How can our wonderful trip to Roma be over already?? We had four goals for our last day: shop, eat great food, enjoy more wine, and have gelato one more time. I’m happy to report that we achieved all four of our goals. We are such overachievers!

Campo de’ Fiori Market

We started the day at the Campo de’ Fiori market. We went earlier in the week but got there just before the market closed – this time we went early and ready to shop! We tasted all kinds of jams, truffle spreads, olive oil, and cheese. Mom and Aunt Cindy both bought some ParmigianinoReggiano cheese and mom also got some chestnut honey. The honey is different than anything I’ve ever tasted – it’s wonderful but not very sweet which is odd for honey. I bought some fresh Roman artichokes which are all the rage this time of year in Rome. Seriously, they are EVERYWHERE – in every market stall and on every menu prepared a variety of ways. Apparently Rome is very famous for its artichokes -who knew! I bought a vacuum sealed pack of them, and the guy promised me that I could bring them back to the US. (This, it turns out, is not true. After being one of the lucky people selected to have their bag searched at US customs, my artichokes were confiscated. )

We all bought some great watercolor paintings in Piazza Navona. There were tons of people selling artwork there but only 3-4 of those were the actual painters of their artwork. We were lucky to buy from the actual painter. We got a great deal, but I’m sure the framing will cost about 5 times the amount we paid for the paintings! We hit up San Crispino, a gelato place that Julia our Tuscany tour guide recommended, for lunch. Gelato for lunch = vacation! This place had the best gelato we’ve had – they only use cream, sugar, and seasonal ingredients. We all had pistachio, Julia’s favorite and recommended flavor. It was different, delicious, and did not disappoint!

Painting Purchases

We confidently walked back to our apartment without the use of a map (we’ve been here a week, surely we can get home!) and got lost. It was astraight shot so I’m not sure how we ended up in the wrong place. One piece of advice – don’t believe Aunt Cindy when she brags about having a great sense of direction! (Jeffrey – she threw you under the bus many times about not having a sense of direction, but she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Here’s your ammo if she says that again, and, if you need more, I’ve got it!)

We ended the day with two more great meals. We had pizza at Dar Poeta where we met a great family that used to live in Smyrna, GA and the dad’s parent’s live in Milledgeville. We told them we did a day trip to Tuscany and the mom said, “That sounds great, but that’s a trip that is better without the kids.” To which the teenage daughter replied, “Is that where the naked beaches are?” No, that’s where the wine is! We ended our last day in Rome at a restaurant on the Piazza di Santa Maria – “our” piazza! This piazza was in our neighborhood and was such a wonderful square – lively without being touristy and crowded. We ordered a delicious Roman chicken to share (a dead ringer for Giada’s Roman chicken, which is one of my favorite recipes) and capped off the night and the trip off with Tiramisu and limoncello!

Last dinner in Rome

Our driver picked us up from our apartment at 6:45 am the next morning and took us on our last drive through Rome to the airport. After chatting with him, we found out that he was going to Savannah, GA in October for his brother’s wedding. Such a small world we live in!

We all had a fantastic time in Rome. Even though it’s a huge city, its personality comes through: it’s lively, friendly, and has a great sense of community all while having a history that we can’t begin to imagine. What a great way to celebrate mom’s 60th birthday and Aunt Cindy and Uncle Don’s 34th anniversary!

Ciao!

Emily

Slideshow pics are below – iPad/iPhone users, click here.

An update from Aunt Cindy …

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We had a tour to Tuscany planned for today and had to meet our group at 7:30 AM. We had to get up by 5:00 AM because we had planned to walk the three miles to our meeting point. We left right on time, but shortly after leaving, we asked if anyone turned off the gas to the stove. Of course, no one remembered doing it; we sent Linda, the runner in the family, to check on it. After a while, Emily and I went to see where she was and spotted a taxi station right across the street. We decided we would definitely take a taxi to our meeting point so we wouldn’t be late. We finally found Linda – she was unable to open the door from our apartment building to the street! She’s the one carrying the key so she is always locking up the apartment while we open the building door to the street. She didn’t know how it worked – we were certainly glad we went back! The gas was off, by the way.

We met our group and were expecting at least 20 but were very excited to find only two other couples with us in the group.

