short period. It still remains amazingly inspirational. We have multiple memories of this building, most significant being the time when were were invited with Charles and Ray Eames to climb up the exterior of the dome and actually peer down into the oculus! Times were different then, but our perspective is somewhat wiser now!
We tried both the amazing gelato of Cremaria Monteforte.......as well as the amazing coffee at Caffe San'Eustachio, both near the Pantheon.
We continued our meandering over to Campo dei Fiori, looking for a few groceries.......and the urge to see the mercato in full swing. It was as busy and commercial as we had heard, in many ways being subsumed by the demands of the tourists. It was still, however, a bustling marketplace and exciting to visit. We bought some spectacular cheese. I suspect we paid a bit more for it, but the signore offered us delectable tastes on a huge slicing knife......he reminded me a bit of Blackbeard!
 |
| check out the "emergency Gifts" sign! |
We decided we needed to get back to check on our 'illegally' parked car so started to drift to the west. I have to say that GPS is invaluable in this city. Just when you think you know where you are, you check on your phone and figure out you are moving in the wrong direction!
After one of these course corrections, we took a left down a relatively small street and found a bakery (we had been looking for bread). It turns out that it was Antico Forno Roscioli. This is one of the hot places in the city and is Mario Batali's favorite bakery/pizzeria in Rome. He 'says' that it is the first place he goes when he is in Rome. It was quite popular, but not a problem to buy two loaves of bread (sfc) and grab some pizza (asc) to take back for lunch! What a crazy coincidence that we stumbled into this place!
We found our car intact and unticketed.......nice. We scrambled back to the ranch and had lunch......and generally goofed off for a while. I have to admit that some 'office stuff' pried its way into our flow of events today, so I had a series of emails and phone calls........a bit of a reality check. There is no true escape!
The office intervention was part of the driving force that led us to the sylvan landscape of the academy grounds for a relaxing pre-dinner 'de-stress' engagement. It was just what we needed.
No we are up to speed! Buona Notte a tutti !!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment