Arrivederci, Roma!

Rome, April 16-19

Unlike Ravenna on Good Friday, Rome was almost totally shut down on Easter Monday. (Perhaps our theologically knowledgeable readers can explain the logic here.) The neighborhood tobacconists, who have a virtual monopoly on transit ticket sales, were closed so we had to walk to the central train station to buy our three-day passes. Even worse, the local trattoria, which our hotel desk clerk said “never closes,” decided to take the night off as well. Fortunately, the desk clerk knew of one Roman eating establishment that was open, and there we found sustenance of a sort. The following picture shows us chatting with the maitre d’.



Truth to tell, however, we found an even better meal the following evening at “Trattoria da ‘Giggetto’ al Portico d’Ottavia” in the Jewish quarter between the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber near the Theater of Marcellus (behind Georgia in the photo). Jerusalem artichokes, which Georgia is shown inspecting out front, headed the bill of fare, and we found them and our other choices to be delicious.





Encouraged by that experience, we headed for Campo de Fiori the following day to check out the ingredients for Roman cooking. The pictures show an array of spices and Georgia prowling the stalls before making her decisions.





And of course we saw some tourist sites as well. We did not return to most locations we had seen on previous visits, but we could not resist another walk down the Forum’s Via Sacra. Tickets to the Museo Borghese were sold out, but we did spend an interesting afternoon in the Villa Giulia, which displays art from the Etruscans and other Italian peoples who coexisted with Rome when it was only a city-state on the make.