Our tour group with Hugo and Maria and Julia, our guide

Julia, our guide, was fantastic, and we continued on our journey to Montepuliciano, a quaint little Tuscan town of 15,000 and nicknamed the “Pearl of the Renaissance”. The town is set up on a hill so we had some wonderful views of the Tuscan countryside – it is exactly what you picture in your mind but even more beautiful! We then continued to Sant ‘Antimo Abbey where we were able to witness the monks say their Gregorian chants. After this, it was time for lunch at Poggio il Castellare winery.

The authentic Tuscan fare was delicious, and we were able to sample five different wines, three of which are locally produced. One was Brunello di Montalcino, and it must remain in the barrels more than five years and there are only 35 families that have permits to produce this wine. With our first course, we were served cured meats and cheese as well as a “poor man’s dish” known as pappa pomodoro, which is Italian bread and tomato soup. This is a dish we want definitely to try to make at home. They also produce an olive oil which tasted like butter; we each purchased a bottle to bring home. After lunch we continued to the next town of Pienza, well known for Pecorino Tuscano cheese (that’s Tuscano, not Romano, because we are in Tuscany and not Rome) which is made from sheeps’ milk. In this town, we purchased some of the cheese, fig marmalade and balsamic vinegar to bring back to the states.

One of the couples on the tour with us was Hugo and Maria, a wonderful couple from California. They were here to celebrate their 30th anniversary, even though it was not until August. (Maria is a Headstart teacher). After the third glass at the wine tasting, she confessed she was not supposed to be drinking wine!

Tuscany

We arrived back to Rome around 7:30 pm and said our goodbyes to our tour group. We all agreed that it was wonderful to have a day where we didn’t have to navigate the streets and be glued to a map! We took some side streets back to our apartment and found some wonderful restaurants to try along the way. We dropped off our purchases and set out to find dinner. Linda and Emily spotted a sidewalk café. It caught their eye because of the good wine glasses, and we decided this is where we should eat. After being seated and ordering our wine, Emily realized the wine glasses were being used by the café next to the one we had chosen. Oh well, we decided to stay and even though the wine glasses were not the nice ones we wanted. The food was delicious!

Tomorrow, we plan a visit to explore the catacombs and then take picnic lunch down the Appian Way to the Aquaduct Park. Julia, our tour guide, was excited to know we wanted to visit the Aquaduct Park. This is one of her favorite places to visit and is a place not many tourists visit.

This has been a fantastic vacation, and it is hard to believe we only have two days left before going home. So glad I came and am looking forward to our next adventure!

Cynthia

Fire entertainment in the piazza

Notice the really good wine glass in the background – yep, not our restaurant!

Dinner in Trastevere

Grilled veggies with gorgonzola sauce

Sign outside our restaurant

Our tour group with Hugo and Maria and Julia, our guide

Tuscan countryside

View from Pienza

Mom buying her Pecorino Tuscano cheese – all cheese is made by the woman’s father

Prunning the olive trees

outside of winery

You dip the biscotti into the dessert wine – delicious!

Dessert wine dunking!

Homemade pasta – very different noodle that’s unique to Tuscany region

First course at winery – the delicious papa pomodoro is in the middle

Our lunch table!

Getting ready for lunch

Abbey

Twilight (New Moon) was filmed in this town – store is proud!

Aunt Cindy and the Fiat that was discontinued in 1973 – her graduation year!

Church in Montepulciano – facade was never applied to building

Montepulciano

View from Montepulciano

Montepulciano

Meeting our group and getting ready to head to Tuscany!

We’ve explored so much of Rome!  Sunday afternoon we took it easy and went and enjoyed the sun and festivities in the Piazza de Santa Maria right around the corner from our apartment.  There were performers out entertaining the kids and people eating gelato and just relaxing.   The cutest thing we’ve seen so far is a little boy who was trying to be a street performer.  He was standing very still and put a cup out so people could give him money.  His parents were sitting outside nearby cheering him on and getting it on tape.  He did this for the entire time we were there (at least an hour) and managed to collect some money!

