A weekend in the country

For literally centuries, Romans have been getting out of town to escape the Summer heat by traveling into the hills to the south and southeast. It's not hot or oppressive here in late November, but we still felt like a break from routine was in order so we rented a car and headed out for a few days to Castel Romani; a grouping of hill towns around Lake Abano and Lake Nemi.

We rented a flat in the village of Castel Gandolfo, a town perched high over the gorgeous Lake Albano, the bigger of the two bodies of water.

The view out the window of our AirtBnB.

The Emporer Miltonius Maximus surveys the Papal residence.

 Castel Gandolfo is home to the Papal holiday residence, a charming little villa that is as luxurious as Versailles and larger than Vatican City. Popes have been coming here doing whatever Popes do on vacation for about 500 years. Probably strolling about the grounds, thinking, maybe doing a little fishing?  In any case, the current Pope who lives in a simpler fashion has stopped using it and it's now a garden and museum one can wander through and sit and contemplate the beautiful natural surroundings. This is actually somewhat controversial to the locals as the loss of the Papal entourage has dealt a severe blow to the local businesses and tourism, and our host, a 30 year Tedeschi resident sounded kind of bitter about it.

We only had a day and a half so we decided to skip Pope-land and explore the villages and hills of the area.  We set our beam on the village of Nemi and the smaller of the two lakes (less than .06 square meters of surface). We of course got happily lost for a while and found ourselves winding higher and higher up toward the top of the mountain you can see in the photos above, and ended up in Rocca di Papa (Pope's fortress) a classic movie set of a village built as though chiseled into the sheer walls of the mountain. Stunning and almost gives one a bit of vertigo just to look at it.

 

The locals must have legs of iron and lungs the size of inner tubes from stair climbing.

Amazing skills at architecture and determination to build a town on this rock. After regaining our balance we headed onward to Nemi, just a few kilometers away. This was a reward beyond belief. 

Nemi is a small village, again out of Hollywood central casting, also built on sheer cliffs and sharply descending hillsides above a gorgeous little lake.  The town just whispers at you, "Get out of your car and wander the streets," and we did.  As previously mentioned on these pages, one of the rewards of traveling in the offseason is literally no tourists. None. I think we saw maybe 5 other people in the hours we spent on the streets as we passed by shops selling the three specialties of the town; Tiny wild strawberries, porchetta and a local varietal of vino bianca.  I'm sure it's insanely packed with tourists and day-trippers in the Summer, but today it was all ours.

Sit at one of these tables and this is what you see -->

This village goes back to pre Roman times and still has remnants of a temple of the goddess Diana and you can see her influence everywhere. 

Goddess of the hunt, means fresh porchetta is what's often on the table.

ap

It was time for pranzo and we saw a sign for a trattoria Sirena del lago with an arrow pointing down an alley and after following some twisty turny streets and two more hand-painted signs,

we found a tiny trattoria with a $10 million dollar view. It was completely empty, but we were told "Si we're aperto, come in," and got a seat by the glass overlooking the lake.

Window seat for the win.

I had the Minestra in Brodo, which was just soul-warming on this November day.  Chicken brodo with pastina. Just a bit of gold on a cloudy day.

Our waiter, who'd briefly scared me when we sat down by rapidly saying something about my shoes that I couldn't quite parse - I thought he was asking me to take them off because they were dirty. lol. Actually, he was only admiring them as he had the same type and used them for running.  He then suggested the Saltimbocca and since we were the sole diners in the Trattoria, I took this for code that they had this ready to go and it would be easier if we went with that.

I did and was rewarded with the best Saltibocca to date. It must have been the quality if the pancetta wrapped around the Vitale.  Just spicy and juicy, tender and tasty beyond belief.

Moral of the story?  Always follow the signs down twisty turny streets to that hidden Trattoria. And always follow the consigliere of a friendly waiter.

Side story, which perhaps only my old pal and road manager buddy Whit and his wife Laureen will understand: While eating I saw a framed 3’ by 4’ picture of Elvis on the wall, which seemed a little out of place to the decor and ambiance. I asked our the waiter. “Perque Elvis?” I kid you not. His answer was, with no hesitation,  “ Perque Elvis e Il Re.”  Because Elvis is the king.  That was the punchline to a long ago Wisconsin bar crawl of a bachelor party for Whit in which, I, as the best man bought Elvis tattoos for everyone.  Whit, stumbling home at 3am was confronted by a sleepy Laureen* as to what the heck are you doing with an Elvis tattoo on your shoulder? Whit answered exactly like our waiter.  "Because Elvis is the king."  Funny how life syncs up, sometimes.

