More Churches and the Layers of Rome

One reason to visit the churches of Rome is to see the various layers of Roman history embedded in them.  I'm reading the sections on the Centro Storico in National Geographic Traveler: Rome along with my iPhone so that I can look up the images of each site on Google.  That way I hope they stick in my mind a bit better and I'll know what they are talking about.  Of course it means it takes about an hour to read each page because of all the distracting side trips that Google leads me on.

I started with the chapter "Pantheon to Piazza Venezia"  and of course we'll all go see the Pantheon which was built by the Emperor Hadrian as a pagan temple and also as an astronomical instrument (depending on where the light from the oculus struck the floor at different times of the year).  Even Mother remembers the Pantheon from their 1958 Triumph Rally through Europe.  The Pantheon was converted early to a Christian church and so survived pretty much intact, although its bronze was carried away a couple of times.  Since we are there in November we'll have to run visit it during a rainstorm when the water comes pouring in through the oculus.  There are few major artworks inside but there is the tomb of Raffaello.

Very close to the Pantheon is Santa Maria sopra Minerva, originally built over a temple to the Roman goddess of war and wisdom (?) Minerva, equated with the Greek goddess Athena.  The exterior is early Renaissance but the interior is a lovely Gothic with soaring blue ceilings which is enough reason to visit it.  Evidently I'm partial to Gothic and less carried away by the Romanesque, Renaissance and Baroque, especially the exteriors, although maybe I should find out exactly what the latter are characterized by before I say anything.  While in the area, we should hop into the Jesuit churches of San'Ignatio and Il Gesu, since they are nearby and also take a look at the Borsa, the Italian stock exchange with its 11 Corinthian columns dating from 145 AD embedded into it.

And then, (or maybe we should do this one first when our legs are fresh) we should walk the 124 steps up the Campidoglio (the Capitoline Hill) to Santa Maria d'Aracoeli which was built on the ruins of a temple to Juno, the patron goddess of Rome, and has 22 recycled Roman columns in its interior.  The DK guide says that there is a popular belief that if you climb the 124 steps on your knees, you'll win the national lottery...

But it is San Clemente, near the Colosseum, that really shows the layers of Roman history.  Looking for images of San Clemente, I ran across this August 2013 blog posting by Ex Urbe on The Shape of Rome, which begins with the new mayor of Rome announcing his intention to destroy one of the city’s central roads, the Via dei Fori Imperiali, built by Mussolini, details the multiple layers of historic construction underneath the church of San Clemente, and ends with the geologic and social processes that created these layers of construction in Rome, and why Rome is so unique in that sense.  It's a long article but very informative and one I will reread before visiting.

And for a walk around "medieval Rome" follow the walk sketched out by Delightfully Italy: A dive in medieval Rome.  He takes you to San Clemente but also to Santissimi Quattro Coronati (a 4th/5th century church), Santo Stefano Rotondo (built in the 5th century on the remains of a 2nd-century Mithraic temple and featuring 34 frescos of martyrdom), and Santi Giovanni e Paolo (built in 398 over the home of two Roman soldiers, John and Paul, martyred under Julian in 362).  "What you can’t miss is the visit to the original Roman Houses buried under the church, and discovered in the 19th century."

So many layers!!  Just like in Fellini's 1972 movie Roma, the scene where they are excavating for the Roman subway and run into a buried Roman house, and of course they have to halt excavation and the air entering the caverns destroys the frescos, sort of what happened to the madonna fresco in San Clemente, which was good in the sense that it laid bare the original Empress Theodora  beneath it.

Water in Rome

Drinking from a nasoni

Remember that carafe I got from the l'Eau de Paris?  Now I'm investigating Rome's water scene.  First, it's the nasoni.  These are the water spigots that you can plug up with you finger so that the water spouts out of the top for a drinking fountain.  The water is supposed to be very good so that you can drink it without any qualms and there are 2,500 of them around the city so you should never go thirsty.  (Now if only there were that many public toilets...)

The ACEA (Rome's municipal water authority) not only provides maps of the nasoni in Rome but now has an app to help you locate them.  The water from the nasoni is the same water that comes out of the tap in Rome but since they run constantly the water is always cool.  Don't worry, the excess water is recycled for use in Rome's parks.  Even with this excellent source of water at their fingertips, Romans in restaurants prefer bottled water, although there is a movement against all those plastic water bottles (the PET version).  On Fodor's online forum, one contributor says: "It is the custom to order bottled water in Roman restaurants. To ask for tap water [l'acqua del rubinetto] is like asking for a doggie bag; it simply isn't done."  The Italians have to maintain "La Bella Figura".

