In late August, we spent five days in Rome. The weather was good, but I think a lot of the better restaurants were closed for the August getaway (feria) that Romans observe, or at least, that’s what I tell myself because many of our meals were hit-or-miss despite deep research.
That said, pasta courses were almost always fresh and cooked perfectly al dente, so maybe if all you eat is pasta, you won’t be disappointed. There are worse strategies than going whole-hog-anti-Atkins, I suppose.
The Colosseo was more moving than I remembered from my backpacker trip in 1999, but even though Rome is a beautiful and lively city, I think there are a lot of other places in Italy (Florence, Tuscany, Amalfi, Cinque Terre, Venice) I would re-visit before I travel to Rome again.
Thursday, August 2006 – dinner at Maccheroni
We arrived at Ciampino airport around 4:30 p.m. Rome time, and just our luck, we ended up waiting in the baggage area for about 40 minutes because the Rome airport authorities were (so the rumor was) concerned about unattended baggage sitting in front of the station. Instead of making a public announcement about it, the airport authorities preferred to rely on a system of communication best resembling the game of telephone. You’d see an Italian-speaking person approach the uniformed guy in the corner, converse for a while, and then that person would tell nearby people what the uniformed guy said, etc. We were told only to move from one side of the room to the other and then back – all in the name of safety. Not sure why we had to make the moves across the room, other than perhaps uncertainty about where, exactly, the unattended luggage was.
Jon and I decided to be adventurous (and cheap) and follow all the Italians in order to get from the airport to Rome. We paid 1 euro each to get on the local Cotral bus to the Ciampino railway station, which was about a 5 minutes’ drive away from the airport. The town of Ciampino looked pretty charming, considering its claim to fame is this relatively dinky airport. We paid another 2 euros each for our tickets into Rome Termini, and the ride to Rome was about 15 minutes, max. Definitely not a bad way to travel and it’s unbeatably cheap. Always a plus. Literally, when in Rome . . . .We arrived at Termini and I couldn’t help thinking how much snazzier Termini looks now than it did when I was there in 1999. It seems urban redevelopment and sprucing up has been a trend the world over.
The Golden Tulip Mecenate Palace Hotel is in a lovely spot on Via Carlo Alberti. The hotel overlooks Santa Maria Maggiore basilica, and it’s a pretty, grand-looking building. Jon and I got a tiny tiny room, which was fine with us since it was clean and well-air-conditioned. In my mind, it’s also nicer to have a smaller (full size-ish) bed that’s in one piece as opposed to a “European King Size” bed that’s effectively two twin beds shoved together such that one person always ends up in that annoying crack. (The Golden Tulip, by the way, is a chain we first encountered in Prague, where we thought the service and style were huge for the money (probably true of Prague, generally), so that’s why we tried it out again in Rome).
Jon and I unpacked and relaxed a little before going running to get rid of the airplane blahs. We ran down Via Merulana and didn’t turn off at the right place (bc bringing a map would slow down our obviously blistering-fast, Olympic-style pace), so it was a real treat when we rounded a corner and had a view of the Colosseo. It looked beautiful with the sun setting behind it and the ruins of the Forum also backlit. I loved how enormous it looked, and I thought about how when I last saw it with my friend Maura, I never thought I would see it again. Well, not in a morbid way. More that I wouldn’t expect to see it again “just” seven years later.
Our challenge of the day was to figure out how to buy bus tickets. Using the crap glossary at the back of our guidebook, we cobbled together the sentence: “Avete bigliottero per favore”? Very fluent are we.
The No. 71 bus was perfect – it stopped right in front of our hotel and ran straight west. We were in Piazza S. Silvestrio in about 6 minutes, and then we walked less for than five minutes to reach Maccheroni Ristorante, Piazza delle Coppelle, 44 (+39.(0)6.580.0919).
At first we were seated downstairs, and when we asked the waiter if there was room upstairs, he gave a non-responsive answer that amounted to “you were told you would be seated downstairs so that’s where you will sit.”
The problem is that the underground dining area was depressing. There were six tables, most seating big families, a woman eating alone, a couple with a baby . . . not deal breakers on their own, but I had seen and felt the buzz upstairs and so that’s where I wanted to be. I kept obsessing about it, and it’s a good thing the food was good and Jon has a lot of patience for my whining.
Our primi piatti (pastas) were excellent. I ordered zucchini flower ravioli which, despite the pretty heavy cheese sauce, managed to keep the delicate flavor of the zucchini flowers going. We could have stopped there, but of course we ordered secondi (meat) courses too.Most happily, after our pasta course, Jon convinced a sympathetic waiter to seat us upstairs. I was thrilled. Upstairs you get the cheerful, casual noise of a place like Two Amys in DC. The room is all white-tiled walls, and this being a trendy place, you of course watch the chefs at work in the kitchen through a glass partition.