*who didn't realize that the tats were tempory, stencil tattoos. 

Another side note about Nemi.  Nemi was the party central hot spot for Caligula during his short four-year reign (another crazed Emporer whacked by the knives of the Roman senate). Caligula had built two huge ships in this tiny fishing lake, solely for use as floating pleasure palaces We're talking huge, like 250' by 80 feet, It seems Caligula may have built his ships on the tiny Lake Nemi due to its alignment with the goddess Diana, a fitting place for a living divinity to site his pleasure barges. The largest, dubbed the “prima nave” (first ship) was an enormous vessel, steered with oars 40 feet long. The second was a giant floating platform replete with marble palaces, gardens, and a system of plumbing for baths. The ships even had lead keels against sea worms which of course were not an issue with fresh water. You can see how it was Caligula drained the treasury in short order. Nothing was too grand for our boy, Cal.

The ships were discovered (though locals Fishermen knew about the ships fore centuries) in the 1400's but technology had no way for them to really check it out. not until Leonardo invented diving suits (which you can see in his museo in Roma by the piazza Populi) could they be properly explored.  

Then Mussolini during his revival of the empire had the lake drained and the ships brought to the surface.

Unfortunately, they were a casualty of WWII and burned up in the fighting in 1944. Our German AirBnb host blamed the Brits for the bombardment, but I think she was just trying to not offend us Americanos. More likely it was Patton's army or the US bombers that set them alight. Whoever did the deed, all that remains are the lead keels and a bit of the ships statues and accessories like these bronze oar rings for the 40 foot oars.

All in all a fine few days of ticking off another bucket list item (hill country villages) and nerding out on the history of civilization and its rise and fall. Treasures found after centuries of being hidden then lost again. The nature of existence.

Today back to our home in Rome.

A presto...

A Walk In The Park

What could be better on a sun-bleached day with rare warm temps than a long walk in a park?

You are not required to answer as it's simply too obvious.  Nothing. So take a long walk is what we did after our usual caffee con cornetto at Bar Gianicolo this morning.

The sky was a brittle and bright blue as we ambled down the slight hill to the park we'd seen across a super busy stretch of road in Monte Verde, right next to the ristorante Scarpone we'd eaten at the previous week. Now crossing a busy Roman street with two curious dogs seemed daunting as the cars were just whipping by and crosswalks merely being suggestions rather than official orders.

That is until we discovered the magic trick: Walk the streets as though you're driving a car. With Brava and confidence AND politeness all wrapped carried in one sacchetto.

Driving in an Italian city can be scary and perplexing. Lane lines sometimes don't really exist and everyone, especially in Rome, seems to be vying for that coveted first place trophy at the finish line. Cars merging look more like a mob movement, like honey bees being hived for the first time, moving as one group into the narrow hive entrance looking for the new Queen. But what I've found, is that if you act like a shrinking violet and wait for someone to show mercy and just let you in, well, you may be waiting for a long, long time. But if you just head into the sea of merging traffic, in a somewhat respectful of space manner (meaning don't cut anyone off like a jerk, but just assert your space in the moving queue) the seas will part and you'll be let in just fine. Don't fight over space, acquistare it with measured confidence and finesse.

And the same thing is true when walking. Step boldly into a decent space between two oncoming cars and car #2 will respect your life and let you pass, maybe even slow down considerably.

And so we successfully moved ourselves and dogs across the busy road and entered near some the remains of the villa Doria Pamphili, which was once the huge 15th-century villa that dominated this space up until the Battle of Gianicolo Hill in 1849.  At the time of the fighting between the defenders of the republic and the Francese, it was pummeled badly leaving it standing today as a huge arch at the entrance.

Huge and imposing, yet quiet and calm on this beautiful Tuesday morning. We passed by and alongside many joggers, and dog walkers, and mamas strolling with sleeping bambini, and old folks out for a morning's exercise. All was quiet and I don't think I've ever felt more calm and centered walking up the slight incline in the warm sunlight.

