Monthly Archives: June 2013

Because I can’t figure out which part of today was most entertaining.  Let’s start with the departure from the hotel in Rome when Paolo arranged for a taxi to take us to the station to pick up our rental car.  There we found ourselves second in line and still waited far longer than one should have to wait for a single male to rent a car.  I think it took less time for me to write my dissertation!  When it was just about to be our turn, a woman walked up and politely asked if she could step in for a moment because her GPS wasn’t working.  I have never figured out how to say no to such requests but think I may need to do so for the future.  What ensued was an exchange worthy of bad sitcom status:  the guy behind the counter arguing with the woman – in English which was the native tongue for neither of them – about why he refused to fix her GPS unit.  He was trying to explain that there was nothing he could do because he did not have a replacement there; she was trying to get him to diagnose and fix her problem.  Reality TV couldn’t have come up with a better scenario – the rental car guy was now really upset because his line is growing and she is “disrespecting his customers” and she is upset because he wants her to go to the rental car counter at the airport which she can’t find without a GPS unit.  (Cue laughter.)

She is eventually pacified with a paper map and directions – how 20th century! – and we pick up our car and are off.  There are many who remember from my early driving days that my family has not had good luck with white Ford automobiles (1 totaled, 1 seized engine, 1 died of abuse) so I was less than enthusiastic that we had been given a white Ford CMax – which was plenty roomy and fit all our bags and I wasn’t going to drive anyway so I shouldn’t care.  (Repeated often under my breath as we headed out of town.)

Which was an adventure in and of itself – all roads may lead to Rome but few actually lead you out of it.  At least, it was a challenge for our GPS unit (belongs to us, not the rental car company!) but eventually we made it onto the autostrade for the 3 hour trip to Florence.  The scenery was everything we expected; I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve watched too many movies but Tuscany looked exactly as I thought it would.  And driving through Florence to the hotel was nothing like I had hoped it would be!  Even though we updated the European maps  before we left, Sally (our name for the GPS) didn’t seem to know which streets were one way which led to a lot of “Recalculating route” messages before hearing “your destination is on the right.”

But we were not disappointed!  Our room in the Hotel Collodi is magnificent – two floors with a staircase leading from the marble floored room with our queen-sized bed to the loft with the two singles for the kids.  The car is parked in a secure lot about 50 meters away and we are about 5-10 minutes walk away from just about everything.  We dumped the bags, parked the car and headed out to hit the Uffizi museum.  I had booked timed tickets for the afternoon assuming that there wouldn’t be much to do on a Sunday afternoon.  And I couldn’t have been more wrong!  There were people everywhere and shops open to cater to them.  We started dashing toward the river to get to the museum hoping to grab a bite to eat when we turned the corner at the end of the road from our hotel and there was a sign in the window of a pizza place with the magic words: senza glutine! 

Yes, we found a gluten free pizza joint around the corner from the hotel.  It turns out that Florence may be even better than Rome for celiac culinary choices:  the Celiac Society of Italy lists about 34 restaurants in Florence that cater to GF clientele.  That may not seem like a lot given than Tripadvisor says there are more than 1500 restaurants in Florence but it made me do a happy dance!  We had a quick bite of delicious pizza (and even a GF beer!) before heading to the museum to get some culture.

And we tried.  Really.  We wanted to appreciate all the great masterpieces in the museum.  But after the 20 or 30th painting of “Madonna and Child”, it’s really hard to be enthusiastic. We did enjoy comparing facial expressions and dimensions of Dutch artistis in the “Foreign painters gallery” but that didn’t last very long. So we started trying to connect sculptures with songs just to stay engaged.  That a bust of one of the de Medici’s reminded us of Beethoven’s ninth symphony would probably not surprise anyone.  However, there was a hall of Roman statues that launched us into choruses of 70’s disco music for which we are likely never to be allowed back in.{sigh}

After our cultural excursion, we got our daily gelato (so much more expensive here than in Rome!) and wandered through the market places of the city.  There was one market under some ancient columns that made it seem as if Jesus was going to come and throw them all out like a Biblical scene!  There’s my Sunday bible reference to make up for not going to church today.

We wandered extensively all over town and have become quite charmed with the city.  It did take us until 6pm to hit the minimum 10K steps but I’ll take comfort in the fact that we did spend 3 hours in the car today.  

After some respite and planning, dinner was at a family run restaurant nearby which advertised a “senza glutine” menu.   We had a fabulous antipasti plate – including my first pate (chicken liver not goose) with GF bread.  Then I had spinach and ricotta gnudi (not quite gnocchi but not quite dumplings either) smothered in olive oil and Parmesan.  The boys shared a special steak and arugula dish meant for two – apparently, Florentine beef is a specialty here – and Gillian had a stew with red wine an peppercorn sauce. Then various cakes and profiteroles for desert, including a lemon concoction for me which was lovely. 

Now off to bed before tomorrow’s adventures of many churches and possible a tilted tower.

Step count: 15, 418 or 6.64 miles (we’re slackers today)

Nun count: 0 but we didn’t get into any churches today.