My breaded veal breast with fresh arugula and tomatoes was all you could ask for in anything deep fried – crisp and greaseless on the outside while pink and juicy on the inside. With a 1/2 L of house wine and an espresso for Jon, our total tab was about 80 euros. An excellent start to the trip despite my initial unhappiness about the downstairs thing.
Friday, August 2006 – Capitoline Museums, lunch at Giggetto al Portico d’Ottavia, drinks at Hotel de Russie, and dinner at Il BacaroAntico Caffe Santamaria, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, 7a (06 446 5863).
Because we had slept too late and missed the hotel -provided breakfast, we went to the place just around the corner from our hotel. We stood at the counter and ate our two cornetti (tasty) and Jon’s espresso. When you stand at the counter, you pay what the locals pay. The minute you sit down at a table, you’re paying triple – mostly for the privilege of parking yourself at a table for as long as you want, which is fine if that’s what you’re planning to do all morning. Cornetti, by the way, is a genius idea. It’s a croissant, but with a sugar glaze on top. It is a universal fact that Butter Pastry + Sugar Glaze = Yummy.
We then walked down towards the Forum to see the Capitoline Museum. Turns out we made a wrong turn at the monstrously-huge Victor Emmanuel
monument (Il Vittorio) and got caught in a driving summer rain. Jon was surprised by the intensity of the thunderstorm – there is no such thing in London – and we had expected the day to be cold and gray the entire time. Instead, once the storm clouds had passed, the day was perfectly clear and sunny. We’d forgotten that’s how rainstorms can work.
The Capitoline Museum was OK. It’s comprised of two buildings. One of them, the Conservatore Palace, was not very exciting, though we gamely listened to the two-for-one audiotour we’d gotten. This two-for-one is not to be confused with getting two separate audiotours. With the two-for-one, you get one player, and one person can hold up the player to his/her ear like it’s a phone, and the other person has to trail nearby, listening to the same commentary but using headphones attached to the phone-like part. It’s quite a dorky sight, and you both have to want to see the same works of art at the same time. But it worked for us, because we’re cool like that.
The problem with the audiotour is that the narrator spends a whole lot of time in each room describing things like the ceiling carvings rather than the who, what, when, where 
of the artists whose sculptures are on display. In one of the rooms of the Conservatore Palace, there’s a famous statue of the she-wolf and Romulus and Remus. The twins are, of course, suckling at the wolf’s teats, and Jon and I watched in total amusement as two college-age-looking guys spent five or ten minutes trying to take a photo of one of them suckling at the she-wolf teats. For a moment, I was proud to be 30.After we had left the museum around 2 p.m., we set out in search of lunch.
Sora Margherita (Piazza delle Cinque Scole, 30) turned out to be closed for August (and by the way, the restaurant’s doorway was so run-down-looking that it was hard to believe there’s a highly-regarded restaurant hiding behind, though apparently you’ll have a great meal there if you get in), so we went to our nearby backup: Ristorante Giggetto al Portico d’Ottavia, Via del Portico d’Ottavia, 21/a-22 (06 68.61.105, closed on Mondays). The outdoor seating was irresistible, and wine really was cheaper than water: a 1 1/2L carafe was 3.50 euros.We tried our first Roman specialty of fried artichoke (carciofo) for 6 euros and kept things light with just one order of fried zucchini flower, a suppli (fried risotto balls with a cheese center), pasta carbonara, and pasta e vongole.
Unbelievably thrilling is that our total came to just 35 euros. The food was uneven (i.e., excellent pastas, really soggy, lukewarm appetizers), but when your bill is that cheap and the weather is so nice, it’s hard to be unhappy. Most of the diners at that hour appeared to be just like us (tourists), and when we went in to use the bathroom, we discovered the interior of the restaurant was depressingly dark and old-school as well as the size of a football field. Not exactly the small local find we’d hoped to eat at. Still, if you avoid eating inside and stick with the pastas, all will be well.
Jon and I did some shopping at the Frette store (it’s cheaper in Italy than in the UK) and then walked along Via Condotti in what turned out to be very hot weather. I walked through a few stores, and when I gave up on my window shopping, I found Jon napping in the sun on the Spanish Steps. To help him wake up, we decided to get some gelato near Trevi Fountain.
