Vespa Parking Only

3:10 pm, Via Montefiore, Trastevere

Top 5 Signs That You're in Rome

1. You see gladiators taking a coffee break.

2. The clothes dryers.

3. The view from the neighborhood bus.

4. The local version of Wal-Mart.

5. The preferred form of transport.

Part of the Top 5 Group Writing Project. Thanks to Ms. Adventures in Italy for the head's up!

Anyone for ham and cheese?

Winner for one of my favorite window displays of food in Rome.

Roscioli is an upscale deli where you can also sit down and eat. The prices aren't high-end, but they aren't budget, either. For lunch you'll probably spend anywhere from €20-€30 per person. And mind you, this isn't the place to go for a nice, steaming plate of carbonara. For that, of course, go here, and as an aside, hurry... it just got put in a guide book so all hope of it remaining a secret is lost. No, Roscioli is the place for things like a lovely cheese plate with fruit compote, or a chocolate fondue with strawberries.

It's also an enoteca, or wine shop, so inside you'll see the walls are made up of huge wine cubbyholes that reach to the ceiling. Definitely worth a look.

And, not to be missed, a phrase from their website in typical Italian style:

In the bakery our pizzas follow only risings of more than 12 hours, that make it very digestible because the yeasts have fully developed their activity.

I haven't talked much about this on the blog, but the bold on "digestible" is their emphasis, and Italians can spend HOURS talking about food digestibility. I don't know about you and how things are where you live, but where I come from in the States, I'm 99.9% sure I never had even ONE dinner conversation that revolved around how I digested food.

But hey, maybe that's just me?

Antico Forno Roscioli
Via dei Giubbonari 21 (not far from Campo de' Fiori)
They also have a bakery on Via dei Chiavari 34

The Aftermath

If you stop by Campo de' Fiori (home of possibly the most famous outdoor market in Rome) around 2 pm or so, you'll think you've stepped onto a battleground where the vegetables fought against the fruits, and the birds won out in the end.

I never stop to think much about the people who keep this city moving, the people who are out there everyday cleaning up after the nearly 3 million who inhabit this city, along with the hordes of tourists who contribute to its economy.

From street sweepers to garbage truck drivers (I think there are four garbage trucks that come by here daily), these are the people who make the Eternal City bearable and beautiful for all of us, and I see them out there, not only in Campo de' Fiori but all over the historical center, all the time, doing a great job. A big shout out to all of them today!

Lock Up Your Love and Throw Away the Key

Despite the fact that Ale is away for the weekend having some kind of Abruzzo-style bachelor party (Naked women? Try again. More like cooking a sheep for 8 hours while consuming copious amounts of wine. Don't ask... I surely didn't.) ... I had an incredibly romantic afternoon regardless.

You see, the other day I read this article about Ponte Milvio. The bridge has recently been making news for this new tradition, which apparently only started on Ponte Milvio after it appeared in a recent book called "Ho Voglia di Te," sequel to the teen cult hit "Tre Metri Sopra il Cielo," (which, by the way, if you're studying Italian around the intermediate level, could be a good book to start with... I read it in two days on the beach and it's a fun fluff novel). The article inspired me to take a look for myself. In my five years here in Rome, I'd never actually been on the bridge, since it's kind of out of the way for where I live, but this definitely deserved a look.

Part of the reason I've never been there is probably because I'm no longer 16 years old. I mean, you need to picture a place where teenagers go to have some stolen kisses. But still, it has a special charm all its own and at the risk of sounding sappy, I was taken in by it.

So, if you didn't read the article---the gist is that you go here with an ordinary lock, lock it to one of the lampposts (or other locks on the lampposts), maybe write your name and your sweetheart's name, and then throw the key in the Tiber. Ok, ok, I know... it might sound kind of cheesy. I'm not usually the type. But like I said, there's something kind of magical about the place.

Recently the book was turned into a movie that's of course become a big hit with the teeny-bopper set.



Well, what can I say? Rome might not be Paris, but there's certainly always some romance in the air around here...