Like can you overdose on Nutella? Why is the Pantheon always closed? What kind of mother lets her kids wander around Rome in the middle of the night?

No alarms this morning so we were slow getting up and out.  It was nice to get a full night’s sleep and not  have to rush through the morning ablutions.  We have now mastered the espresso machine and had a good supply of Nutella and jam for our toast (and GF rolls).  We even remembered to pick up some fruit while we were out and about last night so peaches were added to the morning feast.  As we had nothing planned, we did some research and some googling and determined that although the Museum Borghese came highly recommended all around, there were no tickets left for today so we had to go with other options.

We eventually made it up and out and headed for the Castel Sant’Angelo – a fortress like structure just outside the Vatican walls.  It was originally build to be the burial place for the Emperor Hadrian and then went through various phases as a papal residence, armory, and now it is a museum.  It was fascinating to wander through – with very few crowds (yippee!) – and see what changes the structure went through during it’s various incarnations.  It also provided a great view of the city from atop the walls.  We couldn’t do the parapet walk, however, as they were preparing for a fireworks display later on tonight – which we promptly decided we would try to attend.

Then another adventure on the city bus system to take us to the Trastavere neighborhood where we found quirky medieval architecture, streets, and shops – and the GF traveler’s dream, a restaurant called Mama.Eat which had an entire GF menu including beer, desert, pizza, pasta, paninis  – you name it!  I had a bacon, zuchinni, and provolone panini on a freshly made GF roll and the boys had regular panini and Gillian had more pizza.  I did try their GF pizza crust – as dessert!  It was a freshly baked crust covered with Nutella and sugar.  I ate nearly the whole thing and was almost sorry I had done so…. almost!

Then to get some more culture.  A wander around the local church, Santa Maria in Trastevere, which was just beautiful.  As awed as I was at the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica, it was to be expected from a papal church.  This was more along the lines of a neighborhood church  but still had the most amazing ceilings, exquisite patterns in the floors and half a dozen small chapels off to the sides of the nave.  As old habits die hard, I lit a candle for my mother (haven’t missed a European country yet) and then we continued on to explore the west side of the city.  We walked all over including past the Spanish Embassy and through a beautiful park atop a hill – yes, whenever possible, I make my family head up – which had stunning views of the city.  More wandering brought us back down closer to the river Tiber, which is currently green and sluggish and not particularly an attractive site.  We grabbed a tram to get back toward the center of town to try again to visit the Pantheon.

And again it was closed! I’m beginning to take this personally. But there were other churches to be visited and sights to be seen so after a brief respite, we were off again to wander to the Basilica de Santa maria degli Angeli in the north east corner of the city center. By the time we got there, we were too tired to actually go in so it was back on the Metro to head toward the B&B and grab our daily gelato from a local place that had come highly recommended – and with good reason!  It was delicious and being away from the tourist attractions, it was not very expensive.  Just enough sugar to keep us going until dinner.

So we got organized and hung out for a while before heading out to dinner.  We started east to walk toward the Gardens Borghese and see what we hadn’t seen before.  What we saw was that there was not an abundance of restaurants that were open so we ended up heading back toward the Piazza de Popolo where we knew we’d find cafes and the like.  Italian schedules do confuse me:  I understand the long lunch hour thing – shops are often closed from 1 to 3:30 – but I confess that I am flummoxed by the number of shops and restaurants that were closed today on a *Saturday*!

I wanted to see if I could find somewhere to have risotto so the quest was on.  The first place we found that advertised risotto and looked respectable was not able to accommodate me.  As soon as I pulled out my Celiac Travel Card, the waiter rolled his eyes, muttered under his breath, and basically told me that I could have meat.  That’s all.  Meat.   A nice steak.  Not even the risotto because they cook the rice in the same water as the pasta.  ??? WTF???

So we moved on to the next place and asked before we sat down:  “Senza glutine?” Yes, I could have the risotto so dinner was on.  No house wine so we had a bottle of Chianti – the driest wine we’ve tried yet and the only one where Gillian actually drank more than her original glass even though she insists she likes sweeter wines. Dinner was lovely, including my risotto and we enjoyed sitting outside as the night air cooled. (Although it was probably still in the low 60s, there were lots of folks wandering around with jackets and sweatshirts on!)

Unfortunately, dinner finished too late for us to catch the fireworks we had hoped to see, even though we could hear them, so we bought more tiramisu from the shop down the street and sat on the Spanish Steps and ate it while we people watched.  Then another quick stop at the music festival where we arrived in time to see someone in a penguin costume rapping to a tune that sounded eerily like “Le Freak” from the 70’s!  When the Italian comedian came on making jokes we couldn’t understand, we decided to call it a night.  Well Frank and I did.  Duncan and Gillian opted to stay at the music festival a little while longer and come home later.  Eeeek!  All the mother in me was totally freaking out about letting them wander around Rome at midnight even though I did very similar things by myself at both 18 and 20.  (Deep yoga breaths… in through the nose, out through the nose… They were fine as I knew they would be but still….)