Blue Ice Cream, near Trevi, was pretty good, but not a destination. The chocolate-chip-cookie flavor was kind of watery and icy. The décor (all fluorescents) screams teeny bopper. Still, not bad, and you’ll find several locations of this chain in Rome.In the evening, we headed out for drinks at the Hotel de Russie, Via Babuino, 9, close to the Piazza del Popolo (a depressing piazza, I thought).
The Hotel was very sleek and built in expensive, somewhat-cold materials. It was like being in a luxe monastery surrounded by all this neutral, buff-colored stone with no color or textiles to warm up the space.
The “Stravinsky Bar” was empty at 8:30 when we arrived for aperitifs, so Jon and I sat outside in the hotel’s courtyard garden, which was pretty and lit by torchlight, but we could’ve been sitting in someone’s (really nice) backyard.
There was a lit-up double staircase to the formal restaurant that hinted at the possibility of something dramatic, but we didn’t hop up there. Maybe then we would’ve at least had a celeb spotting.
Our drinks were 18 euros each (sheesh), but luckily the drinks we ordered could double as tranquilizers for an elephant. Jon ordered a “baby peach martini” and I got one with a funny name that was a martini with lychee and ginger. What arrived at our table: The“baby peach” in Jon’s glass looked suspiciously like an olive, and his martini looked and tasted like a regular martini (read: strong). Mine might have been better with a little bit of sugar syrup. We were both overwhelmed by the alcohol in these little drinks and could’ve used some sweetness to help it all go down. Overall, I don’t regret the stop in. The little bar nibbles were elaborate and tasty, and the service was attentive. So perhaps it’s all about avoiding the martini list.
We ate dinner that night at Il Bacaro, Via degli Spagnoli, 27 (06.687.2554), near the Pantheon. Our total tab for dinner here, not including tip, was 74.50 euros, which wasn’t bad, but not exactly a bargain. Continuing the trend of not getting a good table, we arrived at 9:45 pm for our reservation and were seated at a table near the bathroom. While this table wasn’t nearly as bad as sitting in a basement (i.e., it was still part of the warm, buzzy room, at least), I was kind of annoyed that if we had arrived as walk-ins, we probably could have gotten a nice indoor table (or maybe even an outdoor table) simply by waiting 10 minutes for people from the last seating to leave. A plan was hatching . . . .That said, the Il Bacaro staff seemed pretty friendly – asking us if it was OK that they’d run out of water glasses and could we please use wine glasses instead.
My first course was a spaghetti bottarga (salt-dried cod roe) with carciofo (fried artichoke), but it was way too salty and not very fishy, and I suppose it was inevitable that I wouldn’t taste very much carciofo given what a strong flavor bottarga has. Jon’s tagliolini with zucchini and ricotta was much tastier than my spaghetti, but he was annoyed halfway through his meal when he realized he’d gotten spaghetti (a dry pasta) instead of tagliolini as advertised on the menu (a fresh pasta). I’m not sure how much Jon would have cared but for a recent New York Times article describing how Americans get served cheaper-quality ingredients than Romans get served), but his pasta was still really delicious even if he didn’t get the homemade fresh tagliolini.Jon’s second course was kind of bland – it was beef with a broccoli puree. Frankly, it’s something you would expect in a hospital, not in a romantic little Roman restaurant.
My beef (stracciatelle di filetto di something something) had the opposite problem – way too strong a flavor. Basically, the beef was marinated in balsamic vinegar and then grilled and served with arugula and shaved parmesan. The first few bites were good, but then I couldn’t take any more of the intensely sharp tang and of the vinegar. My dish was much improved after I took some of Jon’s bland beef and put it in my sauce to dilute the vinegar’s acidity.
Overall, we’d give Il Bacaro another try because of the atmosphere and service, but maybe stick with the pastas and try to fight back against the table near the bathroom.
Saturday, August 2006 – Colosseo, lunch at Carlo Menta, dinner at Boccondovino and food shopping at Volpetti and Elite
We woke up in time to catch the hotel breakfast, which was lovely bc breakfast is served on the rooftop garden, and the sunlight in the morning on the hotel rooftop is irresistible. 
With complimentary copies of the IHT available, what’s there not to like? I read important stories like the one about David Bouley’s super-gourmet wedding at a castle in the Loire. The reporter asked him how much his wedding cost, and Bouley says something like: “oh, you’d be surprised how cheap it can be with friends in the biz,” and of course I’m thinking: hello?? “friends” my ass – he calls up his vendors and says “it’s my wedding, what can you do for me” and what do you suppose his vendors are going to do to keep their highest-margin customer happy? They must be tripping over themselves to make sure he keeps using their supplies!
