Nov. 11, 2014 Rome

Fernando and Cathy at the colosseo.

9:30 start because we didn't wake up until Penny heard the noise from the garbage collection from the back room. Good breakfast in the apt. Fernardo was the first one ready to go on our exploration of ancient Rome. After buying Roma passes, we continued down Via Nationale and found our way to the Colosseum. We were tickled pink to be able to skip the long, long line and walk right in with our Roma passes!!! The Colosseum is amazing. Fernando says the civil engineering is unbelievable. Cathy and Penny tried to listen to the Rick Steves audio tour and were moderately successful. Cathy says, "And I thought American football was violent." People and animals slaughter in great numbers for the entertainment of the masses.

Fernando and chocolate/pistachio gelato

After taking a million photos we went looking for lunch, and Cathy had the brilliant idea of taking the bus (free with the Roma pass) out of the immediate tourist throngs, and Fernando spotted a great corner sandwich/pizza place and we enjoyed eggplant/spinach/mozzarella panini and a porchetta sandwich. Guess who had which?  And then there was Gelateria Flor with wonderful flavors.  We are keeping our promise to ourselves of eating a gelato every day.  To keep up our health (and weight).

Cathy trying to drink out of a "nasoni".

How can these ruins have survived so long? Another million photos and we took the bus to San Giovanni in Laterno, the first Christian church in Rome although not much remains of that, just the huge renovation by Barromini in the 16th century. And we stopped to see the Scala Sancta (Sacred Stairs) and we restrained Fernando who wanted to climb them on his knees. An exploration on the way to the Metro (also free with Roma Pass) resulted in dinner for tonight when we found a frozen food store and picked up shrimp and asparagus prepared for our pasta, as well a lettuce from the mercato. We are now almost finished with our bottle of Novello, and we haven't even started cooking. Stay tuned for tomorrow and the Borghese Gallery.

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!