So what kind of bottled water should we order in a restaurant?  Your waiter usually asks you, "Acqua con gas o senza gas?"  Should it be fizzy (frizzante) or still (liscia o naturale)?  Lazio Explorer, an English expatriate named Peter, says his Italian in-laws consider Acqua di Nepi to be the best quality and "that while I'm not usually a fan of frizzante, Acqua di Nepi frizzante (the green label) is wonderfully sweet with a soft sparkle".  Others say to order the fizzy stuff to make sure that the restaurant didn't just fill up bottles with tap water, passing it off as bottled.  That's fine with me since I prefer fizzwater, it settles the stomach, and according to Mary Roach, the author of Gulp, it's the best thing for upset stomachs, alka seltzer being liable to cause an explosion.

When speaking of Water in Rome, I suppose one should mention the 11 aqueducts of ancient Rome, after all that is how the water got to the nasoni (not really: nasoni are from the 19th century).  According to Wikipedia: "Their combined capacity was capable of supplying at least 1,127,220 cubic meters (nearly 300 million gallons) of water to the city each day from the Apennine mountains."

When the invading barbarians cut the aqueducts, that was the end of Rome and the population fell from over a million to about 30,000.  It was not until the Renaissance that some of the popes undertook the restoration of the aqueducts.  You can read more about Water and Wastewater Systems in Imperial Rome at waterhistory.org.  And we can also go visit the Parco degli Acquedotti which is part of the Appian Way Regional Park (which I hope we manage to visit along with the Baths of Caracalla) and can be reached by taking the Metro line A to Lucio Sestio or Giulio Agricola.  We can follow the detailed instructions from davlynmitaly's blogspot, a blog which I'll have to explore and which has a blogroll of other blogs on Italy.  And which provided that lovely October photo of the ancient acqueduct.

Rome on the Cheap

I'm perusing Let's Go Budget Rome where I'm finally finding very cheap eats and where Termini and San Lorenzo are neighborhoods to visit rather than to avoid.  I always thought Lonely Planet catered to the backpacking hostel crowd but their Rome guide is definitely mainstream tourist with the cheapest restaurants (marked with one €) as anything below €25 for primo, seconde, dolce and vino (of course that is a lot of food).  Let's Go concentrates on a lot of pizzerias, bakeries, cafes, and gelaterias.  And they mention that there is a "huge" SMA grocery store (does that make it an ipermercato?) at Piazza dell'Esquilino - next to Santa Maria Maggiore, not quite half a mile from the apartment, according to the handy measuring tape on google maps, one new feature that I really appreciate.

As to be expected, Let's Go also concentrates on "nightlife" and suggests buying a bottle of wine at the supermarket and heading to the nearest Piazza to join the crowds of young Italians, which might not pertain to us.  It also mentions that drinking outside after 11 pm has recently been made illegal and that conforms to our bedtime very well, because we will barely have finished dinner by 11 if we start eating at the customary 9 pm.  Let's not forget to check out the free concerts at oggiroma.it and timeout.com/rome/ in case we get finished with dinner early.

Lonely Planet Rome does have some good sidebars about less touristy and free features of Rome, like the Madonnelle, the little street-corner madonnas that, according to Virtual Roma, stem from the ancient Roman custom of building "small public shrines dedicated to the lares compitales, the pagan tutelary deities who presided over the crossroads."  Sort of the roadside lares familiares.  PhotoRoma has photos of many madonelle for those who aren't able to go see them, arranged by street and neighborhood.  The Spanish Steps on Pinterest also has a page of madonnelle photos and they also have a blog posting: The Madonnelle, Rome's Beautiful Little Shrines.

Another interesting thing to see for free are the statue parlanti or talking statues where people would post criticisms of the government (including the pope) beginning in the 1500s, according to one story, with the tailor Pasquino who posted satirical commentary on gossip he gleaned from the Vatican.  Do  you think they posted anything about Berlusconi during his term?

Even more exciting (especially if it rains hard and there is flooding) is a walk along the Tiber and across its multiple bridges.  We can walk along the river at its level or above it, depending on the weather.  Do you think it will be warm enough in November for an evening stroll?  Will our knees hold out?