On our way to the Colosseo, we tried to find Taverna Romana (Via Madonna dei Monti, 79, +39 06 474 5325) where a May 2006 NYT article claimed the best cacio e pepe (pasta with black pepper) was to be found. Of course the place was locked up for August feria. We increasingly think that if you try to find a non-tourist place, it will be closed, which of course leads to the disappointing thought that anything we can get into right now is touristy.
Anyway, we were mildly disappointed that our first option for lunch was closed, but we moved on to the Colosseum. Jon and I were glad to see that our Roma Pass allowed us to (1) get into the Colosseum for free; and (2) allow us to skip what looked 
like (at least) a 1.5-hour line of people waiting just to buy tix. So, key tip: Buy the Roma Pass at a place with zero line (i.e., Capitoline Museums) and then use it at a huge-line place like the Colosseo. Just for avoiding the long line, the card is worth it. You’ll be so grateful for this tip, I promise.
superior about hitting the turnstiles at the front of the line that included an empty aisle for Roma Pass holders and tour groups. Awesome.The Colosseum itself was enormous and yes, awe –inspiring. It was extremely sunny and warm, 
but thank goodness the heat wasn’t particularly high. There is now an elevator in the Colosseum, as well as bits of seating that have been reconstructed. Otherwise, everything looked as it did when I came with Maura seven years ago, which I guess isn’t remarkable when you think that it’s stood for almost 2000 years.
Instead of walking to the nearby Forum, we decided to search for lunch. Our second try of the day was to go to a pizza place called Pizzeria Ai Marmi (as recommended in the Great Eats Italy book and in a Feb 2006 NYT article), Viale di Trastevere, 53/59, but of course it was closed for August.
In search of our third option, Da Lucia, Vicolo del Mattonato, we wandered around forever in Trastevere, and then we found it, it, too, was closed for August. Argh.Tired and hot, Jon and I gave up on finding recommended/researched places, and we ended up at a bustling restaurant called Carlo Menta Ristorante on Via della Lungaretta, 101 (06.58.03.733).
At first, we sat outdoors, which sucked because the plastic tables were claustrophobically close, and the tinny radio soundtrack made me feel like I was at the Jersey shore. I know it seems I am super critical of where we’re eating, but I figure when you’re in touristy areas, it’s so easy to end up wasting your money at bad restaurants. So I guess I hope I can help other travelers avoid the waste.
So we switched indoors, where the décor was old-school, but simple – plus there was decent a/c. The food could have been delicious, but it seemed nobody cared enough to go that extra inch. They were so close as far as the pizza was concerned, for example. Jon and I each ordered a pizza margherita for 6 euros each. So cheap, right? The pies were fresh, but the sauce was such a disappointment – no tomatoes that I could see. So we cannibalized the bruschetta Jon had ordered and the tomatoes transformed the pizza. In the restaurant’s defense, our tab for two was less than 20 euros.
After lunch, we hopped on the bus along and over the Tiber river to turn onto Via Marmorata in a neighborhood called Testaccio. We searched out a gourmet Italian store called Volpetti, Via Marmorata, 47 (06 574 2352), and of course it was closed. But this one was just closed for siesta and would reopen at 5 p.m., so we revisited Volpetti around 7 p.m. to pick up a few goodies for tomorrow’s planned picnic.Because the weather was so tempting, we decided to run from our hotel to Volpetti, so started off down a small road to the Colosseum, which turns out to be very close to our hotel – must be less than 1 km away. It was amazing how, when you run behind the Colosseum to Via Gregorio, it empties of tourists, and instead we saw two Italian wedding parties taking photos with the Colosseum as backdrop.
We ran along the edge of a pretty-looking park (Palatine park) and then took a detour near the ruins of the Circus Maximus. I definitely see why the place isn’t on tourist itineraries. There’s really nothing left – it’s just a long flat, mildly-grassy field with a sort-of-oval indentation. There were a few other runners there, too, but it’s so barren and strewn with glass fragments that it’s not even welcoming if you want to go running.
If you run up along the southern side of the Circus Maximus ruins (which is a word I use lightly), you get a dramatic view of the Palatine ruins, which do look impressive, especially around sunset. What is about a sunset that gives off such a sense of time and history?
We kept running until we hit the Pyramid, which is really kind of weird to see in this otherwise unhistoric-looking part of Rome. This ancient-looking Pyramid sits near a traffic circle and metro stop, which makes a pretty jarring image.
