Day 113 Leaving Italy

Back in Rome, we got a room at a cool hotel overlooking the expensive designer boutiques by the Spanish steps. The names read like a Vogue magazine: Yves St. Laurent, Prada, Georgio Armani, and so on. The prices read like misprints: jacket $3600, pants $1200, belt $390, and so on.

Our last night in Rome, we did our favorite things. Drinking water out of the fountain at the Spanish steps, eating gelato at Trevi fountain, and just admiring the ancient city flooded with modernity. The gelato we had was notable. We both had honey flavor, which was spectacularly tasty, and I also had armangnac flavor which was nothing short of phenomenally delicious. (Armangnac is a like cognac, but from a different region). It was a great end to our gelato quest. The only problem is that the bar has been raised so high, I am sure our future will be full of disappointing gelato consumption.

We had an early flight and had to pack the night before. One whole suitcase was not enough to hold everything we bought. It was my first ominous clue as to how much I spent. We ended up having three bags to check and three to carry on the plane. Oh wow, we bought a lot of stuff. For me, leaving wasn’t a big deal since I will be returning for a more extended exploration. For Eric, he was torn as most people are at the end of a vacation; longing to get home to the comforts of his own bed and reluctant to part with the thrill of the new and different.

And then we went back to Portland.

Day 107 Pasta and the Pantheon

The concrete 142 foot (43m) half dome roof of the Pantheon looks as if it was build yesterday despite being almost 2,000 years old. It is about 23 feet (7m) thick at the base and only two feet thick at the 30 foot (9m) hole in the top. The hole at the top, the oculus, serves as an oversized clock as the circle of sun traces its way across the marble floor. Engineers still don’t know exactly how they did it in one single concrete pour. That is some impressive concrete! Our modern concrete has no chance of lasting that long. So much for our superior high technology.

Much of the outside of the Pantheon was stripped for materials over the centuries and so its humble exterior belies the splendor that has remained untouched within. Definitely a must see. It is free too.

Maybe I should not be surprised that the pasta in Italy is so good. It is like gelato, I can’t get enough. Far and away the best pasta I have had was in a small family run basement restaurant. It was a little on the upscale side but I felt like splurging. I inquired about the house specialty and was told something in Italian I could not understand and was then directed to look at a big black cylinder in the back of the dimly lit stone restaurant. Sure! Why not? Eric ordered lamb chops and we feasted on spindly bread sticks, soda and wine until the food arrived.

The waiter wheeled over the cart with the ominous black cylinder perched upon it. It was a giant wheel of cheese! How can you go wrong with that?! He dumped a bowl of incredibly hot pasta noodles and sauce into the hollowed out center of the cheese and furiously stirred, scraping cheese from the walls of the cylinder. He then scooped the steaming mass of noodles, sauce, and cheese out and into my bowl. Oh my! It was strewn with pancetta bits! (Its like bacon) It was without a doubt the best pasta I have ever had. I could not get enough and had to force myself to eat slower. Oh my god, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Mmmmmmmmmm.

We topped it off with caffe lattes and panna cotta drenched in a dark chocolate sauce. Wow! The trip was going much much better now.

Day 106 Oh Heavenly Gelato!

Let me start by saying that gelato is not ice cream.

Not even close.

Good gelato is a divine semi-frozen concoction that delights the senses, stimulates the brain, improves the mood, satisfies hunger, cures leprosy, holds down inflation, and makes you not care that you should have should have changed the oil in your car 8,000 miles ago.

Now, this does not apply to any gelato; in fact Rome is overflowing with gelaterias that insidiously pass off pathetic imitations to oblivious tourists. My favorite is pistachio from Old Bridge Gelateria just across from the Vatican, shown above. Skip the Sistine Chapel, just suck on a fantastic semi-frozen bit of pistachio flavored heaven instead. The lines are shorter and it won’t hurt your neck so much.

We visited the Coliseum and Roman forum today. Seeing the massive ruins of both and imagining what they were like when they were new and covered in beautifully endless marble and elegant statues is difficult for the mind to grasp. To think that they did these incredible structures with only simple tools and back breaking labor is too much. I can only imagine what it would have been like for a peasant from the country side to wander into Rome and see these God-scaled buildings. It would have been the equivalent of watching a spaceship land.

We are still exhausted and walking is more effort than it should be. We came back to the hostel early to sleep.