A Food Awakening

I just read and article in NY Magazine by blogger Amanda Ruggeri entitled  "Want Real Italian Food?  Skip These Eight Dishes.http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/09/for-real-italian-food-skip-these-seven-dishes.html 
And she proceeds to list all the food I consider Italian, like spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread,  fettuccini alfredo, veal parmesan,  penne with vodka sauce,  chicken on pasta, etc.  It seems these are all Italian-American inventions from when peasants arrived in the US and finally had plentiful food.  
Luckily, she provides a list of what we should try.  I'd better take lots of notes.  I was heartened to read that real Italian food doesn't use all that much garlic.  Think that's true?

The Coperta and Doggy Bags

I was reading/perusing the 10th edition (2014) of Fodor's 25 Best: Rome where I ran across this information about "The Bill" in the Eat chapter. 

"The bill (check), il conto, usually includes extras such as servizio (service). Iniquitous cover charges (pane e coperto) have now been outlawed, but some restaurants still try to get around the regulations.  Only pay for bread (pane) if you have asked for it."

That's the first time I've heard that the coperta has been outlawed, yet Walks in Italy in a 2011 blog posting said the same thing.  Concierge in Umbria in their blog, Post Cards from Italy, explains the coperta as a cover charge that is determined by the restaurant's management and tends to be higher in touristy areas.  However they go on to say:

"Some areas in Italy have banned the coperto (including Lazio, where Rome is located), but it still routinely appears on menus."

 They say the coperta (€1 to €2 per diner), as well as the servizio (10-20%), must be listed on the menu, where it is generally in very tiny print at the top or bottom.

Oh, and they also say: "Doggie bags. They are taboo."

Cacio (Cheese) or Formaggio

Fernando probably hoped this posting would get off of food and talk about calcio (soccer).  I'll let him identify the Roman soccer team and its rivals.

This is about cacio, as in cacio e pepe, the cheese and pepper pasta dish we will absolutely have to try.  There are two words for cheese in Italian:  cacio and formaggio (the word one usually hears).  Evidently cacio is a more southern term (from the Latin caseus - cheese) and formaggio is northern (maybe the French influence of fromage - from the Latin forma - shape or mold).  However we call it, we need to learn about the local cheeses in Rome so that we don't make the mistake of asking for parmigiana instead of pecorino romano.

Pecorino Romano
Pecorino Romano is made from sheep’s milk (pecora is sheep) because Lazio (Rome's province) raises lots of sheep.  According to Eating Italy Food Tours, it is a key ingredient in all Roman pasta dishes and in the spring time (again) it is typically eaten with fresh fava beans on scampagnate (picnics).  They also like it with sweet things like figs and pears.  According to Wikipedia, it is a cheese from Ancient Rome but vegetarians can't eat it because it has to be made using lamb rennet.  A lot of the production now has been shifted to Sardinia but at Volpetti's you can get Pecorino Romano from Lazio.

Ricotta Romana
There is a Ricotta Romana DOP but I don't know if we can get it in the supermarkets, although except for the Sapori and Dintorni under the Termini train station, I haven't located many to put on my Google map.  I have read that they don't stand out like the ones in the suburbs with giant parking lots.  I wonder what we can get at the mercati.

According to formaggio.it, there are 50 cheeses from Rome and Lazio.  Cheese.com has descriptions of many Italian cheeses.

Burrata

Burrata
This is a mozzarella cheese originally from nearby Puglia that is stuffed with cream and more mozzarella.  Katie Parla first had it in New Jersey... but it seems everyone recommends getting it Roscioli's.  This New York Times article says you can get it everywhere in Rome.  But they say you have to eat it within 48 hours.  There also is a burrata di bufala.

Mozzarella
There is cow's milk mozzarella but the more famous one is buffalo milk mozzarella from Campania (as in Naples).  Since Campania is so close, we should take advantage of that.  We could try Obika Mozzarella Bar, which I thought was a Japanese restaurant when I first saw the name on a Google map, except their menu says they don't use any garlic or onions so what fun is that?  (Oh no!  they have a location in LA at Century City.) Katie Parla gives it a thumbs down.

Caciocavallo
No, this isn't cheese made from mare's milk but "cheese on horseback", getting its name from the manner in which the cheese is always tied together in pairs and dangled over a wooden board to drain and age.  It is made in different regions of southern Italy and from different animals: cows, buffalo and sheep.

