I also remember that my favorite part of town was quaint Trastevere, tucked away from the major tourist sites of central Rome. So that's where I booked our B&B.
We took the train from Napoli centrale to Roma centrale, the major train station in Rome. The instructions I was given said "take train to trastevere station take H bus to trastevere." I'd been to Rome before, so I didn't think this would be too difficult a task. I took for granted that this was all I would need.
I was wrong. We get to roma centrale station, and go to the automatic ticketing machines, and type in "trastevere." Nothing. So maybe it's a different train system and they don't sell tickets for trastevere station. Ok. We go to ask for information at the train station. There seems to be no one there to help, except for the ticket customer service line that you have to wait in line for like you do at the DMV. Take a ticket and wait. That seemed like nonsense.
So we figure it's a metro station. We follow the signs to the metro...upstairs, downstairs, with all our shit, and there's no trastevere station there, either. And a good section of the station is experiencing a blackout, which is a great indication that Rome is about to be as hot as I remember. At this point, we've been walking around a train station for about 25 minutes, just looking for how to get to a pretty popular place in Rome. We give in, and go to the metro information dmv, because there's only one person in line. When he's done, we get cut off by someone else, because even though there were a total of three people who needed help, you needed to get a ticket first. Justin is now really annoyed. An Asian couple giggled and thanked us, because we evidently spared them the embarrassment of getting cut off for not having this stupid ticket, either.
The lady gives us instructions to take the metro to porta portense and transfer, or we could take that H bus that's outside the station. We decide to take the bus, because that was the option that sounded most like what was recommended to us in the first place.
It was then obvious that the B&B owner meant we could take the train OR we could take the bus. Punctuation and the proper use of conjunction/disjunction seemed pretty important in that moment.
The H bus was just about to leave, and there was NO WAY IN HELL we were getting on it. It was PACKED not only full of people, but their huge suitcases. Even if we could cram ourselves on it, I was not going to stay on that thing for the next 20-40 minutes until we had to peel ourselves off. We hadn't bought tickets yet, anyway, and you have to get them from the tobacco shop before you get on.
Back inside the station, and back to the metro. We get off at porta portense, and there is a sign for the regional railway. We follow the sign for a block, and then no other sign. Nothing.
At this point, it's been a good hour or so just wandering around practically clueless, and the trip from Napoli to Rome was only slightly longer than that. We gave up, and decided to cab it, but there are no cabs. Now we're wandering looking for a cab, and we miraculously find the light rail station. Nothing to indicate that it's there, really, just people descending from somewhere.
Justin works some magic and figures it out. Turns out the station we were looking for was ROMA TRASTEVERE and that's all we would have had to ask for. We still couldn't have gotten there directly from Roma termini, but whatever. Maybe we would have gotten better advice from the metro agent.
So it took us as much time to get from Naples to Roma as it did from Rome to trastevere. Very aggravating.
The B&B wasn't even a 5-minute walk from the train station, so that was a pleasant surprise. And the place is much nicer than I expected it to be... Immaculate, I an elevator building, very strong airconditioning (which was so necessary at this point), and a little private terrace outside the room.
Justin found a restaurant Osteria Pistoia that was a couple of blocks down from us. I had an octopus appetizer (it was ok) and we finally got a chance to eat two of the most iconic dishes: Cacio e Pepe and carbonara. Carbonara is egg yolk, pecorino, and bacon (here it was guanciale... Pork jowl) and Cacio e Pepe is pecorino and black pepper. I've read a lot about Cacio e Pepe... Even though it is a simple dish, it's hard to get right- it requires making a sauce using only the best pecorino and some of the cooking water of the pasta in a way that makes the cheese not seize up. Whatever they did, it was one of the best things we'd eaten. The carbonara was excellent as well. Both of them were like the best Mac and cheeses you've ever eaten, and it didn't need to be baked!
I had no real desire to do most of the touristy stuff in Rome. I've thrown some coins in the fountain of Trevi. It's a fountain. It's crowded. I've sat on the Spanish steps. It's really crowded. And this is a really strange thing to say, but my closet is busting at the seams, and mostly due to this awesome consignment store in my neighborhood, I have a really hard time paying for clothing that costs more than $20 these days. So I didn't even want to go shopping.
The first stop on the short tourist itinerary was the lago di Torre Argentina ruins and cat sanctuary. (Read about it my volunteer experience here http://pottymouthcindy.blogspot.fr/2006/07/day-with-down-and-out-of-rome.html if you'd like) it's a preserved ruins site, right in the middle of town, and Inside is a cat rescue. They were either out to lunch or the place is shut down, because we couldn't enter, and saw only a few cats. We walked to the coliseum, directions aided by the fact that the coliseum us FUCKING ENORMOUS so you can see it for what feels like a mile away.
Typical me (and I'm starting to see, typical justin) decide there's NO WAY IN HELL we're going into that coliseum. The line to get in is enormous. And it's a ruin. What can I see on the the inside that I can't see from the outside? I'll never know, I guess. The outside is packed with people touting that they will help you skip the line. No no no. At some point, one of the guys, who's Australian, turns to one of the other touts, and says "this is fucked." Guess he wasn't getting much work.
