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.
The Cannon Family's travel blog 