Apps for Rome

I was looking at the "press and reviews" section of Elizabeth Minchilli's blog and ran across this 2012 article from the Huffington Post: Top Apps for Rome.  The three apps it picks for food include Minchilli's Eat Rome (which I bought), Katie Parla's Rome (which I also just bought), and an Italian one covering all of Italy: Cibando, which is free.  The last one also has a website, cibando.com where we can search for restaurants in Rome and narrow them down by price but not by neighborhood.   It also gives the Trip Advisor ranking.  For the Italian interface  go to cibando.com/it.  I'm not sold on it but it will make me practice my Italian.

The ones listed for transport require an internet connection which we won't have on the streets of Rome.  There aren't any Starbucks to dip into when we need wifi to check the bus schedule so we'll have to plan trips with Google Maps in the apartment before we go out.  I wonder if there will ever be a time (within our lifetime) when we can use our cellphones abroad like we do at home --  I remember when we used to incur "roaming" charges when we went to California so perhaps there is hope...Maybe globalization of AT&T and Verizon.

There is another review of Rome apps at Top 10 Travel Apps but the reviewer is British and can use her iPhone on the streets, where she can find what is nearby and when the next bus arrives.  Top 10 also chooses Eat Rome and Katie Parla's Rome.  The free ones are
Triposo Rome Travel Guide, which you can use offline
Guida Verde Rome Touring
Ulmon Rome Travel Guide and Offline City Map, where it says "Search by name, browse by category or discover nearby places using your device’s GPS -- even without an internet connection."  How's that??
Rome Pocket Guide, which is free but has a lot of in-app purchases for their tours, like $5.99 for the coliseum (how free is that?).

SWG City Guide - Rome, this one appears to be for business men and includes continual updates in Eventi, Nightlife, Happy Hour e Promozioni.  But they do love the colors from Leone Limentani on their facebook page.

The ones you have to pay for are a guide to the Leonardo da Vinci airport (can it be that difficult to navigate?), one on the Rome Metro (but they only have 2 lines!), and a Rome Shopping Guide (does it include coupons?).  3 not worth investigating.

Then there are these that I ran across and will have to test out (I better make more room on my iPhone).
Hidden Rome which shows some unusual sites but then you have to pay $2.99 for 60 additional ones.  I guess nothing is really free.

Rome Map and Walks - Full Version for $4.99 includes 16 walks with turn-by-turn directions that you can use offline.  I sort of feel that using ready-made walks destroys the fun of planning your own but the app developer has other apps for Rome that sound interesting like Roman Gelaterias, Top 10 Food Markets (I can just use MarketsofRome instead) and Rome Local Food (they don't mean "local" in the foodie sense) or MyCityCuisine.  I wonder if there is a public library that lends apps.

The Spanish Steps Apartment collected a page of Rome apps (67) on Pinterest.   How about Mangia?  An Italian Menu Decoder with 1800 entries for $4.99?  Or David Downie's Food Wine Rome, although it looks like Downie would be better for Paris where he has lived in the Marais for 25 years and conducts tours including "a leisurely walk down the atmospheric alleys of the Saint-Paul neighborhood".  Ah, Paris!

Then there are some free apps for a couple of neighborhoods in Rome: Testaccio and Aventino.  These link to the Italian app store so perhaps I'll test some from there.  Maybe even an offline Vatican Museum...

Vatican Museum, Part 2...the Sistine Chapel

Preparation: 

MICHELANGELO - THE GENIUS (BBC)

The Sistine Restored 

 The Sistine Chapel: a glorious restoration/  Michael Hirst...(et al.).  Abrams, Inc.  1994.

We have arrived at the Sistine Chapel with all those other tourists.  And we have our binoculars.  I'm told that small, inexpensive ones (or very old opera glasses?) are the way to go.  The chapel contains Michelangelo's ceiling and his huge "Last Judgement."  When Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to paint 12 apostles along the sides of the ceiling, he replied, "no."  But it didn't work, and Michelangelo consented to do it on his own terms.  What resulted was 5,900 square feet of "the entire history of the world until Jesus," and it took him four years (1508-1512) craning his neck on scaffolding six stories up, covering the ceiling with frescoes of biblical scenes.