And dogs, lots of dogs.  Milt and Bisou, along with having a zillion new trees and poles and benches to mark and sniff (Paradiso for a dog) found plenty of new dogs to meet and play with. In particular, Milt made super fast friends with a dachshund/beagle mix that so wanted to play "chase me", but Milt wasn't allowed off-leash as he's still pretty much too macho with any dog that is larger than him and we didn't want to start any trouble. Much hopping about and sniffing ensued.  No language barrier seemed to exist between the dogs

To bad about the off-leash as this meadow was a prime running/frolicking and ball throwing field of dreams.

From the top.

From the Bottom

A little further along we found a community theater space where a troupe of actors were rehearsing a play.  The theatre is a shared space for the arts; dance, music literature and live theater in another of the remaining buildings from the old Villa.  A lovely addition to the neighborhood. We'll have to pick a show to come see, though one event, if my non-forte Italiano is correto, was a day of clown school.  That might be fun.

Soldering on we found what I feel is the calmest meadow I've ever seen.  Like something imagined in a dream. I can just see myself strolling on a day not unlike today in 1550 or so discussing the art and literature of the day

We left by a side entrance back to Via Casini and home, as dammit, it was still a Tuesday and I was forced to give in to the pressure and do some actual work to pay for living in this dream state.  We really only got to see maybe 1/20th* of the park which has lakes and even a Calcio stadium. But that's a good thing, now that I think about it. Now I've got a reason to come back on the next sunny day for more exploration.

*I kid you not, tt's a huge park.   

The Monte Verde neighborhood just keeps getting better every day.

A presto

Small Victories.

I've been here for three weeks today and I've firmly ensconced ed in my neighborhood, on the border (literally) of The Trastevere and Monte Verde. Both neighborhoods are lovely, safe, with multiple bars (cafes), stores, bakeries, ristorantes and the hum of life, Italian style.

Our greatest joy, beyond the five-minute walk to a beautiful park overlooking the entire Rome

skyline (Terrazo di Garibaldi),  is the lovely :30 walk to our daily caffee e cornetto and sometimes late night bevande at Bar Gianicolo.

Bar Gianicolo by day is a streetside cafe with outside tables, dog parking (yes) and a vine covered pergola seating against the rain. Just lovely and the perfect place to fuel up with excellent espresso and pastries.

By night it's a bar with good drinks, antipasto sandwiches, and friendly staff. Some times we see the same staff in the morning AND at night.

It's kind of become our daily home base to wake up, fuel up and plan the day.

The staff, always friendly, but of course, realizing that we were just more Americani was professional and friendly but stuck to mostly speaking to us in English and serrving our coffee.  But after three weeks of seeing us every day, a sea change happened yesterday.  On a stunning sunny (thank you, rain, for going away momentarily) morning,  conversation happened. Nothing earthshaking, not a deep dive into a Kafka novel exploration or anything of that nature.  Just a normal lovely morning discussion of a beautiful morning, bright sunlight and happiness that it was Venerdi and the workweek era quasi finito. 

And for once our server spoke only Italian to me. Suddenly, I was just part of the nighborhood and not merely another turista to serve and move on.  Then better yet, when I went inside to pagire il nostra conto, we got the local's price.  Around 25% off our bill, and a smile and a wink.  Grazie a il mio coure, ed a presto, amico. 

Later that night we went in after our home cooked meal for a nightcap and were again treated like friends, our usual order of a negroni and a spritz remembered by the barman and had a nice convo with the bouncer/greeter about limoncello with much admiration given to the photos of my most recent batch. "Could you bring us some, yours is much better than what we have."  

Maybe when you visit San Fransisco, guys , I'll gift you some of my stash. 

A day in four neighborhoods

Yesterday, on a somewhat rare sunny sky day, I took the majority of the day off of actual work (sentencing myself to working into the evening hours) and took a lovely long and leisurely 5-hour walk around the city.  It sounds like a lot of walking but Rome is smaller than you think and what may look like a hefty hike on a map turns into just a few alleys and interesting streets away until you hit that magnificent square and fall into a dreamlike montage of a Gregory peck/Audrey Hepburn movie. Especially when you are dedicated to traveling not as the crow flies, but as the bufala wanders,  The Italians even have a word for it, bighellonare: to loiter,  saunter,  browse.

So bighellonare we did down the hill into the Trastevere after our ritual morning coffee at Bar Gianicolo,  heading slowly and majestically toward the Ponte Sisto*. 


