Day 4 - 5/11/11: Rome, Rome, Rome

10pm: Sitting in the room after another long day. Didn't sleep that well but then slept til after 9am. WTF?!? Rushed out and instead of having breakfast at the bar included with my B&B I walked a few minutes to famous St. Eustachio, supposedly with the best coffee in the city. It's pretty delicious and so was the chocolate croissant.

Walked over to trastevere and found the Villa Farnesina, which is a Renaissance villa that has a lot of paintings and frescoes from Raphael. Walked through Trastevere through where I was last night for dinner. Still a very lively place even in the morning! Found Piazza St. Cecilia, where I wanted to see the church and also have lunch. Yesterday in the catacombs, I saw St. Cecilia's tomb and a replica of a statue of her. Today I saw the church build on top of her house. She was a 12 year old Christian killed for her faith so they built a church in her honor. She's the patron saint of music. For 2.50 you can go downstairs and see the ancient excavations of her house. Pretty cool.




Waited a while until 12:30 and Roma Sparita opened for lunch. It's a cute little place on this sleepy square and I was the first person there. They are famous (like so famous Anthony Bourdain went on his Rome New Reservations episode, see here - thanks Kate!) for homemade tagliolini (like a skinny linguini) cacio e pepe (romano cheese and black pepper) put inside a crispy cheese cup. Best. Pasta. Ever. Can't really say anything more. Oh, and the difference between eating kind of in the middle of nowhere is that there's no cover charge and no bread charge. 

Wandered back across the Tiber into the ghetto. Every restaurant there was packed, as were the streets. Wandered back to the main street and up to Gelateria Corona near me and got a homemade lemon granita (aka, slush times a million). Came back to the B&B to rest for a minute before heading back out.

Walked to a couple of jewelry stores I had noted as being nice, but didn't really see anything in the windows that struck my fancy. I have not bought one thing so far :/

Wandered Via del Corso, the main drag in the center of Rome, and found the little baby 116 electric bus to take me to Borghese. I had reserved a 5pm entry and it was only about 4 so I got my ticket, did the mandatory bag check, and just relaxed there til entry time. The villa itself is fantastic, as are all the Bernini statues. There's one little one he apparently did when he was 11. As Rick Steves says, he barely could make a play-doh rope by 11 and Bernini's carving marble statues of babies milking a goat. They allow you 2 hours to go through the museum and I did it in about 40 minutes. I'll never be able to linger in an art museum. On my way out, a bajillion military types were being given tours. They had all kinds of various uniforms and though the guides were speaking English they were speaking all sorts of languages to each other. Interesting. Wonder what was going on.

Anyway, left the museum and wandered through the park down to the Pincio, with its lovely evening views right above Piazza del Popolo. Went down the square and joined the Passeggiata down Via del Corso. Shortly after 7:30 I made it to Matricianella right off the Via del Corso, which I had read about many places. I had a delicious fried artichoke (carciofi alla giudea - Jewish style) and one of the other 4 major Roman pasta dishes - bucatini all'amitriciana.

Wandered back through the historical center and had a gelato at San Crispino. Made a mistake and got one that had meringue in it and I didn't much like the texture. But the valrhona chocolate was great.

Won't be able to get pictures up until tomorrow, my last day in Rome, which will be centered around the ancient stuff.