"The ceiling both caps the Renaissance and turns it in a new direction.  In perfect Renaissance spirit, it mixes Old Testament prophets with classical figures (remember that when we get to the prophets).  But the style is more dramatic, shocking, and emotional than the balanced Renaissance works before it."

Here is a diagram showing what are standing under...

In the center are the nine scenes from Genesis...we can figure those out pretty easily.
Surrounding those (the squares) are the prophets....and they include not only people like Isaiah, but also classical figures like Delphica.  We can google them all as we go, but I do have trouble remembering all these bizarre stories.
And in the triangles on the outside are the ancestors.  Lots of them I don't know, but we'll be able to identify "David and Goliath," and "Judith and Holofernes."

That's Holofernes' head on the platter.
Maybe we should assign each of us three (or more) names to research.  Now I wish I'd paid more attention to Gaga's Bible lessons (did she talk about Judith and Holofernes?)

I hope they have chairs so we can sit as we crane our necks.  Otherwise, I'll probably fall over.



The Last Judgement.... "When Michelangelo returned to paint the altar wall 23 years later (1535), the mood of Europe - and the artist - was completely different.  The Protestant Reformation had forced the Catholic Church to clamp down on free thought, and religious wars raged...Michelangelo himself had begun to question the innate goodness of mankind."  And it shows.  It's a grim picture as the dead righteous (skeletons or cadavers) rising and the wicked tortured by gleeful demons."

And on that happy note, we can try to take the shortcut directly to St. Peter's Basicilica.  Exit at the far-right corner of the Sistine Chapel (your back to the altar).  This saves us a 30 minute walk and the wait in the St. Peter's security line, but you can't get back to the main entrance/exit or the Pinacoteca.  This exit may be marked "for private tour groups only," so we'll say our group has left us behind.

Vatican Museum - reservations and binoculars? Part 1

Our trip to Rome has got to include art museums....but how many and which ones?  With all our viewing and reading about Renaissance artists, and those ancient Romans, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel have got to be at the top of the list. 

I've got my copy of Rick Steves' Rome and he devotes some 35 pages to his Vatican Museum Tour.  I've always found him trustworthy so I intend to rip out those pages and take them with us when we tour.  But when?  The stories of crowds in the museum and the dash to get to the Sistine Chapel are legend.  Ricky (excuse the familiarity, but I hear his voice when I read the tour so I think he's my best friend) says, "The least worst time to visit is a weekday, late afternoon.  Mornings are most crowded.  The worst days are Sat, free Sundays, Mondays and rainy days." Weds. at 10:30 am are less crowded as many tourists are at the papal audience at St. Peter's Basilica, but I'm thinking somebody might like to see Pope Francis.
He also says, "This huge, confusing, and crowded megamuseum can be a jungle - but with this book as your vine, you should swing through with ease, enjoying the highlights and getting to the Sistine just before you collapse."  He concentrates on classical sculpture and Renaissance painting and that is just what we want.
The always crowded museum now has an online reservation system and a website with hours and information.  So we will plan ahead for our visit on the Vatican Museum site.
We will bypass the long ticket lines by reserving an entry time online.  It costs 20 Euros (16 for the ticket plus 4 booking fee).  Yeah, it seems steep, but I think MOMA is more.  We choose our day and time and they email a confirmation, and we print out the voucher.  When we get there we thumb our noses at all those tourist in line for tickets (it can be up to 2 hours), and queue up at the "Entrance with Reservations" line to the right. 
Then what?  Here is a schematic of the museum.

 Of course, Ricky leads us by the hand through the whole museum.  One option he suggests is seeing the Pinacoteca (10) at the beginning so we don't have to backtrack at the end (he has a shortcut).  There we will want to see Raphael's The Transfiguration, Leonardo's St. Jerome, and Caravaggio's Deposition. 

Caravaggio's Deposition

Then up the stairs to the Egyptian Rooms, past a balcony with a view of Rome through the windows to enter the Octagonal Courtyard with Greek and Roman Sculpture.

Apollo

Here we look for "the pure grace" of Apollo Belvedere, a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original.


Next the Laocoon, that very powerful and tortured portrayal of Laocoon and his sons being crushed by snakes.  And the BelvedereTorso.  The discovery of these sculptures spurred the Renaissance and the Laocoon and Torso are said to have inspired Michelangelo.