At Volpetti, I have a feeling shoppers in workout clothes are not welcomed. People there were pretty rude to us, but I am guessing that the store considered it rude that we were dressed in shorts and t-shirts. It’s the kind of store where the guy has to gather your groceries for you, then you pay at the register, and then your groceries are given to you in a bag.So the man “helping” us was glad to pull down the two bottles of wine we decided to buy (low effort for him), and then he was annoyed that we wanted to try fresh pecorino (more effort for him). He kept trying to give us dried stuff, which we didn’t want (we thought saying “pecorino fresca” would let him know we wanted it fresh).
Then we asked for salami, and he started to slice us 100g of one of dozens of salamis without letting us taste it. I’m glad we insisted on tastings because of course the salami he wanted to give us was flabby and spiceless. We pointed to some type of Toscana salami, and he objected by saying “but it has fennel,” as if that meant we would not want to try it. We tried it, liked it enough that we just wanted our experience there to end, so we bought it and left.
I was unimpressed with the store even if you assume (being generous) that my running outfit was a huge faux pas.I can only guess that Catharine Reynolds, who wrote the March 2004 NYT article that recommended the place, must be BFF with the store owner. Same with the Food & Wine writer who wrote it up (article displayed prominently in the store window).
We caught a bus (72) headed back in the direction we wanted, and we got off at Via Cavour, near a fancy-looking supermarket we went to yesterday, Elite, Via Cavour, 230-236 (06 485 687). We stopped in bc we’d seen some pici we wanted to buy, and we also found some black linguini and bottles of Vignamaggio (only one bottle left of the 2000 Mona Lisa and a few bottles of some kind of anniversary bottle (“600”) in honor of the vineyard’s 600 years of existence, I guess. Yes, we’re suckers for marketing, perhaps, but we really have a soft spot for the Vignamaggio), so I’d recommend picking up food souvenirs at Elite over Volpetti.
We showered and then got dressed up because we were tired of getting bad seating (either bc we make the reservation ourselves on the phone in American English or because our hotel rats us out as clueless tourists). So today we were going to try something drastic – the walk in.
Ristorante Boccondivino, Piazza in Campo Marzio, 6, (06 6830 8623, Closed on Saturday lunch and on Sunday).
We had a really good meal here. And we got a table outside without any problem. Our fiore de zucca was freshly fried and the salty anchovy had melded perfectly in the gooey texture of mozzarella and the sweet, vegetal aroma of the squash blossom. Jon greatly enjoyed his fettucine with shrimp and zucchini, and my vermicelli con vongole was al dente and tasted of the sea. Simple and good.Jon’s secondi was a grilled dorado for a pricey 18 euro, and my duck breast (petto d’anatraco), was solid. With a side dish, espresso and a 20 euro bottle of slightly-too-strong nebbiolo, our total was 91 euros, plus a 10 euro tip. Of all our meals in Rome, our dinner here included the best mix of food, décor and service, other than Maccheroni after we moved upstairs.
After dinner, we hopped on the trusty 71 bus back to S. Maria Maggiore and got a piccolo coppo of dark chocolate gelato at the Orso Blanco (polar bear) Gelateria-Yogurteria, Via Carlo Alberto, 7, (06 4434 0765), just next door to our hotel. Good stuff.
Sunday, August 2006 – St. Peter’s, Pantheon, gelato at San Crispino, drinks at Hotel Eden, dinner at Piccolo Abruzzo
This morning the church bells were going crazy (it being Sunday and all). It was another bright, sunny morning, and we had another breakfast on the hotel roof during which I scarfed down two cornetti (the number of cornetti I eat seems to increase the longer I’m in Italy).
Jon and I were pleased to discover that it had been totally unnecessary for me to stow away two dinner rolls in a napkin from breakfast in anticipation of a picnic lunch, because the supermarket across the street was open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Sunday! Who says the Italians take Sunday off from work?Armed with expensive buffalo mozzarella (12 euros a kg) and a Sunday porchetta special (seriously, the guy is standing there carving up a giant roast pig – it’s like the village market continues its tradition at your mega chain supermarket), we hopped on the metro to St. Peter’s. It was our first ride on the Rome metro, and the train we were on was super new with some fancy TV screens showing you visuals of all the sights above ground. A nice touch pour les touristes.
At the Vatican stop, clouds had rolled in and it was drizzling (new country, new climate, I suppose).We followed the crowds over to St. Peter’s square, where we got on a super long line that moved orderly and quickly until the last 30 feet, when it was just a big chaotic crowd pushing its way through four or five metal detectors. What’s even more irritating is knowing that these metal detectors are just for show. As far as I could tell, the guy manning the detector wasn’t watching any kind of screen showing what the scanners found in people’s bags, and he certainly wasn’t doing anything when people walked through the metal detector beeping all over the place. What a waste of time.
