Extended stay in Rome

While we're here, might as well get gelatto ...

While the tour has broken up and some people have gone home and others moved on for a tour of Naples, we chose to stay two more days in Rome.

The first day, we took our own walking tour of the city. The second day, we had our subway adventure.

From our hotel, which was near the Vatican, we walked down to Castel San Angelo. It's not really that much. There's a bit of a museum, some frescos but we didn't have a guidebook or anything that suggested sights of great importance. The view from the top, with the statue of Michael the Archangel, is nice. Hey, one more view of St. Peter's dome and the Pantheon.

Then we headed for the Victor Emanuelle Monument, which is very white and very large and dedicated to the first king of united Italy. Lots of nationalism, which we really didn't have the time or inclination to ingest.

From there, back to the Pantheon for another picture, past the Trevi fountain for daytime shots and then to the Spanish Steps, which we hadn't visited yet and were in the evening shadows by the time we arrived. No matter. Pictures all around.

Then we walked up through the Piazza di Popolo (square of the people).

I should mention that the Spanish Steps is around some of the most exclusive shopping in town. Not a gelatto stand to be found. But plenty of upscale suit, tie, dress and shoe shops with the biggest names in high fashion. You can imagine the gradual "decline" of the names as you get closer to the "square of the people," which, by the way, has an obelisk and fountain, typical of Roman squares.

In fact, we take this time out to award Rome "Best public fountains." They're all over the place, so you can take the small bottle of water and refill it many times during the day. The other cities had no such amenity.

In any case, then we walked back to the hotel and met part of our group for dinner.

The recommended ristoranti specialized in a hollow spaghetti noodle with a sauce of tomato and bacon. Quite good actually. Along with the eggplant lasanga, filled me right up. The whole table split an order of the house appetizer specialty of the evening: zucchini flowers, breaded with mozzerella.

To finish it off, we hit the best gelatto stand we found: Old Bridge, near the Piazza Risorgemeto across the the Vatican walls. The 2-Euro cone is quite enough and the whipped cream is no extra charge.

The next day, with some further-flung destinations in mind, we elected to try the subway.

Rome has a very limited subway because, as our tour guide put it, everytime they start digging, they find something and have to stop for six months while they fill up another museum.

But the two lines that do exist cover enough of the ancient city to be of some use. We used both to head down to Circus Maximus, the 250,000-seat stadium where they used to hold chariot races. It's huge. But there's only minimal excavation on one side. It backs up to the ruins on Palatine Hill, but there's just a couple of documentary pictures necessary and then it was on to the next stop.

We walked up past the Colosseum because we wanted to visit St. Peter in Chains, but it was closed for siesta. Instead, we found a crepe place nearby and enjoyed that European flavor fascination, Nutella.

So we walked back in the direction of the Colosseum to visit the Mammertine Prison, legendary incarceration point of Saints Peter and Paul, though a tour were heard said it was unlikely that Paul, a Roman citizen, would have been subjected to such conditions.

Now it was on to Santa Maria Maggiore, which easily had one of the more interesting altars we saw. Below it was a small chapel and giant marble statue of Pope Pius IX. No railing, just ropes in front of the lectern. Hope nobody falls.

Now we make it back towards St. Peter in Chains, because, you see, it's closest to the subway stop. It's also home to Michelangelo's immense Moses. Although it's being restored, it's still quite the piece.

Back to the hotel to meet the group for dinner. We went to a place past the gelatto stand that was recommended by several guidebooks. Again, because the bar was set so high by Fiesole and Florence, it wasn't one of the top meals of the trip, but it was o.k.

Finally got around to trying an Italan standard: Prosciutto con Melone. Mixed meats turned out to be half the roasted chicken a couple others ordered and some roast pork and roast beef.

Since the gelatto stand was on the way back to the hotel, we had to stop for one last dessert. I tried the caramel cream (excellent) with chocolate.

A fine way to end my first European experience. And we've got Euros left, so I guess we'll have to come back again.

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