The hotel Ivanhoe (I’m 70% confident Sir Walter Scott resided in Rome, possibly even writing the book there) is in a surprising pleasant neighborhood, a kind of trendy place based on the number of filament bulb lit boutiques and vegan gelato offerings. I was at the hotel first, and met their transfer when it pulled up. Everyone looked excited but exhausted from the long flights.
We checked in and reconvened downstairs. We started on a walking tour towards the Pantheon, which is actually quite a long way from the hotel, and when we got there, it was still closed for church services. So we wandered over to Piazza Navona where the group decided they needed some rest and coffee. We knew it was going to be all tourist traps ON the plaza but we pulled the trigger anyway. It was a typical application of “eat when you are tired” rule, but I may have to add the Piazza Exclusion (Don’t eat on the plaza) on top of the Gothic Caveat (Don’t eat at the first place you see). We got four coffees, two croissants, and a small pizza. Based on our bill, I can only assume that the coffee was sourced from passed beans of extinct mammals, the croissants were sculpted by Bernini, and pizza was baked by his Holiness.
After our snack, we wandered back through the various alleyways, as I tried to find a restaurant/store/point of interest I’d marked on my Google Map of Rome. Unsuccessful we headed back to the Pantheon, which was surprisingly open, and surprisingly, we were able to shuffle our way inside. It was crowded but not insanely so. I guess most people come to the Pantheon, gawk at the occulus, check off that box, and move on to the next thing.
Our next thing was the Trevi fountain, where mom dug out some coins and we fought our way past the selfie-stick armed hordes to toss in a coin over our shoulders. We were the only coin tossers at that particular moment, although based on the coins lining the bottom, the custom has not totally died out.
We called it an afternoon and headed back to the hotel. I wanted to pick up a few more things at Muji so I invited Tay out with me and we took the metro to the shopping streets around the Spanish Steps (closed for August) and I hit Muji again and we poked our heads into a few other stores before heading back to the hotel.
Dinner was nearby at an ok place, although the wine was pretty good. Tay had a gelato place picked out for dessert, close to Trevi fountain, but the only catch was we had to walk about 200 meters through a traffic tunnel under the Quirnal Palace to get back to the picturesque city. The number of gelato stands in Rome is its own hyperbole, but surely one of the best has to be Gelato Valentino. I ordered two scoops of dark chocolate and pineapple, and the pineapple, which I expected to be a just quiet and refreshing foil to the chocolate turned out to be fresh and zingy. The chocolate, which was tar black and about as thick and rich was like eating cold, creamy fondant- in the end, much too rich.
Mom bought a paper woven hat from a street vendor who was happy to negotiate with her. Actually, he got so excited his partner got in on it too and Tay and I played backup, disparaging the quality and suggesting repeatedly that the price was too high and we should just walk. Mom negotiated them down from $15 or something wildly audacious to $6 which was merely overpriced. We walked back over the hill, passing a surprising number of restaurants offering gluten free pasta dishes before we arrived back at the hotel.
Rome is really a lovely city to stroll in the summer evenings, ideally between the verge of sunset and 9pm. A city of little lights and intricate surfaces. A few mosquitoes nibbled on my exposed ankles, but really that was all.
Back at the hotel, we got four cold cans of peroni and took them up to the roof terrace where we sat chatting and drinking a bit. I was quite surprised that my jet lagged family was able to stay upright past 9pm, let alone nurse a beer on the first day across the Atlantic.
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