Greetings From Italy -
So, we’ve moved on to Naples (referred to by one cab driver as “The Jungle”). But, let’s wrap up Rome.
It’s the end of Friday, April 25, so we’ve been on the road since last Friday. On Wednesday, we spent our final full day in Rome just looking around. It was an open day, so that meant going with Marlene to have her coffee. The kids spent the entire day in the apartment. They were tired of.........you can fill in the blanks. The idea after coffeee was to take mass transit (doing a lot of guessing) and see as much of Rome as possible. We grabbed the #8 Tram, which we’d been using frequently, and took it to a train station (not the major Roma Termini Station). We were supposed to find the Yellow Tram line there, but no such thing. So, we jumped on (that means did not pay) a regular train that was going to Roma Termini, where there were supposed to be a number of Tram Lines heading out to the east side of Rome. On the way we stopped at two other train stations, which would be major train stations in the U.S., but are just afterthoughts in Europe. When we arrived at Roma Termini we went out into the neighborhood and checked out the hotel where we’ll spend the final night of our trip. It isn’t the Ritz-Carlton, but we’ll survive. The neighborhood around the Rome train station is challenging. Eventually, failing to find Tram Lines, we got on the #90 Bus which travelled about 40 minutes out to the edge of the city. So, we were out of the tourist area and on a bus with the local folks. Much of the area reminded me of upper Manhattan or the Bronx. Busy, messy, nothing but apartment buildings and lots of cars parked wherever. This bus journey cemented our reaction that Rome seems tired. In disrepair, generally, dirty and just plain worn out. You are overwhelmed by the Roman Empire ruins and the overall history and the dozens of museums that probably are among the best in the world, and Vatican City. Once you are past the amazing history and the old, old buildings, you have a city that really isn’t that appealing. Rome is not Barcelona! Rome is not even Nice!
Wednesday evening Marz and I went to the restaurant Lilli, which was reportedly family run and featured a great Bucatini All’ Amatriciana, which was described as a pasta dish with tomato and pig’s cheek sauce. Well, that great dish was spaghetti with a salty red sauce and two very small pieces of bacon. We also ordered a veal dish from an extremely limited menu. The veal was two slices of veal and some boiled potatoes. Both tasty, but nothing to write home about. So, we decided to cab it to Pinsere Roma, described as a stand-up/take-out pizza place with the best pizza in Rome. Well, we had a long and interesting cab ride and saw the U.S. Embassy, only to find this famous pizza joint closed at 9:30 pm. So, the cab driver suggested Al Marmi, which was also on our list to go to and he thought was great. We got there and it was closed. So, the cabby took us to a pizza restaurant close to our apartment, which we were unaware of. We got a pizza to take back to the kids, which was pretty good, but not as good as Dar Poeta, which reigns as the best pizza we had in Rome (helped by an almost secret location and a red-checkered table cloth atmosphere).
A few photos to give you a little flare, including a look into a typical bar, which happened to have one wall open to the street. And, a photo of a typical old Rome street. Cobblestones, cobblestone, everywhere. Don’t plan on selling much asphalt. We couldn’t resist giving you a look at the front door to our apartment house, which has three apartments on each floor, of which there were six floors. And, Marlene gave it that very European look waving from the apartment window. She looks way up there, but then we were on the second floor (third floor in the U.S.) and the apartment ceilings were about 16 feet high. Yesterday it was off to Roma Termini to catch the Italian high speed train to Naples, so we caught a couple of photos of the somewhat modern station.
Off to Naples!
The Wilsons