* The bridge on the Tiber where the boy Rafaello was cut down by French cannon fire in the fight for the republic in 1849 and got himself memorialized on Giancolo hill symbolizing all the youth of Rome who contributed to the cause.

it was a gorgeous leafy autunno day with quiet streets, early enough that the restaurants were still taking food deliveries and just beginning to roll open their gates to prep for the lunch hours. We passed a Strumenti Antica Restorivo and Luthier shop with an elderly man in the back playing a slow song on a bassoon (I assumed he'd just repaired the instrument and was testing).  Lots of old piano forte and guitars and harps piled to the ceiling. I must go back another time and speak to him. He had a small handwritten sign on a chair out front asking for donations as he takes care of neighborhood stray cats.  Of course, he does. His shop is the fourth door on the left if you find yourself inexplicably on this street one day.

More amazing street art. The Trastevere's walls are just covered with it in certain sections. This one right next to some legal weed shops.

Crossing the Tiber we headed north with our goal being the Campo di Fiori market for browsing, some food for dinner and to search out a spot Patty had read about that has just fanstastico Pizza Bianca -  the ultimate Roman street food that MUST be consumed before you can call yourself even nominally a Roman.

On the way, we chanced by the French embassy with its cool, quiet fontana and not street art, but a fresco I initially thought was - it looked vaguely Grateful Dead-ish, but in fact, was an old sign marking a cemetery.

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fe

A few blocks more and we turned a corner into the Campo di Fiori.  Field of flowers, which it once was - an open-air farmers market and a fantastic selection of produce, cheese, meat, spices, and wine, in a huge square lined with ristoranti, bookshops and flower stands.  Heaven on earth.

Wandering through the market I ended up ditching the idea of pizza bianco when I passed a stall that offered huge porchetta sammiches carved fresh off the pig. It looked amazing and hot off the press and wrapped in newspaper tasted like Paradiso. Unlike Americano sandwiches slathered in mustard and mayo and vinegar and cheese, this sandwich was purity defined. Fresh porchetta spiced and crisp and fatty, sliced per order and placed on fresh ciabatta then pressed hot in a grill.  All the flavors of rosemary and parsley and garlic from the porchetta came through clearly and unfiltered by condiments.  Il mio spiritu crescere!! 

Patty held off and got a few slices of piazza bianco from a shop on the corner and we sat on the edge of the market on the rim of a fontana as happy as any two people could be, people watching and happily munching. The photo two shots up was shot from the fontana with a porchetta sammich in one hand and a camera in the other. La dolce vita indeed,

For dinner, back in the market I bought some super fresh garlic cloves and pomodori from a produce stand.  The Nonna running the stand gave us some plastic bags to hold while she filled her hands with fresh, bright red Giulieta pomodori. Boy-howdy could she hold a lot.  I said "Troppo, forse mezzo". and she smiled and let about 5 tomatoes drop back into the bin.  She certainly knew how to make a sale.  I decided there is no such thing as too many tomatoes and bagged them all. I have found my favorite produce stand.  Mi adoro, nonna. 

Only a few blocks away was the Piazza Navona, one of the larger public squares with fantastic sculptured fountains; the centerpiece being the famous 4 rivers of the Christian world, by Berlini.

The sublime, the majestic and the flat out weird.  Berlini was an amazing dude.

Neptune harvesting some calamari for dinner.

I've read that in th 1700's the city used to flood the piazza for a while each summer by blocking the fountains, to turn the square into a huge lake.  Lago di Novona. It was wildly popular during a hot summer in Roma,

We then headed vaguely northeast on side streets towards the Centro Storica as we decided we needed to see the Pantheon again, one of the most magnificent buildings in the world. On the way, on a connecting side street, we passed a panetteria and decided we needed bread for our dinner as well.  In the front window was a round of mortadella as big as a truck tire and inside the shop it smelled strongly of fresh bread, sugar and dolce.  iI took all my willpower not to load up on pastries and tarts and chocolate confections, but to stick to pane per cena. And the bread we got was just flat out, one of the best loaves I've ever had. Maybe it's because it smelled of sugar from being surrounded by racks 

and racks of dolci.

I'm eating a piece right now for breakfast the next day and it's still as sweet and tender with a crackly crust. So good it doesn't need anything. No butter, evoo or acerto balsamica. If I ever move to Rome permanently, I will buy an apartment on this street so I can shop here daily.  Hourly, maybe!


