Last day in Bella Roma. :(

One last day to drink in the ambiance of this fair city. We awoke later than usual because of our late night. After breakfast I again fought with this website trying to organize pictures. I also wanted to finalize our airline stuff. Easier said than done, of course! The US Air website said I had to check in at the airport, so I couldn't print out our passes. I then made arrangements with that in mind.

We initially planned to visit the National Museum of Rome, but we both agreed that we were museumed and churched out. We walked up to a cafe near Santa Maria Maggiore and had some more caffeine - expensive but excellent!

Then it was on to Piazza de Popoli to walk down the shopping street, Via Corso.

I actually bought a lovely top in a tiny shop - the salespeople were too accommodating!! Afterwards, we got a recommendation from one of the sales clerks and had a lovely lunch at Da Pietro. We had grilled calamari, spaghetti with seafood, great wine, and coffee and biscotti. Quite delicious.

Good food!!!

Cappuccino!

We also saw the guy from our hotel that Bob had talked to the night before. We walked back to the Spanish steps and took the metro back to the hotel. I checked my email and found a message from US Air -- indeed, I WAS able to print out boarding passes ahead of time - yay!!

Metro stuff!

Way, way down...

Contemplating the modern art in the metro station.

Piazza di Spagna

Another view of the piazza

We were back at the hotel by 4PM to rest and pack.  We left for our concert at 6:25 -- it was incredible!! A flute and piano and great acoustics = an enriching, wonderful evening.  We're getting ready to have a drink and snack at the bar before going to bed. 

Concert venue

Our trip home was uneventful except for the cold I managed to get from stale plane air...We were back at home by 5PM our time after a truly memorable experience in bella Roma.

Villa di Borghese and beyond on Thanksgiving.

Today we had a leisurely breakfast and Bob had a leisurely read while I finally finished yesterday's blog. The concierge had said he could check to see how many reservations were in place for Villa di Borghese, our intended sight for the day.  Because he was out of the building for a while, we had a coffee at a shop, came back, and discovered that there were plenty of openings for 1:00.

We arrived in plenty of time to sit and enjoy a beautiful Roman afternoon.  Interesting note -- you must check all your belongings before entering the museum -- EXCEPT your coat.  Hmmm....

The sculptures were amazing.  Bernini captured motion, detail, feeling in stone.

Aeneas with his father and son escaping Troy- he's holding his house gods in his hand

Ariadne and Apollo

The rape of Proserpina

Afterwards, we again enjoyed a walk back to the hotel because we had a bottle of Prosecco found in our room the first day we arrived that had to be consumed!!

The walls of the city of Rome

On our way back to the metro stop, we indulged in our first gelato of the trip: tiramisu for me and hazelnut for Bob.

Yummy gelato!

We rested at the hotel and had our Prosecco and then headed back to Trastavere for another tasting of Italian beers. 

Dinner!

The name of the restaurant just said what it was!!

Bob had a pizza with red sauce, olives, and artichokes, and I had one with escarole, olives, and loads of cheese.

More stout and saison beers were drunk!

Two fisted!

We came back to the hotel for after dinner drinks at the bar and ended up chatting with one of the guests originally from Michigan who knew people that Bob knew through wrestling and football -- pretty amazing!

Ancient Rome - and a Russian encounter.

Today was reserved for the Ancient Rome part of our journey. Because I was and still am having issues with uploading pictures and saving them to the blog, we didn't leave until 10:30.  It was a lovely walk through beautiful neighborhoods and a park to the bustle of the Coliseum area. 

Looking down from nosebleed heaven and a newly renovated area

View of the highest part of the ruins and the subfloor area and the bottom - the actual floor is gone.

Another view from the opposite side

The next part of our journey took us on a walk up the Palantine Hills and past an old garden and some ruins. This was the view of the Forum from the gardens.

We walked down to the Forum and strolled along the ancient road in the center of the Forum.  On either side were buildings dating from before Christ - so amazing to be walking on the same stone pathway as Caesar Augustus, etc.!

An ancient, massive basilica along the main path

Exact spot where Julius Caesar's body was burned after his assassination

The Curia, or Senate House

Note the huge rocks behind us that make walking treacherous, especially on our already inflated ankles!

In front of the Curia, or Senate House.