And so we bring our last day in Rome to a close.  Fabulous time, lots of excellent ancient history and papal trivia  but not so much art and more recent history but we have to leave something for the next visit when the Pantheon better not be closed!!! Now to try to get some sleep before we head to Florence tomorrow with Frank driving.  (Yoga breaths…. in through the nose, out through the nose….)

Favorite little detail about Rome:  water fountains everywhere.  Not just the spigot kind you get in elementary schools but pipes coming out of stone walls splashing cool drinkable water.  We must have saved 10-20 euro a day not having to buy bottled water.

Step count: 30,909 0r 13.31 miles.  Possibly a new record!

Nun count: 14 plus one monk.  Yup, just like Brother Cadfael.

(at the same time that we were!)

Today was the only day for the entire trip where an alarm clock would be necessary.  We had tickets for a Vatican tour that required that we be half a mile from the hotel by 8:45 so the alarm was set for 7 am (yes, I am paranoid).  The morning routine was interesting:  it’s been a long time since four of us shared a bathroom!  I was first up and showered so I could be first to the espresso machine in the kitchen.  Duncan and I have decided to learn to drink coffee like the locals which means a short shot of espresso (think of how much coffee you use to make an 8oz cup and then brew it with about an ounce of water!)  We’re getting there slowly and even Frank is giving up the milk to go native!

After our basic breakfast of pastries, yogurt, and espresso, we headed out to meet the tour group and our guide Sarah, the art history major from a small town just outside Rome who was so excited to be showing us all the works of art in her city.  We skipped the horrendous queues to get in and headed through the Vatican Museum – or at least a small portion of it.  Apparently, you can spend days there but we only had 3 hours and had to get in the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s as well.  We learned that the museum has 20 thousand visitors A DAY and I think we had all of them with us this morning as the Sistine Chapel was closing at noon for the private use of the Pope.  The museum was pretty awesome and we got lots of inside info on the frescoes in the Chapel before heading in as there is supposed to be no talking in there.

Of course that is an excellent rule if you can actually make it stick.  There had to be couple thousand people admiring the works of Michelangelo and even if they all had been trying to be quiet (which I guarantee was not the case) there would have been substantial ambient noise.  Therefore, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the announcements for silencio!  that came approximately every 2 minutes.  (I think I was the only one who saw irony in the fact that they used a loud speaker system to tell people to shut up repeatedly but that’s me!)  I’m not good with crowds in general so today was particularly trying – especially since so many of my fellow tourists were downright rude. Either the Asian cultures are more effective at handing crushing crowds or those that travel abroad spend far to much time battling crowded subway systems at home but I have never experienced such stereotypical rude behavior as I did today.  I was repeatedly elbowed, shoved out of the way, and stepped on and all by people who shared the same cultural heritage.  No “scuzi” or any word of warning but push, shove and barge through.  Argh!

We did get to spend some time wandering around St. Peter’s and the square outside without too much jostling and admired the marble and the statues before heading back towards the hotel for some lunch away from the tourist crowds.  We picked a small wine bar near that hotel that had been recommended and had a lovely lunch.  Although there was a small eye rolling and some consternation when I asked what items on the menu were “senza glutine” I did wind up with a lovely steak salad while the rest of the family enjoyed their homemade pasta. With a liter of vino bianco, of course!

Then off to wander!  The afternoon was somewhat cool and cloudy and the forecast threatened rain but not until after we had wandered around a great deal of the city.  We climbed the Spanish steps – where we bought a lovely water color of a scene outside the Colosseum from the artist – and then wandered down what had to be the ritzy shopping street with Prada, Ferregamo, and other high end shops.  We found our way to the Pantheon, which was closed for the afternoon, so we headed through the rabbit warren of cobbled streets with shops and cafes to the Tivoli fountain – where some big fat raindrops did fall amidst the blazing sunshine.  We then wandered over to the Piazza Navona and got to see another hundred art stalls selling prints of Roman scenes but none like ours.  A little more wandering – we hit 10K steps before 4pm today – before settling down to dinner around 7:30 at La Scalletta.  This restaurant north of the Pantheon had GF bruschetta and GF pizza which was delicious.  We had a bottle of prosecco  with the antipasti and followed that by a liter of vino rosso with the pizza.  Another family sat next to us as we were finishing and asked about the GF offerings only to be told that they were out of both the bruschetta and the pizza – apparently I had the last of both…. oops.

We got advice on a shop nearby to get GF tiramisu so off we went.  As we wandered in the correct direction, we noticed that one of the piazzas in the distance was bathed in purple light with the occasional burst of strobe flashes. This must be investigated!  It turns out that this weekend is the Rome Summer Music Festival and tens of thousands of people were packed into Piazza del Popolo to hear some of the biggest names in Italian music – like Greta and Biaggio Antonnaci.  Nope, I hadn’t heard of them either but the crowd loved them and sang along, knowing all the words.

But alas, all good things come to an end and so does our first full day in Rome.  We have no concrete plans for tomorrow other than to *not* have the alarm go off at 7.  Still no luck with the Fitbit syncing or uploading the photos but I suspect I’ll have time to take care of that in the morning as I know I will be awake long before the rest of the family.  Bueno notte!

Update: 24,019 steps or 10.34 miles!