Food and more food

Trastevere chcocolate shop... yum.

And now, a bit of a gastronomical report. Saturday we spent in the old section of our neighborhood, Trastevere. It is made up of winding, sweet narrow streets and tiny piazzas, furniture restoration shops, dark and narrow, boutiques, and countless pizzerias and trattorias. We had determined to have a real restaurant meal for lunch and scoured our multiple guidebooks. Apparently seafood is a Trastevere specialty so, debating between two places, we asked advice of Dermott, who owns the English-language bookstore, Almost Corner Bookshop. He nixed them both and recommended instead Belli, named for the 19th century Roman satirist GG Belli, a Trastevere native who wrote in the Roman dialect.

Despite the local name, however, the Belli owners are Sardinian; who might know seafood better? And we weren’t disappointed: muscles in butter and garlic to die for, with the addition of small red hot peppers to sharpen the flavor (Ben’s favorite!); “Sardinian noodles” with mushrooms in an artery-clogging cream sauce; a lovely simple turbot with slices of fried potatoes and a lime to squeeze over it (who thinks of lime in Italian food? The Sardinians, apparently…); a seafood salad of squid, shrimp, and green olives, also in lime; and finally, though it was listed as a main course, a grilled plank of cheese doused in a rich flavorful honey. All washed down with large steins of Sardinian beer (and bubbly water for Ben). Street musicians, a cool breeze, the spectacular St. Maria in Trastevere church with its 11th century mosaics right around the corner…. Sigh.

Other unusual foodie items so far: pizza with zucchini flowers, anchovies, and fresh mozzarella; rice gelato (tastes like rice pudding!); and a fantastic flaky pastry horn filled with hazelnut cream. Haven’t tried the potato pizza yet, which is everywhere – saving it for the next time we need to carbo load. Given the restaurant prices, we’ve been eating in a lot, enjoying the fresh produce that is so much in abundance at the moment: mammoth heads of lettuce and nutty arugula, red and yellow peppers (haven’t seen many green ones, interestingly enough), sweet carrots, and tomatoes of all sizes and varieties.

Big news on the domestic front: Much as we like our garret, it is just too small without the large balconies we thought we’d be enjoying (instead they can hold one chair, if you angle a bit and don’t stretch your legs). So, thanks to Eve and Nigel’s excellent relations with their new neighbors (our new landlady lives in their building), as of October 1, we will be moving to a 2-bedroom apartment with a gorgeous, huge terrace with a view of the… Coliseum! Stay tuned for reports from the great Roman outdoors.

And more photos!

The Circus Maxentius on the Appian Way, looking just like the early 19th century engravings of ancient ruins... all this right in Rome, on the 118 bus line.

Ben and Hazel on the ancient Appian Way.

The lies come spilling out eventually.... (Actually, it's the sun - how cool is that?)

The Bocca della Verita has already done its dastardly worst!

Run out and rent Roman Holiday, if you haven't seen it lately!

Fountains everywhere -- the water is delicious. This one needs no caption: we call it Fountain of the Balls.

Scroll down for Ben's most recent -- on the omnipresence of mortality in Rome...

Ben on Death, Roman Style

What you are we used to be;
What we are you will be…

My Mom and I were with our friends, Eve, Olive, and Hazel, in the crypt of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception when we read this plaque. We were standing in front of an amazing display of bones that came from the Capuchin monks. The monks lived from 1528 to 1870. The bones were in all sorts of arrangements, including chandeliers, wreaths, altars, cherubs, and even the grim reaper! We couldn’t take pictures in the crypt, so we got a post card with a picture of the grim reaper on it.

A few days later, we were with our friends again, this time Eve’s husband Nigel was with us too. So was my dad. We were at the catacombs of the Christians that dated back to the third century. They were just outside of Rome, because the Romans didn’t let the Christians bury themselves inside the city. So after listening to a long but interesting description of the catacombs, we took an ancient staircase down into them. It was made from a volcanic rock called tufa. Although you would think that the Romans would have attacked the catacombs, they did not. It was considered a taboo, which is basically something that is forbidden. But we didn’t see any bones. They were moved out of the catacombs by the Barbarians in the 5th century, when the Roman empire fell. It was still cool, though!