Around the next corner was the Pantheon, as majestic and solemn as we remembered and we took refuge in sitting in its silence in the rows of pews near the altar and then a visit to Rafael's tomb before going out again to view the obelix and fontana in the square.

We then, after yet another espresso in a bar near the piazza Petra and the rain beginning to fall fast-tracked it back to the Trastevere and Gianicolo hill, just in time to log into a workday.

This was the type of day I dreamed of having when the idea of working remotely from Rome for the winter hit me last summer. 

A presto...

The best laid plans....

Market day.  Rain continues to be a companion. It IS winter after all, and sorta nice to not be paranoidly thinking about fire danger constantly as we do back home 12/24/7 in California. But pouring rain or the threat of it makes us think a bit harder about daily choices for aimless wandering. It's not so much fun to just walk and get lost in the Trastevere or the Centro Storica when one is wet and windblown.

That's okay, though. We planned on doing some marketing and designing a dinner to cook in the appartamento for a Friday night and even though the lovely market in the piazza Cosimato was certain to be a drippy affair, we made plans to go into the Testaccio neighborhood to a huge indoor market that  just dwarfs any farmers market I've ever seen or been to.

Absolute heaven on earth for a market day And far beyond just mountains of fresh produce, the T-market has food stalls and cheese stacked as high a the moon, and hopefully, the one item I really wanted to find; a ferro -  a pasta rolling rod for making my own custom pasta del campo.

But the fates got in the way again. Being rainy and forecast for thundershowers, we cabbed it over to the Testaccio neighborhood and in wrestling ourselves out of the tiny cab, a phone was lost. Which was pretty much a disaster as it was the one phone we jailbroke and inserted an Italian sim card and internet service for navigation and well, things like calling a cab while out wandering and being caught in a thunderstorm.

On queue, the sky opened up and started dumping rivers of water on Rome.  I'm not sure what the Italian word for bummer is but it was definitely a brutta situazione.

We had another phone, which if we could find Wifi we could be saved, but although the market had gorgeous melanzana, wifi was non-existent.  We headed out to try and find a cafe or ristorante with wifi. Not so easy as the huge Testaccio market kind of cornered the market, so to speak, on places to eat and we were in a bit of an industrial, warehouse sector.

After a while of walking fruitlessly in the rain, and beginning to consider throwing myself dramatically in front of a speeding Fiat so as to be taken by ambulance to somewhere warm and dry, Patty, of course, saved the day as she always does.  She found a ristorante which since it was a bit early for pranzo was stone empty, but they said they'd certainly let us and provide some food.

La Toricella was a huge place with tables for days and it felt a bit weird to be the only customers, but the owner, an older gentleman, made us feel warmly welcomed (I love Italians) and said, of course we have free wifi while handing us a menu.

When I ordered the zuppa a castagne e faggioli he proudly told me he made it himself and congratulated me on my choice. Confidence was beginning to rise.

The zuppa was fabulous with roasted and softened chestnuts from Abruzzo floating alongside white beans with just the right amount of garlic in a steamy broth with tiny diced carrots. I could certainly tell why our host was so proud of his recipe. I sopped up every last drop with the fresh bread provided. 

Happy and warm inside and out we got a fresh cab and made it home to the warm and happy puppies,

and with a little sleuthing we managed to locate and message our original cab driver who lo and behold drove to us and delivered the rogue phone. A lovely man named Emiliano Pelosi who even got out of his cab and came down our stairs to our door to save us the walk up to the street.  He was surprised by our rather large rescue/reward tip, but we insisted.

Indeed, The best laid schemes o' mice an men, aft gang agley. But they aft turn out just fine as well, due to the good nature of most humans. Graze Millie, Emiliano, wherever you are this morning. We won't forget your kindness.

Today we head back to the Testaccio Market for round two.  I WILL have that ferro.

PS:  We hit a small neighborhood marketo in Monte Verde and still eked out a modest meal of gnocchi in a sauce of guanciale and zucchini with plenty of fennel and rosemary and garlic.

A Presto!

Update!!  Much more success on day two.  We wandered for hours and saw everything, had a lunch of perfectly cooked suppli on demand, joined in the moda of a glass of prosecco while shopping and brought home a rabbit for dinner with veggies and fresh bread.  I could go here everyday......