Saturday 29 October 2011

Another gorgeous day!  Not only was the sky nearly cloudless, but also it hit 80 degrees.  I’m told there was snow at home. I thought I’d spend a lot of time outside enjoying the weather today.  I decided to start at the north end of the city and work my way back to my apartment in Trastevere.  I took the tram to Stazione Trastevere, from there took a local train to Termini, and caught the metro to Piazza di Spagna. The Spanish Steps are always a fun place to hang out, with the row of palm trees and Bernini’s fountain in the piazza. I love this fountain. The water pressure is low, so Bernini designed it to look like a leaky little boat spouting water.  I climbed the Spanish Steps for the great view of the city from the top.  The sky was clear and I could see across the rooftops of the city: terra cotta tiles, roof gardens with geraniums and roses still in bloom, and the domes of Roma’s many churches, including the gigantic mass of St. Peter’s across the river.  The steps themselves were covered with people as they usually are. A group of school children were running up and down the stairs, chased by a pair of nuns in long dark habits. The poor sisters were about as successful in rounding up the kids as they would have been trying to herd cats. 

From Piazza di Spagna I headed south, not really going by any particular route but wandering around through the little side streets and alleys that run off the few straight main streets in the city.  The area around Spagna is good for shopping if you’re looking for fashion or house wares. Since I didn’t need any Prada or Fendi, and already have a couple of espresso machines, I bypassed these for bookstores, looking for stuff to acquire for the library.  Since it was Saturday and the weather was good there were many street musicians playing in the piazzas and crossroads.  A trio of violin, accordion and double bass was particularly good, playing transcriptions of Italian works from Vivaldi and Corelli as well as medleys of popular music.  Like most Italian street musicians they threw in the theme from The Godfather for good measure.  Near Piazza Reppublica I heard small brass ensemble play a strange swing version of the Star Wars soundtrack.  The trombonist had on a Darth Vader helmet, minus the face mask.  And at Piazza Venezia a steel band performed as a group of fairly inebriated American students listened and danced on the steps of the Victor Emmanuel monument. They had figured out that in Italy open containers are permitted, the legal age is apparently six, and you can buy alcohol pretty much anywhere at nearly any time of day. I hope they didn’t also discover that the carabinieri would bust you for hurling on a national monument. At least a friend held her hair for her while she noisily lost her pasta and Peroni.

I returned to Trastevere in the afternoon by way of Tiber Island, home to the Temple of Asclepius and the corpse of the Apostle Bartholomew (by way of Jerusalem and Sicily; his arm is in Canterbury, UK).  Dinner was insalatone (a huge salad) with mixed greens, water-buffalo mozzarella, pickled vegetables and prosciutto.  Since I had walked so much today I decided to indulge in a little gelato. I had Gary’s favorite, stracciatella.  This is the Italian version of chocolate chip but much better.  They make it by drizzling a stream of melted dark chocolate onto the gelato as it’s being churned. The chocolate hardens on contact with the cold gelato and shatters, and little shards of chocolate end up in every bite.  Notes and reading, and then bed.