An inscription dedicated to Aeneas, the mythical founder of Rome

In two places today, we read the Italian perspective on other cultures' view of the Empire as racist (seems like that happened as a result of Mussolini buying into a Master Race). Quite interesting because our history books DO speak to Rome's allowing conquered people to keep their own culture and even government as long as they paid tribute (money mainly) to Rome.

Paintings related to the Trojan horse story in the Curia.

We left ancient Rome and walked through the heart of Rome on yet another mission, passing the monument to Vittorio Emmanuelle.

Say hi to Julius Caesar!

This mission involved going to one of Axel's suggested places, Caffe d'Sant Eustachio, for excellent coffee. And along the way, there was a shop for vestments for priests, etc....

The previous afternoon we had failed to get to Axel's coffee shop -- this time we were successful! The cars passing by were all the most expensive varieties; quite a show was there!!

Our next stop was the piazza di Pantheon. The guy with the best come-on got our business, and we enjoyed some delightful vino while watching our guy flirt with the good-looking girls --such fun.

 After sharing a sausage and rabe sandwich, we toured the Pantheon, a huge perfectly domed edifice. With no windows, the only light comes from the hole at the very top of the dome - another amazing sight.

Water in the center of the floor because of the hole in the ceiling!

On our way to the Spanish Steps, we passed by Trevi Fountain again -- and saw a beautiful moon!

Here we are sitting on the steps by the fountain.

Now on to the Spanish Steps! We found them, walked up them, ran the Bollywood gauntlet (guys selling scarves and laser thingies and "giving away" roses).



Looking down onto the Via Condotti

 We wandered down Via Condotti and then off into some side streets, reading menus and being solicited by various hosts and hostesses to various restaurants.  For some reason, I chose the Ristorante Blanka.  We sat outside on a beautiful Roman evening.  First, we ordered some wine -- Montepulciano d'Abruzzi in honor of our Italian brother-in-law.

Seated next to me was a rather attractive gentleman drinking a bottle of wine and eating a multi-course meal alone.  As we were sitting there, he heard the hostess say something in Russian to a woman walking down the street.  It turned out that he was Russian as well as our hostess!  We ended up having a lovely chat about Russia, Frank's time there and his job in Europe, teenaged children, the economic situation in our countries -- quite an array of topics.  These are the moments that make the trip so perfect -- out of the blue, we connected with a stranger and had a wonderful evening over some delicious food and wine.  We ordered bruschetta, baby octopus, salad, and osso bucco.  Fabulous.  An easy walk to the metro station got us back to our hotel before 10:00PM after a truly amazing day.

Bob's birthday!

Today we decided to take it a little easier because the rest of our week we'll have the Roma pass, which allows us to go multiple attractions over three days.

Because I always like to check out our upcoming concert venues, we took a leisurely stroll to the Museo di Granatieri, the site of this Friday's concert. The first time we attended a concert abroad was in the early '90s in Salzburg, and since then we've done it many times in many cities. Anyway, we easily found the place. We saw a young man come out of an outbuilding and got into a conversation about the concert. As we turned to leave, he told us that there was a museum on the grounds if we were interested. Taking him up on his offer, we toured a museum of the history of the army in Italy.

The museum took no sides -- it just presented highlights in Italian military history along with uniforms of each time period and dioramas of some of the famous battles.

Poignant statue at the entrance to the museum

Battle of Waterloo

Trenches

Modern sculpture with tank, cavalry, and catapult

As we left the museum, the man we'd talked to initially gave a us a gift bag! 

After a quick coffee and return to the hotel, we set out for the second best beer pub in the world, according to some beer website.  Back to Trastavere we went, this time using public transportation (it really helps if you ask the hotel guy what buses to take!).

Bottled beer menu

Italian wheat beer from Lombardy region

Italian brewery

I had an AMAZING Belgian style Italian-made chestnut beer -- so delicious.  We sat and chatted with the bartender about the place; he knew that the Philadelphia area had a lot of good microbreweries.  We then went back to the hotel via bus #64.  Bob took a siesta; I worked on the blog.  We then went to another recommended restaurant literally behind our hotel.  It was so popular that we had to be out of there by 9PM (it was 7:30ish) -- we were able to comply easily.

Grilled calamari!



Dinner!


After dinner, we went back to the hotel bar -- waiting for us was another complimentary bottle of prosecco, this time for Bob's birthday!  We also shared some panna cotta -- soooo good.

Bob celebrating his birthday compliments of the hotel!