Laocoon

 

Belvedere Torso

Then we have the Etruscans, but there is a lot of that in the Metropolitan Museum, so this might be quick.
The Renaissance arrives on a quarter-mile walk down the long hall (Gallery of the Candelabra).   Along the way we see tapestries designed by Raphael's workshop, and the map gallery where we see all the regions of Italy and the windows give us our best look at the tiny country of the Vatican City.

And the Raphael Rooms!  You'll remember that Pope Julius II invited Raphael, then only 25, to paint the walls of his living quarters.  Here we will see the Constantine Room, the Liberation of St. Peter, the School of Athens and La Disputa.

Liberation of St. Peter

School of Athens

 And that's it for Part 1.  In the next installment we will stroll through the Modern Religious Art collection and finally arrive at THE SISTINE CHAPEL......

Roman Breads and Pastries

We've already mentioned the flatbread, pizza bianca, but Romans eat a lot of other breads as well, and not only to mop up their spaghetti sauce, the sugo.

Cornetto, saccotino, cappuccino and spremuta d’arancia

Cornetto
In the mornings, if they have breakfast at all, which they call calazione (with a name like that no wonder they forget to eat it), they will have a cornetto with their caffè.   Bread, Cakes and Ale says: A cornetto (“little horn”) is not a croissant (French for “crescent”), not being as buttery and flaky.  There is the cornetto semplice (plain) and the cornetto ripieno (filled) alla crema (with custard), alla marmellata (with jam), al miele (with honey and often integrale, wholewheat), and cornetto al cioccolato (with nutella).  Two different websites have recommended Caffè Barberini in Testaccio (next to Volpetti's) for the best cornetti but I'd rather find a pasticceria near the apartment with hot ones.

Saccottino al Cioccolato
This is the Italian for pain au chocolat.  You can order that if you prefer for colazione.   

Note: this is one time of day that you can order a cappuccino... and some spremuta d’arancia (and hope it is freshly squeezed orange juice).  For more information on caffè in Rome see Will Travel for Food's article: Prendiamo un caffè?  6 coffee "bars" to try in Rome (she also thinks that Barberini's in Testaccio has the best cornetti).  And remember that it costs money to sit down at a table.  Italians stand at the bar and wolf it down.

A Quick Italian lesson here from Cornell in Rome:
"Panetteria and Panificio: where you can get bread (aka bakery)
Pasticceria: pastries or cakes, or both
Forno: “oven” in English. Indicates where bread is actually produced
In general, Panificio means a place where bread is produced and sold."

Maritozzi

Maritozzo (little husband - marito)
I thought that this would count as a morning breakfast roll since it is a sweet bun with raisins but I discovered it was originally an Easter bun (like hot cross buns are here).  In Rome they serve it with panna (whipped cream).

Cannolis
These have never been my favorite but perhaps I haven't had the real thing -- although for that I suppose we'll have to wait till we go to Sicily.  We can try them in Rome but they are supposed to be filled with the ricotta only when you order them since otherwise they get soggy.  Revealed in Rome says that the Sicilian bakery Ciuri Ciuri is good for such Sicilian desserts, as is Sicilia e Duce in Testaccio.  She says go in to look at the desserts even if you don't buy any  (I'd like to see the Cassatta).

Bruschetta on Pane di Genzano
Does this count?   One blog says that "Roman bruschetta is traditionally made on pane casereccio di Genzano" which comes from a small town outside of Rome where they have a festa del pane every September.  Here's a video from YouTube about it.  Perhaps we can pick up a quarter of a loaf at the mercato.

Pangiallo Romano (yellow bread)
This is a Christmas bread with dried fruits and nuts that supposedly has its origins during the winter solstice in imperial Rome.  Bread Cakes and Ale has a posting from October 2013 with photos of it and pan pepato, a similar bread with black pepper.  He stayed in Trastevere where he could walk past the "vintage pasticceria Valzani (whose site has a spectacularly crazy landing page)."  The pastries look wonderful even if the website looks like something from the early days of the web.  Look at their tea cookies.

 Mostaccioli romani
Another Christmas pastry, these are little spiced nut pastries, sometimes dipped in chocolate, often in diamond shapes.   Here's more information on buying Christmas pastries, in case we miss our plane home.

Sflogiatelle
Yes, Fernando, you can get sflogliatelle in Rome but they aren't supposed to be as good as the ones from Naples.  That being said, they and the other pastries sure look good at Linari in the Centro Storico.

Desserts, yeah!