You can't really tell from the "entrance" to the bridge that's there's anything out of the ordinary here. But once you get about half-way across...

This is the main lamppost and had the most locks on it. I don't even really want to know how they got those ones on the top. I mean, that could be a pretty tragic end to a teenage love story, don't you think? Sorry, but let's inject a bit of reality here, people. Did they bring a ladder, or what?

Besides the locks, the bridge itself is positively COVERED in love graffiti. I know that some of you aren't too wild about graffiti here in Rome. And generally, I'm not either. But I have to admit that I kind of like the fact that they are tolerant here.

If you kiss with your eyes open, this is what you'll see...

Kind of off the beaten path, and thankfully not really a tourist attraction (yet). But a visit here is bound to make your heart smile...

Ponte Milvio

Lungotevere Maresciallo Diaz (near the Foro Italico)

It's a beautiful day to be in Rome

This is one of my favorite views when I'm walking back home from the area around Largo Argentina, and today is our first really glorious spring day. I can tell it's the start of the "bella stagione" because the accordion players are back out in full force, serenading the diners at the sidewalk restaurants. Buona domenica!

St. Peter's and the Tiber River as seen from Ponte Garibaldi, today about 12:45 pm
(the bridge shown is Ponte Sisto)

Same view, late November 2006

I'm Cheating on You

I have to take the day off from the ol' blog. Actually, I have a confession to make: I've been cheating on you with Viator.com and their travel blog. They asked me to do a series of freelance articles on Rome and I have to get moving on my next one: Rome for Families/Children (by the way, do you have any ideas or must-see, must-do for kids and families?)

Meanwhile, take a look at my 3-day suggested itinerary for Rome. I've thrown in some tips, restaurants and sights there that I haven't mentioned here on the blog, and Viator has added in some of their tours and extras as well.

A domani!

Un-American Graffiti

The other day, I posted a video that my friend Finny made when she was visiting, of me driving around my neighborhood streets looking for parking (in this post). One of my guests who will be arriving in a few months and has never stayed with us, but who follows my blog, got in touch with me to mention that with all that graffiti you see on the video, could it be that my neighborhood (Trastevere) is in a run-down or dangerous area?

Fair enough question. Truth be told, Trastevere was a pretty rough neighborhood in the 50s and 60s, but over the years has actually undergone an urban gentrification, becoming one of the more expensive and well-to-do areas of the city (believe it or not, after seeing the graffiti-covered buildings in the video). I wonder if graffiti=crime is still a good general rule of thumb to apply in the States? In my experience, it certainly doesn't work that way here in Europe. I realize that most Americans live in a suburban, not city, environment, and so may not be used to seeing graffiti, and thus they associate it with a run-down or dangerous area. In many of the suburban areas and gated residential communities that are so frequent in the States, you generally don't find distinctions between the "bad" and "good" parts of town as you would in a city, and private homes would probably be the only place to put graffiti. It's the urban environment that seems to invite the graffiti "artist" to go to work, and I think we should take a take a closer look at how common the practice of graffiti is here in Rome, who is doing it, and what it means.

In most of the larger European cities I have visited, I have seen an abundance of graffiti. Everywhere. Near the train station and shady-looking businesses around it. Near and even on the richer homes (which are still apartment buildings, not single-family dwellings). On the shops. On the subway cars. Even on the churches. Everywhere within about a 2 meter radius from the ground, anywhere there's a nice "canvas" of wall, seems to be fair game.

When you live here you tend not to notice it, but my guest's comment has really made me stop to consider the topic. I'm now kind of more sensitive to it since I need to be able to communicate the European urban reality to people who may never have experienced a European city before, and may be justifiably put off by the fact that there is graffiti on the walls, and what that says about the area.

Here's what I came up with on my walk back from the grocery store yesterday, as a little examination of this topic.

First, I think the majority of the graffiti you'll find is simple tagging, kind of like a cat spraying to mark territory. Take this street corner off of Viale Trastevere for example: make a simple 360° turn, and on every corner of the intersection you'll find the same tag: "Lucas."