We checked Jon’s bag and then headed in to see the Pope’s tombs. It was a pretty fancy place for a crypt – all white marble, and you passed not nearly as many tombs as you’d expect. Pope John Paul II’s tomb was the big draw, and it was in a clean, simple style that seemed almost ugly. Maybe it was the two potted plants nearby – the kind you’d expect in your doctor’s office. Jon thinks the tomb is very bobo – expensive materials but a simple look.
In contrast, St. Peter’s tomb around the corner is all crazy colored marbles and gold-and-bronze carvings. His tomb is a continuation of the Bernini madness above the crypt, so we won’t blame St. Peter for the gaudiness of his tomb. It was just the style then.We walked around the enormous interior of St. Peter’s, trying to appreciate all the details, but there are just too many to 
notice all at once. I focused on the floor, partly because it was so accessible. And if you think about all the care that goes into making the floor beautiful, you can start to appreciate the effort that goes into, say, the ceiling. Only the best for the Church, that’s for sure.
If ever you want to talk about an extremely wealthy religious group, you definitely should check out the Catholic church first. It’s not every religion that gets a half dozen works of art by Bernini, you know.
Jon and I exited the church and had our picnic extravaganza on the steps of the south colonnade. We felt so guilty that we didn’t come close to finishing our food, so we re-wrapped the salamis and cheeses and breads and planned to give them to someone begging in the street. Of course we didn’t see any beggars on the walk from St. Peter’s to the Vatican, and instead we passed at least a dozen guys selling fake bags and sunglasses.I loved the Vatican post office, by the way. Jon thinks it’s solely for money-making and then he made the good point that the Vatican has probably ‘outsourced’ its mail function to the PT (Italian Post).
We hiked around the high walls of the Vatican gardens to reach the entrance to the Vatican Museum, only to discover the place closes at around 12 noon (last exit at 1:45 p.m.). argh.We decided to take a break at a touristy café on the square surrounding the Pantheon. We chose to 
have our overpriced (i.e., 4 euros for a can of diet coke) drinks at Night and Day, Piazza della Rotunda (next to the McDonald’s that happens to have an outdoor terrace). Of course we got our money’s worth by sitting for an hour, reading books, watching the crowds (esp. the two Japanese guys to our left who spent most of the hour taking turns posing with espresso cups and taking pictures of each other) and using the toilet twice. If that’s not worth 8 euros, I don’t know what is.
We took a 5-minute walk through the interior of the Pantheon (dedicated to all the major Roman gods), which is pretty impressive even though it’s been stripped of all its gold and such. And it’s now a Catholic basilica of course. Waste not, want not.
The big skylight in the rotunda is the only source of light, and it still does a good job after a thousand years. What’s curious is that it’s not glassed in. So when it rains, there’s water everywhere (as evidenced by the water on the floor today from the light morning drizzle). I wonder why it’s not glassed in? It gets too hot, maybe? What a pain to wipe up all that water, right?
We walked from the Pantheon to try the famous Il Gelato di San Crispino, Via della Panetteria, 42 (06 679 3924), which is 
so close to Trevi that you think it’s another tourist trip. But it was very good and just 2.50 euro for a cup with two flavours. Definitely the best we’ve had yet, though we’re not connoisseurs (but we are picky, generally). I loved the stracciatella, which had blended the chocolate chips smoothly into the vanilla, and Jon had “San Crispino,” which is vanilla and honey.
In case it’s not clear you’re at a special gelateria, there are food magazines and articles from all over the world posted along the walls, with the Sophisticated Traveler section of the NYT having pride of place in a large blown-up sign outside the entrance. The gelato here is great stuff. This destination lives up to its high rep.
We had drinks that night at the Hotel Eden, which we reached by taxi because when we got off the No. 71 bus in the middle of a side street, we realized the little 116 bus that would take us to the Spanish steps wasn’t running on Sundays. We asked the bus driver to take us to the Spanish Steps, and just before we got there, I thought of asking him to drop us off at the “nearby” Hotel Eden. Well, the guy made all these huffy/puffy noises to tell us that the hotel was nowhere near the Spanish Steps, so he took us on a long route to reach the hotel. So we spent 10 euros instead of 6.50 euros.
