I haven’t said enough about my time with Carol and Arielle. They were the best visitors ever. We ate our way through the city, and shopped like fools, mad-shopping (including for Pope socks), which is to say we stopped in any store that looked interesting and bought stuff. We also hunted down landmarks that I hadn’t been able to find using my street map. Arielle had aced using Google Maps as a guide, so all she needed to do was plug in a name, and we found the place. We walked miles every day. Our record was the day of the Borghese gallery when we made it to 9.5 miles.
One favorite respite from our marathon-long walks was when we got to sit while Arielle tried out clothes.
Please note the glamorous shoes on Carol’s feet. These are my last-resort walking shoes on loan,. They are a size to big for me and two sizes too big for Carol. Roman cobblestones banished all consideration of chic. We called them her duck shoes.
I discovered much more about Rome during their visit than Pope blessings. It was great to see the city through fresh eyes. For one thing, Arielle knows more about different pasta dishes than most food writers. Here are a couple of dishes we tried.
Pasta with black truffles
Rigatoni amatriciana
I don’t have a photo of two of Rome’s most traditional pasta dishes, which Arielle introduced me to, tonnarelli caccio é pepe and rigatoni alla gricia. We ate so much of these that I guess we began to take them for granted (what!). I’ll take pictures of those later and post them.
Although we spent a lot of time eating, we noticed other things. Arielle spotted an example of Rome’s mysterious graffiti . . .
. . . and discovered Lucifero, a cozy little restaurant near the house where we drank lots of prosecco and ate strange dishes that tasted wonderful.
These appetizers were served with an assortment of honeys infused with fruit. My favorite was the one infused with black truffles. Tried to buy some, but it was homemade. (Carol knows a guy in north Georgia with a trained truffle dog, so the food future is bright.) The following available-light photos do not do justice to the food.
Beef filet in balsamic vinegar sauce
Beef with porcini mushrooms
Arielle also gets credit for discovering that one of the two best ice cream shops in Rome was a ten-minute walk away. I know I’ve posted this before, but just in case you forgot:
I wanted Carol and Arielle to see Santa Maria Trastevere, which as I keep saying is my favorite church in Rome so far. The church has the distinction, legend or truth, of being the first church where Christian mass was openly said. The church dates to the year 350, and the mosaics are from the 5th century.
As it turned out, we picked a good day. It was a Saturday, and the Pope was due to say mass there the next day. For the first time in all my visits, the church was brightly lighted, this for the benefit of the television cameras that were preparing to film Il Papa. The usually dark and quiet church was bustling with people adjusting lights and cameras.
All the normally shadowed mosaics were brilliantly illuminated. The saints looked shocked at the intrusion.
A group of children was practicing for the Pope (and I used to think it special when the archbishop came to our church). The ceremony involved palms, but it wasn’t Palm Sunday, so we had no idea what was going on. We inquired about whether mass was open to the public only to learn that though it was, 4,000 people were expected to attend. The only way we could have gotten in would have been to hide under a pew and sleep there overnight.
The particular type of palm frond these kids are carrying has some special early Christian significance. I mean to track that down.
Last day! After carrying around umbrellas for the entire visit and using them most of the time, the sun was shining. The temperature was around 60F but with a brisk wind, which seems to blow constantly here. We decided to eat outdoors anyway and had brunch on Campo di Fiori. Sunshine! Why people have been coming here for centuries.
Rome finally put out. About time.