Prima Giorno a Roma

Waking up on the first day of my Rome adventure was glorious. Roma wore a torn-paper sky of clouds and sun; threatening yet light and airy. Windblown leaves on the ground, and golden treetops and rooftop gardens basted with shafts of moving, tremulous sunlight. The entire spectrum of expectations and possibilities.

Patty and I wandered from our new home about 50 yards to a cafe I've been lurking at on Google maps/street view for months and it totally met expectations. Despite the rain last night, it was dry enough and warm enough to take our caffe and cornetto outside.

Bar Gianicolo.

Now, my language skills are far from fluent and I speak Italian sometimes badly but with brava and confidence, and when the lovely server asked what I'd like I swiftly replied, "Vorrei caffe e cornetto."  She seemed surprised, but smiled and left.  A few moment moments later she returned with an espresso cup and caffe corretto.  Espresso with a shot of liqueur. Not what I intended, but hey, I'm a roll with the punches guy so I said grazie and enjoyed my corrected coffee. I believe it had an amaretto liqueur, and was quite an amazing eye-opener. Just to be sure I had enough caffeine for my first foray into the Trastevere,  I ordered a second cup.  Oh, yeah, Bar Gianicolo makes a hearty cup of coffee.   Pulse rate hitting about 175, I wolfed down my marmalade stuffed cornetto as well,  then we set out to make the acquaintance of our new hood.

Home for the next two months.

Our house is the doorway behind the Vespas, which leads down into a grotto/cave of an apartment. Spacious, quiet and feels like a sanctuary - which I'm told by the owner it was, as part of a church many, many years ago. The greenery on top of is a rooftop sekrit garden. Another sanctuary on non-rainy days. If the wifi reaches it, I will have found one of my office spaces. This after all a working voyage.

On the right is the largo del Pancrazio monumenti and museo. One of many monuments to the ferocious battle between the guardians of Roma and French troops in 1849. Everywhere in nearly every city in Italy you run into monuments to Garibaldi, but the battle of Gianicolo Hill was his Battle of Hastings (without the conventional decisive victory) and one of his defining moments as a hero of Roma.

A two minute walk down the hill is the Fontana dell Acqua Paulo or Fontanone (big fountain), which, if you turn your back on the fountain, you get an awe-inspiring view of all of Rome laid out before you.

Breathtaking is a buzzword description I'm not usually inclined to use, but completely apt in this situation. A few photos that made me wish for a real camera and not just an IPhone.....

Down the hill further found more monuments to glory,  the Roma O Morte moment to the fallen, gallant defenders of Roma.  >The young men advanced toward victory, on galloping horses, without fear<

soh yeah.  Galloping without fear. That's how it's done.









The next stop was sharply down into the Trastevere down the scala for our first Domenica pranzo at an outdoor cafe on the edge of piazza di San Cosimato.

A simply beautiful day walking in the most beautiful and vibrant city in the world. We hit a picolo marketo on the way home and picked up supplies for cooking our own dinner tonight: pasta oglio ed aglio.

I feel like Roma has warmly welcomed us...