According to the Hotel Eden concierge, we were just 3 minutes’ walk from the top of the Spanish steps, so it’s one of those things where driving just takes a lot longer than walking.The bar was nice, but in a very generic-looking-nice-hotel way. At first we were seated outside with a large group of Japanese tourists and after ordering our drinks (17 euros a drink seems to be a magic number), we moved to the indoor, main bar area. The snacks were not inspired or good, and our drinks were so-so. I ordered the “Garden of Eden,” which didn’t taste at all alcoholic. The views from the hotel bar are pretty, but nothing too stand-out. I wouldn’t do it again. It was like having drinks at a Ritz-Carlton.
And then dinner was at Piccolo Abruzzo, Via Sicilia, 237, which turned out to be a 10-minute walk from the Hotel Eden. We walked in and were encouraged by the checked table cloth and funky décor. There was top 40 radio on (the volume of which was raised a lot during a remake of Owner of a Lonely Heart – weird). The concept is that you pay 35 euros a person and get a “fixed price” menu. I wouldn’t go here again despite the rave reviews on the international chowhound board.
First came a plate of cold appetizers – a slice of roasted eggplant (kind of limp and flavourless), some cannelloni beans (creamy and yummy), and cole slaw (no joke – mayo and cabbage in an Italian restaurant!). Then we got a plate of hot appetizers, which had clearly been sitting in an oven for a while – suppli e telefono and empanada-looking doodads had gone kind of soft on the exterior, and while they were hot, they lacked the freshness you’d expect from a deep-fried goody.
We got to help ourselves to salamis, of which one was excellent, and the other two (including a soppressata) were just OK. The wine, a montepulciano d’abrezzo, was pretty good.Throughout the meal, I swear there were mosquitos under the table, because I am definitely not imagining the four or five mosquito bites on my legs and feet right now. Unpleasant, to say the least.Our first pasta course was rotini with a few limp and skimpy pieces of zucchini and tomato thrown in. The rotini could have been cooked for just another 30 seconds, and the dish was definitely oversalted. Overall, it is something we could make at home a lot better.
The second pasta course was good, assuming the arrabiata sauce was home made. It was penne served with a nice tomato-y sauce and with a little bit of kick from the pepper.I couldn’t eat anymore after that, so we ended up sharing a meat course that was horrible. It was three turd-like bits of homemade sausage that tasted mostly of the limp breadcrumbs inside, and then some baked potato and wedges of toast. You could call it “plate of randomness.”
We skipped dessert and ended up with a huge hunk of watermelon and as much grappa as we wanted (not much).At the end of the meal, our waitress (to her credit, she was extremely nice and friendly) asked what price she had quoted us at the beginning of dinner (35 euros), so she charged us “only” 65 euros for dinner because we’d skipped dessert or something. Jon threw in 5 euros tip and we were out of there. Never again!
I think it’s the kind of place where you’d love to go with a big group (family or friends) in the same way you’d like going to Buca di Beppo, right?We jumped on one of several buses leaving from Salaria back to Termini and then walked back to our hotel. Quite a night.We should have stuck with our original plan, Dal Bolognese, 1/2 Piazza del Popolo (06 361 1426), but when we called around 7 p.m., nobody picked up the phone, so we figured they were closed.
Monday, August 2006 – Campo de Fiori, lunch at Shaki’s Wine Bar, National Pasta Museum,
This morning, Jon asked the hotel front desk if they’d look up our RyanAir flight time, and they refused, telling him he should call RyanAir. So Jon asked for the RyanAir number, and the guy claimed he could only find the Ciampino airport number. Jon tried calling that one, but it was no good. Clearly the hotel was not going out of its way to be helpful.
So we packed up, checked our bags at the hotel and headed out to see Campo de Fiori. We had hoped to catch some market action there – we hopped on the 71 to Piazza di San Silvestri, and then we walked a block to pick up the little electric 116 that took us to Campo de Fiori. There wasn’t much to see – six or seven stalls at most.
We tried to find Grappolo d’Oro– Piazza Cancelleria 80-84, (06)6897080, the cheaper (but supposedly still delish) pizza-and-pasta cousin of Ditirambo, but it was closed, of course. Reopening tomorrow! We were so close.
On our way to find Da Luigi near Chiesa Nuova, we popped into an Internet place. You had to hand in your ID, and your name and address were dutifully recorded before you were assigned a non-transferable plastic card loaded with the minutes you ordered (15 minutes, in our case). This handing over of your ID is an anti-terrorism measure, though given the number of sketchy-looking Internet places, I doubt every seller enforces this rule.Unfortunately, the address we had written down for Da Luigi must have been wrong because we didn’t find it, but we did come across a very good, attractive place called Shaki’s Wine Bar, Via Governo Vecchio 123 (Piazza Navona/Chiesa Nuova) tel 06 683 08796.