Video Comes to the Blog - Baths

Yesterday was a big day and Tom's first day of art-architecture-antiquity in Rome (since we'd spent the first weekend going to 1. the beach and 2. the flea market). First, we went on our own to the Terme de Caracalla, the remains of massive baths from the second century. I'm posting a movie here. It's not in the least bit fancy, but it will give you a sense of the enormous size of the structure -- some of the arches are 98 feet tall! There were huge soaking tubs and swimming pools, all the rooms decorated with mosiacs and statues. The statues were all plundered by the Farnese family in the 16th century and ended up in a museum in Naples (due to the marriage of a Farnese to a Bourbon king -- ah, Italian history...) but there are bits of the decorative mosaic on display at the site, along with complete floors. I'll get some photos up once the movie's done loading.

(I look extremely peeved at first... please ignore this bad behavior and concentrate on the antiquity surrounding me...)

We later joined our terrific new friends Eve and Nigel and their girls Olive and Hazel for a long walk around the ancient Appian Way and a descent into early Christian catacombs. Ben is planning to blog about the catacombs for his next entry. I can say that the Appian Way area is lovely -- open parkland of rolling golden hills, a few working farms, ruins here and there, lizards, paths, low mountains in the distance. We finally have the beautiful fall weather we were promised -- warm sun, cool breeze, lots of light. Phew!

A few more photos from Roma

Statue of St. Cecelia in the church of the same name, 17th century, by Maderno. He even includes the hack marks on her neck...

Hadrian's epitaph - to read the English, see Ben's entry below.

The castle!

These suckers are heavy! At the Castel San'Angelo.

Goofing it up over lunch.

The drain inside an ancient basin in the crypt at St. Cecilia's church.

Italy Blog entry #2 – Ben

The view from our apartment!

Ben and the catapult

On our second day of exploration, we changed our plans due to the need for a cell phone, since there is no phone in our house. We were planning to visit a church full of mosaics, but since we were on the wrong side of the neighborhood after our visit to the cell phone shop, we ended up going to Castel Sant’Angelo, built as the mausoleum for the emperor, Hadrian (138 AD). He built his own since the other one where the other emperors were buried was full. Can you imagine building an entire castle just to bury yourself?! The mausoleum of Hadrian, renamed Castel Sant’Angelo in 590 AD, was renamed when the pope at the time suddenly had a vision of an angel floating over the castle. It was during a parade to pray for the town. The parade was to hopefully end the long wave of plague, a disease brought over from rats with fleas.

It was mobbed. The bridge leading to the castle must have had 300 people on it. As we entered the castle, we walked up a long windy ramp filled with display cases on the left. There were sections of the original tiles that lasted nearly 2000 years. 1 tile had popped out. I picked it up to take home as a souvenir, but put it back. The last thing you want to do is misplace ancient stuff in Rome.

We finally got to the burial chamber. His epitaph (which he wrote himself) was carved into a stone plaque on the wall. Translated into English it goes something like this:

“Vague, wandering soul
Guest and companion of my body
prepare now to descend to places pallid
rigid and bare
your play at last has ended.”

Then we entered a room full of statues and carvings of Hadrian and some other people. In the room next door a video was showing about old Roman and Egyptian stuff. It was in Italian, but we could understand pretty well.

We walked up some steps and came to a bar with a balcony. We got a bottle of water and enjoyed the nice view of Rome. Then we walked up another set of stairs to the terrace. What a view! We could see the river, the coliseum, the Vatican, and all of old Rome. The pope lives in a big house.

Lastly, we went back to ground level and checked out the cannonballs. They were from 138 AD but the catapult was from some time later in the medieval period. We splashed our faces with cold water, filled up our water bottle, and caught a tram back home.