Street performer in training

Monday (today) we slept in and recovered from our miles and miles of walking. When we checked into the apartment, they told us that there was a grocery store right around the corner but we haven’t been able to find it.  This morning we were on a mission to locate it.  We missed our American coffee!  We kept asking people on the street “supermarket, grocery store?” and pointing to the word in the dictionary.  One person would point right, so we’d go right.  We’d get to the end of the street, ask another person, and they’d point left so we’d go back in the direction we came from.   The store was clearly between person A and B but we couldn’t find it!  Finally someone said it’s O-V-S.  I’m thinking, “obvious? “ That it’s not.  We walked back down the street and saw a department store with clothes in the window and the letters O-V-S in the name.  Turns out the supermarket is on the bottom floor.  We’d walked by that place no less than 10 times!  We are now stocked with coffee and breakfast food (and know where to find more!)

This afternoon we followed a walking tour listed in my guidebook.  It took us to Campo de Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish steps.   The book said the tour was a mile long – I think ours was longer due to all the wrong turns we made!  However, we made it to every stop and even explored some churches that weren’t on the list.   I just asked mom and Aunt Cindy their favorite place we went today and Aunt Cindy said the Campo de Fiori market with the food and wine samples and mom said the gelato place named Giolitti.  Clearly food outranked the centuries old sites we saw!

Wine tasting in Campo de Fiori

We nearly lost Aunt Cindy today due to pigeon panic.  We stopped for a glass of wine near the Pantheon so we could rest and map out our route.  There were pigeons everywhere so Aunt Cindy didn’t stay seated for long.  She’d run back to the table every now and then and drink a few sips of wine in between pigeon visits.   We even had the hostess standing by our table trying to scare them away for us!  Even though the pigeons were running her off, she still managed to finish her glass of wine – she’s such a trooper!

It was a great day of seeing the sites at our own pace and wandering the back streets of Rome.  Tomorrow we are going to go to the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel and are searching for a must eat restaurant to go to tomorrow night.   Wednesday we’ve booked an all day trip to Tuscany – should be fun!

Spanish Steps

Interesting Door!

View from Spanish Steps

Where’s Aunt Cindy? She left to escape the pigeons!

Pantheon

Pantheon column

Four Rivers Fountain

Impromptu wine tasting!

Street performer in training

Sunday fun in the piazza

Whew!  What a busy day and half!

We walked around our neighborhood a little while and then headed over to the Colosseum for a tour.  It took us a while to find it and by the time we got there we were starving.  We settled for some mediocre pizza in a very touristy restaurant.  Not the best but it killed the hunger!

We started the tour at the Colosseum – it’s breathtaking!  Our guide was great and really painted a picture of the history.  It’s just concrete now ,but it used to be covered all in marble.  Our guide said the popes stole or “recycled” all the marble to build the Vatican.  After that we went to the Roman Forum, which is mostly ruins of where business was conducted and people gathered during Caesar’s day.  We then walked up Palatine Hill, on of the seven hills Rome.

Colosseum

We walked on to Trevi Fountain and then took a break at a little café.  A couple from Athens, GA sat next to us!  They were in town for her brother’s wedding.  We then took a cab to a restaurant mentioned in my guidebook but when we got there the next available table wasn’t until 10 pm!  They walked us to another place where it felt like mama was cooking for us.  It was super small and great food.

This morning we were supposed to meet Father Tim (a priest Aunt Cindy has a connection with from Statesboro) at St. Peter’s Basilica.   Well, that didn’t go so well.  We got there right as the pope came out and blessed the crowd – we aren’t Catholic and have no idea what he said but we were grateful for the blessing!  The crowds were CRAZY getting through security and into the church so we missed Father Tim by 5 minutes.  Oh well.  We gave ourselves a tour and then walked to a little café for lunch and then topped it off with some great gelato!

We are having a great time – we’ve walked a ton and are going to take it easy the rest of the afternoon.  I see a patio and wine in our near future!  Aunt Cindy’s spotted every pigeon in town but has done a good job keeping her cool around them!

A slideshow of some of our pictures is below.  To view on an iPad/iphone, you may have to click here.  Hope you are all doing well!

From mom-

Had a really good flight and smooth check- in.  I slept just about entire time so I’m ready to go!  Just had espresso and cappuccino at neighborhood bar with local Italians–one man offered to share his scone with us!

Going to Colesseum  at 3:00 for tour–in meantime will be checking out our neighborhood and Cynthia is ready for wine but  it’s only 9:00 am!!!

A beautiful day here in Roma–love to all of you!!

Linda

View from window

Terrace

Apartment