The service was not very friendly or prompt, but the outdoor seating was pretty and so were the pastas, which were slightly pricey at 12-15 euros a plate, but good. Glasses of wine were particularly good. Jon’s 6.50 chardonnay was refreshing and flavourful.
We had just beaten the Italian office crowd lunch rush – immediately after we sat down, tables around us filled up. So the scene became very lively. During our lunch, an old beggar woman leaned on our table and held out her cup. Jon put some money in, and then she reached for the overripe orange that was sitting as decoration on our table. I felt so sad that it hadn’t occurred to me that our orange centrepiece could be considered a treat of a meal to someone.
After lunch, we walked over to Riscimento so that I could go to the S. Maria de Novella store. It’s not half as atmospheric as the original in Florence, but I couldn’t resist popping in. I picked up four bars of my beloved melograno sapone (pomegranate soap). The store offered to charge me in GBP rather than in Euros, but I was suspicious and went with the Euros. Who knows what exchange rate they were charging?
Jon and I then walked over to good ol’ Il Gelato di San Crispino and greatly enjoyed our stracciatella, peach and cioccolato gelatos. We ate our fab ice cream while sitting on a sidewalk. I love all the functional public water fountains in Rome, by the way. There was one next to us, which, while wasteful seeming, was also handy for washing your hands and cooling off in the afternoon heat.
We continued on to our original destination, which is the National Pasta Museum.All I can say is that we 
should have been suspicious when the sign out front bragged in five different languages that the museum was air conditioned. Having now experienced the museum, I’d say air conditioning is the only thing the museum has going for it!
When we walked in, there were three middle-aged Italian women waiting to sell and collect our tickets, which of course were 10 euros each. One woman was very snippy about my pushing the wrong button on my “audio guide.”Feeling smart alecky, Jon and I went through the 1-1.5 hours of bland, vague, uninteresting narrative. One entire room (four posters that looked straight out of your Harcourt Brace Jovanovich elementary school textbook) focused on the structure of wheat. And that was the interesting part! There were lots of drawings of industrial pasta machines and such that were not comprehensible without better visual aids. The only room we thought was entertaining showed these weird theatre sets 
that looked like they could be used for puppet shows (see photo). But instead of puppets, there were people-shaped glass containers filled with pasta that echoed the shape of the glass figure.
We were glad we left the place behind, though sad that we spent 20 euros on it. Even sadder is that we could have gone to see the Vatican Museum (Sistine Chapel, anyone), but we actually discussed matter and concluded that the Pasta Museum would be more interesting to us! Ai ya.After the Pasta Museum, we walked over to the Spanish steps, read books and relaxed for forty minutes before we headed back to our hotel. We got our bags, walked over to Termini, handed an American stranger our stamped postcards for mailing, and then caught a 6:35 p.m. train to Ciampino. We were there by 7. Excellent.
A mother-son duo on line were sad to learn that they’d exceeded the weight limit big time by buying so much wine. Having had this happen to us in Montpellier, we were sympathetic. They ended up having to give away bottles of wine because the weight surcharge was more expensive than the bottles were worth.The flight back was uneventful, though I was annoyed at Stansted when there were just two immigration officials checking the “other” line’s passports. I mean, if we’re going to pay taxes with no recourse to benefits, the least we could have is reasonably well-staffed service on bank holiday.We arrived back in our flat around 3 a.m. Clearly a long day, but what a great trip.***
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higher-quality inventory. The souks are surprising this way. The bargaining can get exhausting, but when I step back and think about it, these guys (no women shopkeepers spotted yet) have a grueling job. There are hundreds of stalls selling hundreds of pieces of identical inventory. I can see why the shopkeepers work hard to squeeze every last dirham out of their customers (the foreign ones, anyway).
As you can see, the haggling ceased to be about the goods. It was indeed time to call it a day, so we walked away and came back to our cozy little riad and sat by the fire. All better now. Time for a home-cooked dinner chez Riad.
surprised that the cloister looked exactly the same as it did 7 years ago when I last visited it. But why shouldn’t it, really – I mean, it’s been the same for hundreds of years, so what’s 7 years going to change?
strong and is delish. You sit at bar stools like you would at a sushi counter. You then mix and match small dishes, choosing from a huge menu list, though some are more main-dish-size than others. Each dish costs between 12 euros and 36 euros, so your tab adds up fast. But the meal is creative and delicious, and with friends it’s extremely fun to talk about the different plates and the other customers and décor. Joel Robuchon just opened up one of these Ateliers at the Four Seasons in New York, so if you don’t catch it in Paris, you can always try it in NY now.
An American in London 