I found Lucas all down the road as well, once I started looking for it.

Here's another example of tagging that I found in various spots in the neighborhood. Can you decipher what the "tag" is?


If you said "Croels," you're right. (Now scroll back up to the first "Lucas" photo. Notice anything?)

Here's the first piece of graffiti I ever saw in my neighborhood, five years ago. Who knows when it originally went up. I still remember it because I thought it was funny, and since I was just learning Italian, I was proud of myself for understanding it as well:

It says "More houses, less churches." Graffiti as political statement, especially when painted directly on a church. Rome's housing situation is very difficult.

Evidently inspired by this succinct and effective message, someone else decided on a new rhyming phrase that has sprung up next to it, on the same church:

"More green, less...." well, I'll let you look that one up in your Italian dictionary. Let's just say that dog owners aren't so good about picking up after their dogs when they walk them.

Some graffiti can get quite elaborate and almost artistic:

And if it stops for long enough, even a press delivery truck becomes fair game:

Often you'll see buildings that look a bit two-toned, like this restaurant:

That's because they are constantly painting over the graffiti. But just next door, this:

Because it all depends on the owner of the building, and if they can afford to keep painting over it.

What point am I trying to make? The truth of the matter is that I'm no sociologist or criminologist. I wish I understood better the reason why graffiti is such a common practice here in European cities. I agree that it's a shame to see it on churches and buildings of important historical significance, and it certainly can be an eyesore. But I think when we're talking about graffiti and associating it with crime or a "bad" neighborhood, we need to understand the context we're dealing with.

Why are the graffiti artists tagging all over? Is it because they want to commit crimes in the neighborhood, or because my particular neighborhood attracts a delinquent crowd? No. Like I said, you'll see graffiti pretty much throughout Rome. (As an aside, when the Rome soccer team won the national championship in 2001 for the first time in 20 years, "normal" people turned into rampant graffiti artists, spray-painting elaborate emblems on the streets and buildings in broad daylight, for weeks on end.) So the question remains: why?

In college I took a few criminal justice classes (a secret passion and curiosity of mine--I took all the electives I could, as I was actually an advertising major) and one of my professors, Jeff Ferrell, had gone underground to do field research with graffiti crews, getting to know them inside-out and writing an interesting book on the topic. I have to say that Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality was hands-down one of the most engaging course textbooks I ever had. One reviewer of the book comments:

"In the graffiti artists' use of space and in their definitions of beauty and neighborhood, they uncover the way power and meanings are manufactured. Ferrell's work is a powerful, clear, and engaging book; one which shows stunning new ways of seeing and studying 'crime.'"

Later, when I became a copywriter at an ad agency, my creative director actually hired a graffiti artist to do a mural on a city wall for a campaign we were working on, and the graffiti artist went on to sell some of his work in art galleries.

That's the thing: whether we like it or not, many of these spray-can toting individuals do define themselves as artists, not criminals, and no amount of clean-up is ever going to truly get rid of the problem. I don't really know how to reassure my guests on questions like this. I think many people who have traveled to Rome for the first time have probably been initially shocked at seeing all the graffiti, but then it most likely fades into the background once they see that it isn't an occurrence particular to just one area, but pretty much to all areas.

In the end I can't really provide a good answer. And I'm sure if I could, it would be way too complex and involved for this post, anyway. I just wanted to bring up the topic and open it for discussion. I'm curious to hear what your impressions are when seeing this, what experiences you have to add, and if you are qualified to enlighten us from a more academic or sociological point of view, please do so!

First Stop on the Gelato Tour

Is everyone here? You, in the back, can you hear me? Ok, just follow me…see this red flag I’m holding, if you don’t see me, just look for that red flag. Right this way!

