Rainy Day, Museo Day

Rainy days happen. Especially as Autumn is inching its way toward Winter. We're getting our share of murky days so far but it's not all bad. A torn-paper cloudy sky can be beyond beautiful.  And the clean smell of Gianicolo Hill is amazing after a brisk rain.

But there are pros and cons.

+ The aforementioned interesting skies and fresh smells of Rome.

- Walking up the Trastevere scala onto Gianicolo Hill with bags of groceries in a downpour.

+ The coziness of a small Trattoria.

- Crossing a street at night in the low visibility of a mist/rain and drivers that see you as an intruder on their space.

+ little to no Turistas when the temps drop into the 60's and it gets wet outside.

- Getting drenched by a Fiat purposely aiming at the puddle you're standing next to patiently while waiting to cross the street (yes, it really happened, just like in an old Cary Grant movie).

+++ Museo days!!


Yesterday was forecast for rain pretty much all day, so we headed across the river to Piazza Venezia and the Musei Capitalini.


The Capitaline museum is the oldest public museum in the world and hosts some just stunning works of ancient art with two whole floors of sculpture -  which is absolutely my favorite thing.  We happily spent most of our day wandering and gawking and being amazed.

You approach it by walking up a steep incline to a central courtyard and being greeted by Marcus Aurelius  (a copy, the real one is inside).















We found our way into the main museum floors on the right after getting a bit of the stink eye from the ticketing person because my still somewhat lame Italiano was not able to parse her rapid-fire mumbling from behind a plexiglass partition.  My one and only encounter with a French attitude toward language in Italy. She must have been having a rough day, cause if that's her usual demeanor, customer service is the wrong profession for her.


The inner courtyard and the remains of a 60' colossus sculpture of Constantin the Great.

All that is left is the head, part of his right arm, his left knee and both his feet. 

The first floor opens into a room with a ginormous painting completely covering one huge wall,  depicting epic battles and as we found out, was the actual room where the original EU agreement was signed in 1957. They likely choose the room for A. it's size, and B. the battle painting to remind them of why the EU and cooperation were necessary and a good thing.

These pictures don't entirely evoke the scale of an 18' by 50' mural. Use your imagination.

The inner courtyard - 

Battle armor

 

A chariot - magistrate, not battle

Mor Constantine fragementi

Marcus Aurelius - original

Sarcophagus 

Looks just like my neighbor, Dean.

Romans love their dogs

The Forums from the rooftop

Temple of Saturn

Herc! Tanned rested and ready for labors.

Mars

Theatrical mask, 3rd century AD

Oceanus in ripose

Pan, ready to party

 where it all began

All in all a great day to be inside and with some lingering sprinkles cabbed our way home and cooked some pasta fresca with anchovies, fennel, red onions and rosemary for a late lunch.  Such a huge difference in being able to get fresh made pasta rather than the old and over dried plastic crud that passes for pasta in the States. That and the super fresh veggies and aromatics make never going home again an enticing option. 

But having cooked for ourselves for lunch we felt like going out and around 8:30 ventured out into the damp streets for a lovely walk into Monte Verde and a ristorante named Focolare.

This was a dreamlike dining experience; not the level of culinary brilliance of last weekend at Antica Arch - which will live in memory for as long as my brain has electrical sparks flying, but in some ways was an even better experience.

We had the best waiter ever, who was friendly, knowledgeable, funny and freely gave his consigliere to make our meal seamless and creative.  I had a perfectly cooked Carciofi alla Guidia for antoipasta and ordered a gosssamer light, creamy, yet still crunchy rissotto con gambieri for prima piatta.  

At this point our waiter told us to wait, he had an idea for something not on the menu for our secondi.    

He brought us a whole redfish and offered to filet it ringside and braise it in a sauce with olives.

Here is the end result. A lemony tender filet that just melted in your mouth.  Wehe I thanked him for his consigliere, he just laughed and said, "I love my job."















When it came time for Dolce, he again made a spot-on suggestion.  Zabaglione made hot and fresh right at our table.  He wheeled over a cart with a burner and proceeded to break eggs, add sugar and heat and whisk like he was charging down the hill with the Garibaldini, all the while keeping up a steady stream of patter. The still hot, creamy custard-like zabaglione poured over fresh wild strawberries was life-changing.


Hrmmm,  that's the second time in only a week that I've
had my life changed by a dessert.  This is an interesting development

Afterward, he brought us limoncello and an amaretto liqueur (kept tactfully off our bill) and our night was made complete. The half kilometer walk back to Pamncrazio was like a dream in the cool night with stars peeking through the broken clouds.  It felt like living in a movie dream sequence. It only needed random music floating through the trees, but alas, it was just a Tuesday night.

We WILL return to Focolare.  A fantastic ristorante and we made a new friend.  Squad goals achieved.


Just a flat out great day was woven from a rainy Tuesday morning.

A Presto!