In which Sarah and Ben begin to blog...

Ben and Sarah hope to post dispatches about our Italian lives every week or so - maybe more frequently, maybe less...

Here is Sarah's first entry, below. (We forgot to put photos on our flash drives to bring to the Internet place, so they'll have to go up tomorrow or whenever we're next on. Sorry!)


We arrived in Rome four days ago. We expected to be living on the edge of Trastevere, an old funky neighborhood with winding medieval streets, ancient cheese shops, English-language bookstores, and masses of tourists. We find ourselves a bit further out than we thought we’d be, and on a broad, noisy avenue of mostly ugly, recent, 9- and 10-storey buildings. We have to take a tram up to Trastevere proper and our neighborhood doesn’t have the quaint, old quality we had hoped for.

However, there are several advantages: Most everyone in the neighborhood is a Roman, rather than a tourist or a student. And the prices are MUCH more affordable. While we’ve been startled by prices at the places that cater to tourists (13.50 Euros for two beers and an orange soda at an outdoor café about $20), we’ve been pleasantly surprised here in the ‘hood. Shopping at the local supermarket is an especially salutary experience: A massive head of very fresh lettuce for the equivalent of 75 cents; a large package of coffee for $2.25. (Tom says food is subsidized here; of course it is in the US, too – but only the crap that can be made from corn syrup: soda, Twinkies, and the like.)

We’ve had delicious cheeses, olives, and salamis from delis; fresh pasta from across the street; gelato to die for in our own freezer, left behind by the previous tenant (with the exception of chocolate with hot pepper). We’ve had two dinners out – a nouveau place our first night, with creative fish and pasta creations, and an excellent neighborhood pizza place last night, called Pepito’s. We keep heading out too early, though, taking the Romans at their word when the sign says that dinner begins at 7:30 pm. Instead we’re told to come back at 8 or 8:15. We’ll adjust, I’m sure, but in the meantime our American stomachs complain.

The biggest challenge so far is struggling with the language, followed closely by the intense heat. Ben and I have had long days of schlepping around the city on excursions, unable to find the right bus stop, overshooting our stop once we get on, and generally wearing ourselves out in the heat. We have seen some terrific sights, though. Our first day: The Church of St. Cecilia, built over the 2nd century home of this saint who was martyred for her beliefs. First she was locked in her caldarium (where they heated the water for the baths, presumably) to suffocate. Instead she sang for three days, thereby becoming the patron saint of music. When she didn’t die in all that time, they hauled her out and chopped her head almost off. Again, she wouldn’t die… and was left out on the street in agony where eventually she bled to death. A marvelous statue by Maderno (1618) shows her body as it apparently looked when it was disinterred in 1599, hack marks and all.

There is also a stunning 10th century mosaic above the apse; a 2nd century crypt that still shows Cecilia’s baths and the sarcophagi of later centuries; and a hard-to-find 13th century fresco by Cavallini in the singing porch above the nave. Our guide book said to ring the bell to the left of the church door. There was no sign, just a bell and an intercom. So I rang the bell and when I heard a woman’s voice, called back, “Fresco? Cavallini?” and was immediately buzzed in. There, just inside the door, was a little office from which emerged a tiny, ancient nun, who requested another 2.50 Euros each from us. When we admired a collection of hand-painted greeting cards, she announced proudly that she had painted them all and they only cost one Euro. There is no way to refuse a nun in a situation like that, especially when it reminds me so thoroughly of my English Auntie painting greeting cards to sell for 50P for the restoration of the roof of her village church. So we are the proud owners of a nun-painted card.

A few other tourists had joined us in the church proper and in the crypt but we were the only ones in the singing porch, admiring the technicolor angels. It was a peaceful way to begin our Roman sojourn, especially compared to our next day’s visit to Castel Sant’Angelo, the belly of the tourist beast. Phew!