The Gelato Tour doesn’t have a long and storied history, but as time goes on I have no doubt it will. Sara, aka Ms. Adventures in Italy, is our fearless leader, and you can go on other tours here. I am one of your trusty tour guides for Rome, and while our first stop today isn’t necessarily my absolute favorite gelato place (there are so many and my true favorite isn’t that close to my house, so we’ll have to go there another day), it is definitely the winner in my book for sheer number of choices. I give you: Della Palma, just steps from the Pantheon, an area where there's quite a bit of competition for your gelato money. So it's a good thing you have a tour guide to help you wade through the Roman gelato jungle.

I took four shots of the glass cases of gelato here, and I still hadn’t covered all of them. It’s usually full of tourists, but I managed to stop by when there was hardly anyone, which was perfect for getting all my photographic evidence.




By the fourth or fifth shot though, the guy serving gelato was so amused that I decided I better order something.

I got the smallest cone, giving me a choice of two flavors, so I picked biscotto and Galak (a white chocolate named after a candy bar here). The biscotto tasted like cookies and cream, which I loved, because it isn’t that easy to find. The best thing about Della Palma is that if you have a favorite gelato flavor and you can hardly ever find it, chances are good that it’s here. I didn’t ask how many flavors they have or count, although a list on Fodor’s says one hundred (seems a strangely round number, but it’s probably pretty close).

One of the only drawbacks to this place is the fact that it’s a little pricey. I didn't write down the prices, but I think I paid €2.50 for a small cone, which is about 1 euro more than what I'm used to. Most of the places around the Pantheon are higher, because they obviously cater to tourists.

While we’re on the topic, be sure to look at the price list before ordering at shops in these touristy areas, and if there isn’t a price list displayed (although that’s technically against the law), be sure to ask how much a small cone, or a cone with the number of flavors you want, costs. Once one of my study abroad students told me that she was charged €5 for a small cone, and was only told the price after it was being held out to her, dripping. It’s a bit uncomfortable at that point to start arguing that you’re being ripped off. However, if that had happened to me, I would have told the guy thanks anyways and let him eat the gelato. As I always say, don’t be afraid to refuse things if you feel you’re being ripped off. A small gelato (meaning 2-3 flavors depending on the shop) should run you anywhere from €1.50 to €2.50. Even if its higher, it's OK so long as you know that's the price before you order. Pay first, or at least ask, then order.

In addition to “regular” gelato, Della Palma offers variations on the theme, like mousse in several flavors (though only available in a cup, not a cone, because it doesn't have the same consistency as gelato). It’s also a candy store, so could be a good place to pick up some goodies for friends and family, or just for yourself.

Something I love about Italian gelato shops is how they randomly place objects representing the flavor in the middle of the tub. I used to wonder: ooooh, who's the lucky duck that gets that in their cone? Just imagine if this landed in the middle of your cone of cappuccino flavor gelato:

Hey, check me out, I'm going to try to be all artistic-like and take a shot of my half-eaten gelato in its natural environment of the Pantheon:

And I’m not the only one who likes this place.

As we wind up today’s visit, I’d like to have you take a look at Fodor’s list of the best gelato in Rome. First, I can assure you that my favorite gelato place is not on the list, and that’s because it’s not touristy. And I can also assure you that, in my highly unbiased opinion, it truly is THE best gelato in Rome. In a future visit I will be happy to take you there—it’s in a big neighborhood and not that hard to reach with public transport. Meanwhile, feel free browse the others on the list and try to guess which, if any, I’ll pick for future stops.

Della Palma
Via della Maddalena 20/23 (near the Pantheon)
Tel: 06/68806752

Just Don't Spill Anything on the Sofa!

So, I'm thinking...let's get the owner of this place together with the owner of Pig Night. They seem to have the same, shall we say, "eccentric" taste in naming their businesses.

Pizza & Champagne in Living Room
Via dei Genovesi (corner of Via dei Vascellari)
Trastevere

Photo Hunt: Lights

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This week's theme is Lights.