Well, after the delicious postings on foods from Penny and Cathy here is my humble contribution on desserts.  I think Americans don't know what they are missing at the European tradition of pastries and ice-cream (yeah, yeah, we have here the best ice-cream ... but just wait until you hear about gelato).  As a kid growing up in a small town, I was blessed by having a Danish pastry shop near my home. I don't know how this Danish family landed in Sogamoso, but I thought it was a divine intervention.  I loved the stuff they had,  and with such fancy names which I cannot recall.  So I went looking for desserts in Rome and sure enough they had some very delicious looking stuff (Cathy tells me that there are better places in Italy to get pastries and I know that France has better ones, but according to my childhood memories the Danes have even better ones). This site gives a list of the best 10 sweets and where to get them (Testaccio,Trastevere, Piazza Bologna).  Just take a good look at what is waiting for us... 

Now according to this site gelato is not just the Italian word for ice-cream, gelato is different from ice-cream: (i) it has less butterfat, so it is melts less hard and it just melts in your mouth; (ii) it has a higher density because E.U. regulations do not allow increasing its weight by adding water or its volume by blowing air into it as in done with ice-cream; (iii) it is frozen quickly in small batches and so it has to be eaten fresher than ice-cream. Although I believe them, I want to verify it and see how different it is from the gelato you find in Pittsburgh (we have lots of Italians here, and I hope they know their stuff).  The above site indicates the best 6 places to go for gelato. Just look at that cone ... it looks scrumptious! 

Rome Food to Try II

The first list of food to try was getting too long so I decided to start a new one.  Please add the Dolci, Fernando.  Here's a link: I 15 dolci migliori di Roma.

La Vignarola cleaning chicory

La Misticanza
I'm browsing through David Downie's Cooking the Roman Way, reading the side columns talking about the food, and he has one on "Mysterious Misticanza, Rome's Favorite Salad".  It is a salad of raw mixed wild greens and herbs, which you can get from the vignarola or cicoriare, the chicory specialists, and it contains things like acetosa, erba brusca, barba di frate, erba stella, burragine, bucalossi, caccialepri, cariota, cicorietta, erba noce, piedigallo, grespino, indiviola, lattughella, ojosa, piede-di-papavero, pimpinella, porcacchia, radicette, raponzoli, riccetta, rughetta...  So this is definitely something we'll have to pick up at the markets, although it was originally something the little old ladies picked by the roadside in spring.  It does come packaged in the supermercati but I imagine it has been toned down a bit so that now it tastes like "spring mix".  Maybe I should try growing it with the Italian Misticanza seeds from Renee's Garden, except that the Italian chicory I once grew was horribly bitter.

La Vignarola
David Downie has a recipe for this in a New York Times article: La Vignarola: Roman-Style Spring Vegetable Stew.   When I was in Spain on the Camino, I kept trying their Menestra, a similar spring vegetable stew, but it was always well stewed.  Will Vignarola be the same overcooked mush?  This recipe from the Rome Digest sounds like it wouldn't be but it probably depends on the cook and must then be made to order, not sit around all day.  It contains artichokes, fava beans, peas and lettuce.  I think Penny might like it.  No innards except for the guanciale and that isn't exactly an "innard".  Unfortunately we aren't going to be there in the spring...

Pizza bianca

Pizza Bianca
No, this isn't the cheese pizza without the tomato sauce, it is the pizza flatbread alone, or maybe brushed with olive oil.  Downie says the best is at Roscioli's l'Antico Forno between the Campo dei Fiori and the Jewish Ghetto.  Others say it's at the nearby  Forno Campo De' Fiori.  We could try both and still have room for others mentioned in Serious Eats: "Chasing Pizza Bianca in Rome".

Porchetta

Porchetta
According to Spotted by Locals, porchetta "is a whole pig, stuffed with its own meat, fat, herbs and spices, and then roasted to perfection."  That sounds good to me and probably awfully good to Fernando.  Porchetta is highly recommended by Anthony Bourdain who uses his normal starred vocabulary to describe it.  Porchetta is from the nearby town of Ariccia but SbL says the best place in Rome to get it is in Pignetto at I Porchettoni, where they also have horse jerky and mule's testicles (?).  It looked like it might be hard to get to but it only takes about 1/2 hour on the bus.  The Rome Digest tells you how to get there and says there's another location in San Lorenzo by the university, which only takes 20 minutes by bus.  I thought Fernando might like to visit the university but it looks like it is a walled city.

