Rome: Getting There and Trastevere

On the high-speed train, we took a
moment to enjoy the chocolates we
bought from a local chocolate-maker
in Rennes--lemon for Lisa, raspberry
for Aaron. Just like the wedding cake!

Getting from Rennes to Rome proved to be a slight adventure because two days before we were scheduled to leave, the flight attendant unions for Air France decided to go on a four-day strike to protest proposed lay-offs. This meant that our flight from Paris to Rome was canceled. After being unable to re-book tickets through the Air France website or through their phone line, we found the Air France office in Rennes where a very nice travel agent got us on another, earlier flight. Once we got to the Paris airport, however, our flight ended up being delayed by about an hour while Air France waited for some of the flight attendants who were not on strike to show up to work. In the end, we got to Rome at almost exactly the same time as our original flight would have gotten there. Incidentally, I really don't understand how Air France can keep 80% of its flights running (which is what they claim they did) if their flight attendants are on strike. I guess not all the flight attendants were on strike. (Also, in the confusion at the Paris airport, I managed to lose Lisa's stainless-steel water bottle for which I'm very sorry. Lisa [Lisa's comments throughout are in italics.] is adding as she looks over this before posting that it's equally her fault for forgetting it on the seat.)

We took a cab from the Rome airport to our lodging and we were treated to a wonderful ride by a very friendly man named Rocco. It turns out that his wife is French, meaning he spoke French much better than he spoke English or than we spoke Italian. He said he lived in Trastevere (the part of Rome directly across the Tiber from the historic center) and said we should try to eat our dinners at some of the small hosterias there. He also arranged to pick us up on Friday morning to take us back to the airport, which solved one of my transportation worries.

The only place we've ever
stayed without a Bible in
the nightstand....and this
was a convent.

Aaron, preparing for our
adventures. We made a king-
size bed with the two twins.

We stayed at the convent-guest house of the Sisters of Carità di Santa Maria just to the south-west of the Vatican near the Stazione San Pietro. I would highly recommend to any looking to visit Rome look into staying with them or with one of the other convents or monasteries listed on Monasterystays.com. The sisters were friendly, the accommodations were very clean, we had a private bathroom, and, most importantly, it was much cheaper than a comparable hotel in central Rome. The one potential downside is that this convent (and many others, too) has a curfew at 11 pm because they don't give you a key to get through the building's outer gate; a sister has to buzz you in. Lisa and I aren't exactly late-night partiers, though, so the curfew didn't bother us at all. In fact, we were usually in by about 9:30 (Lisa was even asleep by 8:30 one night!) and we were usually wide awake by about 6:30 or 7 am (partly because of the excitement of being in Rome, but also, I think, because we switched from Daylight Savings Time the night before we left Rennes). One of the nuns spoke French so Lisa could communicate with her (although she was confused for several days as to why we had American passports but were coming from France!).

A ricotta and pear cake. Subtle flavor,
perfection.

The first night, we found a restaurant nearby, the Osteria dei Pontefici, which, true to its name, had paintings of the walls of the last six or seven popes. It was a large place and seemed to cater to tourists (which makes sense, given its proximity to the Vatican) but the food was still pretty good.

The weather while we were there was very lovely - sunny and low 70s every day. It was a welcome change from the cloudy, cold, rainy weather in Bretagne!

Via della Scala, Trastevere.

Breakfast. Mmmm.

Italy, where the hot chocolate is
almost a solid. Click to enlarge if
you don't believe us!

From this point on, Lisa and I have decided to write a geographical narrative, going neighborhood by neighborhood through what we saw, rather than doing a chronological approach (which we're afraid would turn in just a list of "And then we went here. And then we went here.") So I'll start with Trastevere. Trastevere is a very medieval-y part of Rome with narrow, winding, pedestrian-friendly streets and old three-story buildings. It's become much more touristy than I remember it being when I lived in Rome eight years ago. Every night we were there, we saw plenty of Germans and Americans walking around (although, to be fair, there is an American university in the area so there's a large population of American students in Trastevere). We ended up eating most of our dinners in the neighborhood, although some places were better than others. I even managed to find one of the restaurants I used to frequent on Saturday and Sunday nights when I studied at the Centro. At the time, we didn't know its name because it was never prominently displayed; we simply referred to it as "the place across from Il Duca" (a restaurant across the street). I now know its name is Cacio e Pepe. The meal we had there was quite good, with grilled vegetables as antipasto (which were fabulous! Some of them were pickled or cured first and had lots of spices on them!), spaghetti alla carbonara for me and gnocchi ai quatro formaggi for Lisa, followed by a small glass of sambucca for Lisa as an after- dinner drink (despite its size, it delivered a powerful message....early sleep). We also had breakfast in at a cafe in Trastevere one morning. I had a cappucino and a ciambella (large Italian sugared doughnuts) and Lisa had an excellent cup of cioccolata calda. Also, we spent part of our last night in Rome at the same cafe each enjoying a glass of wine outside and watching the street life.

Mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Downstairs in the pharmacy,
via della Scala.

While Trastevere looks very medieval in some ways, it's also become the home of lots of little boutique stores, several of which we visited, including a Turkish glass shop, an English-language used bookstore, and a paper/stationery story (which I, Lisa of course adored! I purchased a little book with my favorite florentine pattern, and now I've written my favorite poems in it so that I can work on memorizing them on my walks to and from school). One of the real medieval treasures of Rome, though, is the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. The church dates back to the third century AD, making it one of the oldest churches in Rome, although most of what's there now is from the 12th and 13th centuries, including some beautiful medieval mosaics. Another amazing place we only glimpsed was a 17th-century pharmacy, still functioning today. It was run as a free clinic by the Carmelites all those years ago, and today it runs as a normal pharmacy as well as a neighborhood clinic. If you take the time to go upstairs, you can see some amazing frescoes. We didn't know/forgot how to get to that part (according to Secret Rome, a guide lent to us and partly translated by our colleague Vicki, you just go upstairs or ask if you can't find the stairs), but the inside was still decorative with paintings and marble. We also spent a little time one evening in the church of Santa Maria della Scala in order to rest our feet a little bit before dinner (we walked everywhere, meaning we were walking at least six miles a day!). Beyond that, though, Trastevere was really a neighborhood in which to eat and shop.