Day 12 Rome

Last night after resting in the hotel, we got out again and walked to the Pantheon area. We had a very nice dinner in the WiFi place where we had drinks before and then walked to Piazza Navona. It was a madhouse -- mobbed with crowds of tourists and locals, all kinds of street performers, a stage or two with loud music, pulsating lights and the whole bit. We walked and walked and walked until we couldn’t any more… It seems that we’ve walked at least 10 hours each day here.

This morning we got up later and after breakfast decided to go to the Aventine Hill neighborhood by way of the Forum Romanum and other Fora, the Palatine Hill and Circus Maximus. Seeing the 2000 year old remnants of palaces, temples, public buildings and squares, parts of which are amazingly well preserved is a mind boggling experience. In the height of the Roman empire, Rome was a city of over a million people with a well functioning public infrastructure, not to mention the opulent villas of the aristocracy. You can clearly see the evidence of it in the archaeological sites. Parts of our walk were extremely crowded, but when we got to circus maximus, which was the largest public venue in ancient times, a stadium for over 400,000 people where chariot races took place, the crowds were gone. Aventine Hill was shady and lovely, with beautiful villas of wealthy Romans, and a few very pretty churches. In all of them there were weddings in progress when we visited. From there we decided to walk even further south to see a pyramid built for one of the Caesar’s by his freed slaves. We didn’t know exactly where it was so we walked in circles a bit until we found it. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but cat people had an adoption fair there so we saw some very cute kittens. From there we took a bus home.

We rested for an hour or so and got on our feet again. We decided to see piazza Navona by day and then have dinner in one of the restaurants in the ghetto area. As we approached Pantheon, it started to rain so we took refuge in our WiFi place with a carafe of wine and a pizza. When we came out, the sun was shining again. We walked through Piazza Navona, just as crowded as last night, headed down to Campo de Fiori and from there to the ghetto. We read an article about a funky restaurant called Sora Margherita, hole in the wall without a sign that only takes a few tables and serves real Roman home-made food so we decided to find it. We did and the waitress was out so we made a reservation for 8 pm (the only option). We walked some more and came back a few minutes before 8. A small crowd was already waiting in front of the unmarked door. Promptly at 8, a waiter came out and started calling names and assigning tables. The place was very small and windowless. The menu was handwritten on a piece of paper and only in Italian. The specialty was fried artichoke and fried zucchini flowers so everybody had that, including us. Then the waitress asked us in broken English if we wanted pasta, two different pastas? Not to make things complicated we said yes and left the decision what pasta to bring us to her. She brought us a portion of fettuccini with ricotta and a portion of meat ravioli. Both were home made and delicious. We watched people at other tables and every table had at least a couple of kinds of pasta and some also had a meat dish. There were maybe 10 tables in the place, some for 4, some for 2, and not a chair empty. We were so full after this meal that we decided to walk home to even though our feet hurt.