Wrapping up Rome (March 4, 2012)

By the end of our first full day in Rome, we knew there was no way we’d be able to see everything in Rome that interested us.  There was so much to see just walking around Rome’s various neighborhoods, let alone the major museums and other landmarks.  On our third and final day in Rome, after another run through the Villa Borghese gardens, we decided to try and squeeze in two of the biggies, or at least parts of them—the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Apparently, every other tourist in Rome was similarly inspired that day. The line to get into the Coliseum snaked back and forth several times and seemed to move at approximately the same speed as a narcoleptic tortoise; we decided it would be hare-brained to try and join the line. We settled for a photo in front of it and an agreement that when we next returned to Rome, we’d sign up for a Context Tour of the Coliseum.

See! Big old Roman building!

Thankfully, we had almost no wait to get into the Roman Forum, thanks to our Roma Passes (though it took a while to find the right entrance—the Romans could take a cue from the Greeks on helpful signage for tourists). Since we didn’t have a live tour guide, we settled on renting an audio guide for four hours, which was approximately how much time we had until lunch. We did not, however, have a proper appreciation for the sheer size of the Roman Forum, nor the fact that our tickets to the Roman Forum also included admission to the buildings on the Palatine Hill. Over the next four hours, we barely managed to complete a tour of the Roman Forum and listen to all of the marked points of interest. We decided the Palatine Hill would have to wait for another time (plus, I was getting hungry). In retrospect, we should have devoted an entire day to the Coliseum, Forum, and Palatine, but at least we know some definite stops on our next trip to Rome!

That’s the Capitoline Museum up there.
Just the day before we had looked down at the Forum from those arches.  

The Romans really have a thing for larger-than-life architecture.  

On the Palatine Hill, looking down at the Forum.

After the Forum, we wandered over to a restaurant in the Navona neighborhood of Rome, based on a guide book recommendation—the Osteria del Gallo. Along the way, Holly filled up her water bottle from one of Rome’s many drinking fountains, which offer free and clean drinking water to anyone (or thing) who’s thirsty.

Making Nalgenes happy since the 1800s.

Another form of drinking fountain in Rome.

We also walked through Piazza Navona, which is one of the more touristy plazas in Rome, with loads of artists ready and willing to draw your caricature or portrait (for a price, of course).  There, we came across another souvenir from the days when Rome ruled Egypt:

These obelisks kept reminding me of Obelix’s menhirs.

Osteria del Gallo was just a little way past Piazza Navona, a well hidden gem. Sadly, many tourists don’t know about it, and end up eating at one of the touristy restaurants in the Piazza or off one of the streets leading off from it. This was one of our top meals in Rome, for a very reasonable €50:

Caprese salad (sorry – we ate most of it before we remembered to document the meal!)

Bruschetta with smoked fish (cod, I believe?)

Mushroom ravioli in a sage and butter sauce

Chestnut gnocchi with shrimp

And, of course, a Moretti Baffo D'Oro 

(incidentally, Moretti is now owned by Heineken.
Does that still make it Italian?)

The hardest thing about cooking, if you ask me, is following the Goldilocks principle and getting the taste of a dish just right. It’s easy to go overboard and make something too sweet, too salty, too savory, etc. But getting it just right … now that’s tricky. Yet that’s what the best restaurants manage to do. Lunch at Osteria del Gallo that day was just right. The caprese salad was fresh and delicious. The fish bruschetta was a little salty, but the fish was tender and almost melted in your mouth (not quite like a good piece of fatty salmon or tuna sashimi, but close). Both of us loved our pastas (and loved our own more than each other’s, which is always a win-win for us both). The Moretti? Well, it wasn’t the best beer ever, but it was perfect for a lunchtime beverage to quench my thirst and wash the food down.

What about dessert, you might ask? Well, we already had a gelato place lined up. After our disappointing experience the day before, we had to give Roman gelato the benefit of a second try. Thanks to the Eat Rome app (can’t recommend it highly enough if you’re headed to Rome), Il Gelato II was on our radar and did not disappoint—they had about fifteen different flavors of chocolate that day. Unfortunately, I doubted my abilities to handle more than three. All of which were mmm-mmm-good.

Mmm-mmm-good.

We strolled back to our hotel and enjoyed our gelatos slowly—it was a gorgeous early spring day in Rome. On the Spanish Steps, the tourists were out in force.

Spanish Steps in the afternoon. As we discovered
when we were walking to the Vatican, they are
deserted at 7:30 a.m., except for the industrious
cleaners that pressure-wash the Steps.

But it was time for us to go. After taking care of some trip planning back in our hotel room, we departed for Roma Termini to catch our train to Naples. More on that, and our arrival in Naples, coming soon. Stay tuned!