Yesterday I was walking down Via Arenula and noticed that they were putting up these holiday snowflake lights. In my 5 years here I don't recall them ever installing lights on this main street from Trastevere to Largo Argentina (near the Pantheon) and it makes the city feel a little more festive. Of course, I would have loved to have been able to go around a neighborhood searching for the perfect "Chevy Chase/Christmas Vacation" house, but here in Rome we all live in apartments so the best you'll get is perhaps a string of lights around a window. Better than nothing, I guess. But I still miss the neighborhood competitions I used to see back in the States, and driving around to look at all the houses.

All the City's a Stage

The other day in one of my posts I mentioned a comment that someone once told me that I think goes well with the photo I have to show you today. It was a professor I used to work with, and as she was doing an orientation with students on Italian life and culture, she mentioned to them that living in Rome is like a big play. As if the city streets were a stage, once you step out onto them, everyone plays a role and everyone is watching the show. I often think of this comment when I feel like someone is staring at me, or being rude, or even when I see nice things happening. It just kind of helps to put it all into perspective.

I'm glad I caught the moment in this photo: I think it is a great example of how the modern and ancient intertwine on a daily basis. I saw this "human on display" while walking through Piazza Colonna the other day. I thought it looked like some kind of living sculpture, that little niche carved out just for him and his book. If you keep your eyes open in Rome, you'll find surprises around just about every corner.

Photo Hunt: Time

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This week's theme is Time.

At first glance, you may think this photo is an unlikely candidate for this week's theme. But to me, the beautiful colors of these autumn leaves growing on the side of a centuries-old building represent the passage of time in my neighborhood, how things change from one season to the next, and how with time, nothing stays the same!

Castagne Roasting on an Open Street

Chesnuts roasting on an open fire—well, growing up in Washington state and then living in the desert of Arizona for nearly 10 years—I never saw them. Not until I came to Rome.

Granted, this isn’t exactly what you’d call an “open fire,” but, it’s about as close as you can get on the Rome streets this time of year.

Chestnuts, castagne (cah-STA-nyay) start to appear once the weather turns chilly, and it’s another thing I love about fall in Rome.

Mind you, this little sidewalk snack can get a little pricey. A couple weeks ago when I asked first, above all, (word to the wise), how much they cost, and I got the response €5, I told the man, “No thanks, that’s too much.” He said, “How about €3?” and just like that, we had a deal. Don’t be shy when you think it just doesn’t seem right. As we say here in Rome, “ci provano,” which means, “they try,” or simply, if people are willing to pay, they’ll keep asking, until someone comes along and challenges them on it. His stand didn't have any prices written, but most do.

They put the chestnuts in a little paper cone and you can walk around with them. There’s usually about 5-10 in the cup.

I finally did get to roast chestnuts over an open fire my first Christmas here in Italy, in a tiny little town called Arcinazzo Romano, and we ate them while enjoying a bottle of Cesanese del Piglio Dolce, a sweet (dolce) red wine (Cesanese) that comes from the nearby town of Piglio.

What autumn traditions start to appear this time of year where you live?

Photo Hunt: Plush

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This week's theme is Plush.

Of course when I saw this week's theme I thought immediately of my two cats, a brother and sister team named Betsy (left) and Pavel (right), adopted from the Largo Argentina cat shelter in April 2003.

Largo Argentina is a blessing for cats in Rome. It is a no-kill shelter that spays/neuters and vaccinates the abandoned cats that find their way there. This is still a fairly innovative approach for Italy, and it is so incredibly important in helping to control the stray population. I've seen some places where strays run wild and the number gets out of hand, and it is a real tragedy to see the cats go hungry.

The shelter runs entirely on volunteer labor and doesn't receive any money from the city. It is located in the Roman ruins, reportedly where Julius Caesar was assassinated. A couple years ago I bought a book that they sell, that has lots of short stories about the cats that people have adopted from there, and I gave it as a Christmas present to many of the friends and family on my list. All the proceeds from their "cat store" go directly back to the shelter, for food, veterinary care, medicine, etc.

If you have a moment, I urge you to stop by their website. They are an important force for these lovable animals and they could really use your help. You can even adopt a cat long-distance!