So it's hot, it's crowded, we caught a glimpse of the enormity of the coliseum, and I made justin stand in front of it to take a picture of him. The end. We can't find the train station so easily, and we wind up walking around the whole thing just to find it. As we're walking, out of nowhere, I feel someone bump into me and a tug at the wristlet purse I had in my cross body bag. I instinctively grab my shit and turn around, and it's a young, clean woman with her boyfriend, looking at a map, and she giggle "oh, I'm sorry!" And they immediately walk away in the opposite direction with their map. That bitch tried to rob me! It's my fault... My cross body bag was open because it was crammed so full of shit I couldn't close it. She would have had to pull really hard to get anything out of it, but I guess she didn't know that. Justin says, "I told you they were following us." I hadn't heard him at all (I have a tendency not to hear well with a lot of noise in the background, and even less when I'm distracted by cool shit to look at, like a huge coliseum.). I asked him why he didn't say it louder? He said it was better to whisper so that you can be alert, and just walk away instead of pissing them off and making them come for you. I was proud of myself for stopping her. Justin says she was just a really shitty pickpocket. Hrrrmmmph.
I was really excited to go back to trastevere, and to the nearest place on the other side of the river called testaccio. The heart of trastevere was a good 20 minute walk from us, and it IS so very beautiful. Winding, cobblestone streets, punctuated with cafes and restaurants. I'm very sad to report that at night, however, it transforms a little bit into our little Italy. There are too many places obviously geared to the tourist, with waiters standing outside calling people into their restaurant. That's the number one thing that keeps me out of a place. Bars that advertise "nympho shots," including one bar that called itself "Long Island bar." That is NOT a good sign at all.
It's not all like that, but we didn't have a reservation, so it looked like getting into anywhere halfway decent wasn't going to happen. My cousin Marissa told us of her favorite restaurant in the area that served the best chicken parmigiana and penne alla vodka. I didn't come all the way to Rome to get most ubiquitous dish in an American Italian restaurant. Meanwhile, Marissa is Italian, and her napolitana grandmother, who has lived with her since she was born, is that kind of Italian grandmother who had a tomato garden in the Bronx, who had two kitchens, who still makes traditional Italian desserts from scratch every Christmas.
"Marissa, what did your grandma say when you told her you ate chicken parm and penne alla vodka in Italy?!?"
"Haha it didn't happen often, but it was good!"
We found a place Pianostrada di laboritorio di cucina that was so highly recommended by my friend cheryl that we felt like not going there would be an insult to her. Cheryl is a pescatarean, and I'm a big fan of meat, but she has really good taste in pretty much everything, so I trusted her. She warned us that the place was really tiny, and they don't take reservations, so you just have to show up and try. It was packed, but after wandering around for a while in little Italy, I decided it would be worth the wait. Miraculously, three girls left the counter just as we walked in, but one of the owners just shooed away her kid from the tiny table in the corner so we could sit there instead.
Pianostrada is owned and operated by four gorgeous women, all blonde with hair tied back in black scarves. She very nicely helped us in English, and only gave me the crazy look when the bottle of wine we asked "is this one sweet?" And she said, "all of them are not sweet, except that one. It's moscato." I know a lot about food, and nothing about wine, and I know that moscato in the U.S. Is sweet, but this one had the word "secco" in it, which means "dry," so I guess I should have known better but whatever. the food that came out of there was spectacular. Justin had a plate of roast beef sliced impossibly thin and topped with greens and shaved parmigiano. I had a burger made from baccala topped with zucchini flowers and stuffed into a huge black roll made with squid ink. So delicious.
Zucchini flowers always remind me of my aunt Pat. When I as much younger, she asked me to go to little Italy and get zucchini flowers for dinner. Each flower grows on the top of each zucchini, and they are so delicate and the season is so short that they are really hard to find in the U.S.
We much preferred the testaccio side of Rome. Testaccio is where the slaughterhouses used to be, so it's got this industrial part of it... A little bohemian and near the Jewish ghetto, lots of restaurants... It's the Williamsburg of Rome. In fact, everywhere we stay is the "Williamsburg" or wherever we're going, it seems. It feels so much like Williamsburg that I wasn't surprised at all to see that the traditional testaccio market was just renovated, and it's crisp and sanitary and clean and has no feeling like there's any tradition there at all. And just like Williamsburg, market owners whose families have been there for generations are moving out.
We found a pizzeria there called pizzeria ostiense, full of Italians outside, which is always a good sign. Roman pizza is my new favorite pizza. The crust is very thin, almost matzo-like in texture, appearance, and even taste, with little bits of black burned bits that tasted so good. I got the zucchini flower pizza, thinking of my aunt. It arrived with surprise anchovies, which might put a lot of people off, but was an added bonus for me! Eating in Rome is more expensive than in Florence, but this individual pizza which was spilling off the dinner plate it was served on was only 9€. The 6€ wine carafe is also a thing of the past, which isn't a big deal because it's still much cheaper than in the U.S., but it's funny how quickly you become acclimated to price changes. I really can't even fathom buying a $15 cocktail back home any more.
