Rome 3

Since I was a very young boy, machines of all types have fascinated me. On the automotive level, Rome is full of interesting vehicles. Size is an important design feature and the streets are full of mini cars, often having a just about square footprint. That means you can park one almost anywhere and that is exactly what happens. Some of the streets are not even big enough for the tiny cars and they are for two wheel vehicles only. Much of the local commerce runs on tiny three wheel trucks, basically motor scooters with a tiny truck body. Most are very old and overloaded, the most basic of commercial transportation.

3 wheeled Roman workhorse

Tiny 2 cylinder diesel

Bicycle tire vending machine

The next level up is the Piaggio mini truck. They appear to be a left hand drive version of the Suzuki mini truck, which I have at my home in California. They come in a variety of different configurations from dump truck to furniture box truck and they are everywhere. As with the Japanese model, the same configuration comes in increasingly larger versions. The drivers that I saw were courteous and careful. As long as one made their intention clear and didn't hesitate, there were no problems. We did not see any traffic accidents in two weeks of walking the city streets on a daily basis. There were bicycles too, but not so many. Thankfully, the air did not smell like diesel or two stroke engine exhaust, even though there were plenty of vehicles using both diesel and 2 stroke gas engines.

Piaggio Dump Truck

Piaggio Furniture Truck

It's time to talk about food again. Directly across the Via del Pellegrino from our building is a small passage way. I can't really call it a street, it's more like an alley that connects our street to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. One day, we stumbled on a small "restaurant". It was basically counter service with tables. The proprietors were Syrian/Italians, so the food had elements of both cultures. They had pizza sold by weight with creative toppings that were beyond delicious. They also had meat and chicken stews that were served over rice. And then there were the Arancini. Arancini  are stuffed rice balls which are coated with breadcrumbs and fried. Arancini are usually filled with ragù (meat sauce), tomato sauce, mozzarella, and/or peas. They are soooooooo delicious.  The photo below is the menu. The pizza prices are euros per 100 grams.

Arancini

This little gastronomical gem was right on the corner of the alley and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II so we merely had to walk a few hundred feet for some of the best simple food in Rome. The pizza was far beyond any other pizza we had in Rome or anywhere else.

I used my pigeon Italian to tell the counter person that they had the best pizza in Rome. It seems that praise is easily interpreted, no matter how bad the speakers grammar is. The photo below is our favorite place. Just to the right is the alley that leads to the Via del Pellegrino. I found this picture through the wonders of Google Earth.

Best Street Pizza 

Pizza by weight with Aracini top right

Rome 2

This story cannot go on without a mention of the Saint of Cash, the ATM. The days of travelers checks are long gone. Do they even still exist?

The ceremony goes like this:

First, the pilgrim must get in the correct state of mind and then start a search for a bank (money temple). Then one must locate the cash goddess, and with proper reverence and procedure, one inserts the sanctified card into the waiting goddess orifice. If the goddess has been fed and she looks on you positively, her lower regions open and euros spew forth. As long as the goddess looks favorably on you, you may stay in the country.   

And that's it. All hail the goddess (it's important to keep in her good graces).

The last time I traveled, no matter what, one could use dollars unless it was a very remote area. Now, no one is interested in dollars.

We lucked out in several ways on this trip. No big travel glitches except for the final one and a favorable exchange rate for dollars to euros. One could do many things in Italy for very little money. Even when we took a day trip to Florence, we got a two for one ticket on a high speed train. It cost about $60 each RT, Rome/Florence and took about 1.5 hrs each way. The train was quiet, smooth and comfortable. The conductor carried two tools; a paper punch for punching tickets and an iphone for non paper tickets. He would just scan the code right off the confirmation email on your phone. All amazing stuff no matter how many times you've  seen it.

The River Tiber snakes through Rome. There are many bridges but so many twists and turns it didn't help much as a reference point. It actually has switchbacks. On the other hand it seemed to constantly be popping up where we didn't expect it.

Teatro di Marcello

Teatro di Marcello

Teatro di Marcello

Grand Synagogue of Rome

Isola Tiberina

This remarkable piece of land in the middle of the Tiber was called "Intra duos pontes" (between two bridges) by the Romans; the island was connected to the terra firma by two bridges that were originally wooden. One is the Cestio bridge, built in 46 BC by Lucius Cestius and restored numerous times over the centuries because of the flooding of the river, so that what was a single-span bridge ended up with three arches; it was also called Ponte San Bartolomeo and "ponte ferrato" (bridge strengthened with iron).

One day, after revisiting the Teatro di Marcello ruins (photos above), near the Jewish Ghetto, we decided to make our wander circle a bit larger and head off in a slightly different path. As we crossed the Tiber River, something seemed so wrong. Did we just step into a time warp? Before arriving in Italy, we spent 8 days in England. It was a nice part of the whole experience and very interesting----except for one very obvious thing; the traffic flow and direction of travel was unnerving.

So, here we are in Rome and suddenly I feel very ill at ease. What is wrong? Well, it seems that due to the layout of the streets leading to the bridge, the traffic on the bridge ends up English style or ALL WRONG. It only lasts for the duration of the bridge, but I must say I had a visceral reaction to it.

Once across the bridge, we are in a section called Trastevere, across the Tiber. It is one of the sections we thought about when looking through the VRBO listings. What we saw of it seemed interesting and Bonnie had stayed there the last time she was in Rome. After a nice stop in a small espresso and sweets shop, bathroom too, we continued walking along a busy street.

The street took us once again to a bridge across the Tiber and we stumbled on the Tiber Island. The Tiber Island or Isola Tiberina is like everything in Rome, legendary.

The second bridge, Fabricio, preceded by the Caetani Tower, which belonged to the family that had transformed the island into a small fort in the Middle Ages, was also called "Ponte dei Giudei" (Bridge of the Jews) because it was near the Ghetto. It is associated with a terrible legend: the double Herms of the bridge are said to be the heads of four architects entrusted by Sixtus V with the restoration on the island; they evidently had a disagreement with the Pope and were beheaded at the end of the works.

The origins of the Isola Tiberina are to be found in the numerous legends surrounding it: it was supposed to have arisen over an ancient ship, whose shape it still maintains, further accentuated by the Romans, who to feed the legend built a stone prow and stern on it, giving it the shape of a warship, with the obelisk in the centre of the island like a ship's mast.

After standing in amazed wonder (it happens constantly in Rome) and attempting to save the moment in pictures, we continued across the bridge into recognizable territory. Just as the Tiber River flows, Rome is constantly twisting and turning. We were once again in "our neighborhood", Via Arenula, which creates the border between the Campo di Fiori and the Jewish Ghetto. There is a very small Jewish presence in Italy, only 45,000 in the whole country of 61 million people.

So, what's next. I'm guessing we ate something. Food, Food, Food. Usually very good, relatively unadulterated by modern industrial methods and prepared and served with calm reverence. There is never any hurry, you may linger after a meal for as long as you want. In fact, it is expected. We had so much good food but these important flavors stand out to me: the best lamb I have ever had. I love lamb and eat it often. Superb gelato, available everywhere, ever present wine, cheeses and breads, street pizza to dream about, salads and artichokes or carcciofi prepared in several ways. Oh, did I forget pasta. Bonnie loves it and enjoyed it several times. The list goes on and the eating discovery tour of Italy will resume someday. By the way, one remarkable thing we both noticed about the food in Italy was that garlic was used very sparingly.

Perhaps in some regional cooking garlic is used more heavily.