Or we can take a half hour train trip to Marino Laziale just outside Rome to visit Il Nocino Bernabei where Katie Parla says they do porchetta right (she even has a video to show us how they do it).  Elizabeth Minchilli also says the best porchetta is at Bernabei's and recommends going there because it's only half an hour away...

Rome Restaurants to Try

I added so many dishes to the "Rome food to try" that I thought maybe it would be better to separate out the restaurants.  Frankly I find that, although I might do a lot of research on restaurants, we really don't end up at any of them but just drop by a place that looks good.  But it will give us something to think about and we can look at their menus (typically without prices) to give us time to translate the names of their dishes, so we'll know what we're ordering.  And please add your selections to this posting as well.

This is a good place to add Revealed Rome's Eleven Etiquette Mistakes (Not) to Make at an Italian Meal. We already know about the coffee one but "the bread is there as an accompaniment to your primi and secondi, especially to dip into leftover sauces, not as a way to fill you up pre-dinner."  Are you listening, Fernando??

Revealed Rome also lists her "Three No-Fail Rome Restaurants".   These are Flavio al Velavevodetto in Testaccio (see below), Da Danilo, and L'Asino d'Oro (also below).

al Velavevodetto

al Velavevodetto

Flavio al Velavevodetto

Flavio al Velavevodetto

On Serious Eats is a recent (July 2014) posting by Katie Parla: 8 Must-Visit Restaurants in Rome.   One is an Eat and Go (Mordi e Vai) stand in the Testacchio mercato that offers 3 euro panini and is also written up in Rome Digest.

And on Eating Italy's June 2014 post, Tavole Romane lists her current favorite restaurants, one of which is by a Colombian: Metamorfosi, but it is a bit beyond our budget.  Anyway, I want traditional Roman food, not cutting edge food.

Agustarello
We might as well start alphabetically.  This is a trattoria in Testaccio that is famous for its offal, including coratella and rigatoni con pajata, but these are only available in spring.   It was one of Katie Parla's 10 Best Trattorias in 2011.

L'Asino d'Oro
Another of Parla's Top 10, this one is located in Monti and has a facebook page with photos of its dishes which look too exquisite for us.  But it is relatively close to Via Napoli.  Here is its menu on Menuale but it changes daily.  Revealed Rome liked it a lot and mentioned the weekday lunches: €12 for an antipasto, primo, secondo, glass of wine, and water. She said the dishes weren't as inventive as at dinner and smaller but she had pumpkin soup, ravioli with ricotta, and lamb stewed with artichokes, which sound awfully nice to me.  It is also one of Bread, Cakes and Ale's two favorite Rome restaurants, which says the price in October of 2013 was €13.

Flavio al Velavevodetto
Located on Monte Testaccio, this little trattoria is a favorite of Katie Parla and Revealed Rome, and Carlo Petrini.  RR recommends their amatriciana and their fritto misto vegetale.  Elizabeth Minchilli like it too, especially the view of the broken amphorae.  They also have a new location Piazza dei Quiriti 5 near Vatican City.

Il Pinsere
Remember Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco?  Maybe this one will be like that since it is near the apartment on Via Flavia.  It is a takeout pizzeria that is only open M-F from 9:00-14:00 and it is extremely popular on Trip Advisor although I had originally heard about it from someplace else.  Actually, what they serve isn't exactly pizza but pinse, an oval Roman flatbread with toppings, according to the Rome Digest.  The only drawback is that I'm not sure if we will be in that vicinity during its open hours.

Nonna Betta
Remember the falafels in Paris?  Here's a Kosher restaurant in the Jewish ghetto that serves falafels and only 5 euros apiece!  It's a minor item on the menu but the rest looks very Roman except that they add a vegetable to those Roman pasta dishes so that you get a carbonara di zucchine and a tagliolini cacio, pepe e cicoria.  The bucatini all'amatriciana del ghetto is on the meat menu but what do they use instead of guanciale and pecorino romano?  It must be hard to be kosher in Rome and never eat the pork products or mix the meat with the pecorino romano.  Or is it possible to eat the primo piato as a milk dish and the secondo as a meat?    Are eggs meat or dairy?  Nonna Betta does have abbacchio al forno con patate and abbacchio al scottadito but their menu also says that some things are only served in season.  I hope that carciofi are in season all year.