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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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...
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