After that dinner, we walked past a gelateria that looked very much like il laboratorio di gelato in soho. This one was called gelateria la Romana, and there was a line of about 20 people out the door. I don't care how good that gelato was, I wasn't waiting in a line like the rest of the sheep.
Except that we happened to walk by it the next day, at 10 minutes to 1 in the afternoon. There were 4 people waiting outside for it to open. Of course, now I HAD to go in, just to see what the fuss was about. As soon as the doors open, the people RUSH to be the first people in the line. You pay at the register first as soon as you walk in, based on how many flavors you want. 3 for €2.50. I think the cup size is the same no matter how many flavors you cram into the cup. You wait on a line to be served after you hand them the receipt. Nothing is written in English, always a good sign. I now see why it takes so long to get served. The gelato is so soft and creamy, if you order a cone, they have to work some magic with the spatula to get the gelato onto the scoop. I got a cup, even after realizing that when you get a cone, they put either white or milk chocolate from a running fountain into the cone first. This WAS my lunch, after all, but I didn't need to be a glutton,
Fuckers. It was the best gelato I've ever had. Impossibly creamy and very flavorful. I see why everyone was queued up.
We managed to get a beach day in. Santa marinella is a little beachside town a little less than an hour away from Rome. We went on a Friday and it was PACKED. There's a public side of the beach, but considering how stupidly hot Rome is, there was no way we were doing this without an umbrella and a couple of chairs. It was about €35 euro for the setup for the day at the place we chose, the only one that wasn't completely packed. The guy asks us if we are French, and when we say we're American, he goes "everyone American" and pretends to make a rifle with his arms and makes gun-shooting noises.
Yep, that's what people think about Americans. Gun-toting assholes. I can't even argue with the guy. I just shrug my shoulders. Meanwhile, there were no other Americans anywhere near us.
We spent the whole day there and it was amazing.
At the train station, justin decides to get a drink from the vending machine. I tell him there's a cafe right next to us. But justin really likes getting shit out of vending machines. He gets a bottle of something, and it gets stuck sideways, and he can't reach it through the opening. He's pissed. He stares at the machine, and decides he's going to get something else so that it will knock it free. It really didn't look like it was ever going to come free, the way it was stuck. So he puts in more money and gets a water. The bottle of water is now sitting right on top of the first bottle which hasn't budged. He's now got his fists up in the air and I'm rolling my eyes, because of course, at this point, this is a puzzle that has to be won. I point out that there's something else in the machine that didn't come out from someone else who was suckered. He refuses to listen. After careful plotting, he picks a third thing, and finally, they all come out of the machine. Justin is thrilled at his victory over this machine. We're making a bit of a ruckus.
Not 20 feet away from us is some overly tanned young man who looked liked the main character from Napoleon Dynamite. He clearly witnessed the whole thing. And yet, he gets up, tries to get something from the machine, but it gets stuck. He sits down, looks at us, and in perfect English, says "it doesn't work."
No shit, moron. Justin agrees, and offers him one of his three beverages.
We continue to make fun of this idiot until the train arrives, and one stop later we realize we took it in the wrong direction, and we just missed the train going back, and the next one isn't for another hour. Karma is a bitch.
Justin wants to walk around civitaveccia a little, because we have an hour to kill. But there's loud thunder, and the last time we heard thunder like that it poured very soon thereafter. We didn't make it 200 feet from the train station (it was a very pretty 200 feet) before the torrential downpour that had everyone screeching and giggling at the little bar we made it to. It took the full hour to clear up. We lit up a couple of clove cigarettes that I had on me, because, you know... When in Rome.
I convince justin that we can't leave without seeing the inside of the Vatican. I send him to do the research on how to avoid the lines because that's the kind of shit I don't want to plan. He buys some reserved tickets online and we're assigned a time slot of 1:30.
The train to San pietro, the stop for the Vatican, was one stop away from trastevere, one of the benefits from being outside the main tourist center. We get there very early, and there's a shit ton of people. The tickets we got were for the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel, but you can't avoid the line for St. Peter's basilica. I remember going to the basilica before, but I know there was no way in hell I waited on that huge line. We follow the signs to the museum, and after walking around the huge walled city block in the blazing heat, we find an entrance for groups only. We walk in there about noon, which is an hour and a half early, and we're not a group. There's no way we're getting in, I think, but the guy gave zero fucks. We were in, and no one stopped us. Of course, we were trapped in large packs of groups, which meant we were being herded through the museum at a snail's pace. It took that full hour and a half to get to the chapel. But we did it. And the. We got the fuck out of there.
Our last night we found la tavernaccia, a trattoria a couple of blocks away from the apartment, and I ate pernil's more delicate cousin... Maialino (roast sucking pig) soft as butter, and seasoned only with salt and Rosemary. I can't remember what justin had, as everything seems to pale in comparison to that pig.
Leaving Italy for France, and I'm stupidly sad about it. Just hoping that customs doesn't confiscate the bottle of amaro I'll be hiding in my suitcase. Already dreaming of the bar cart I'm going to buy to put it on, so I can start my collection and share it with the few people I deem worthy.
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