This morning, we woke up a little early and walked down to the bus stop, and caught a bus to the metro station, then took the metro to the airport... the first time we've done that, and it worked out pretty well.
We eventually boarded a flight to Rome, as the wife took a one week temp assignment to help out in her old office. We were met at the airport by a driver who the local office uses, and he brought us to a hotel near the Rome office. We checked in, and planned our evening.
We left the hotel and wandered around the area looking for a place to eat, and ended up choosing a streetside osteria. We ordered a couple of glasses of wine and some appetizers. We took our time eating, then headed toward a bar about a 20 minute walk away; it was the closest place we could go to watch the Packers game.
Turned out to be a little Scottish pub with 4 tv's in different areas; we'd reserved seats at a table near the TV that would be showing our game. We shared our table with a couple from Canada who were Packers fans, some Washington fans were at the next table over. Fun atmosphere, even though the Packers stunk up the place.
Walked back to the hotel after the game, getting ready for bed. More tomorrow.
So... It turns out I'm not that good at updating this daily, as I missed a day. Sorry about that... Here's what you missed:
Woke up way too early and had breakfast with the wife before she went to work. Decided that I wasn't quite done sleeping, so I went back to bed for an hour or so.
Got up and walked down to the metro station, and took the metro to a stop down south, to visit one of my favorite stores: Eataly. We first discovered them when we lived here in Rome, and have since visited other stores when we've been near. The chain was originally started by a group affiliated with Mario Batali, but he got kicked out when he was accused of being a slimeball. Anyway, it's a cool chain with all kinds of authentic Italian foodie stuff. They're all over the world - check them out if you're near one. Thus ends the commercial.
Rode the metro back, and inadvertently found a way to avoid climbing the Spanish Steps... For those of you who aren't familiar, they're a famous, picturesque set of stairs - but they're not fun to walk up. Turns out, there's a metro stop within a block of the bottom (Spagna), and a series of underground passageways and escalators that lead up to the top of Via Veneto. Who knew?!?!
Got back to the hotel and waited for the wife to get off of work, then went out to dinner; she finally got to have cacio è pepe - she's been jonesing for some for a while, and that's one of the dishes that I don't make. It's more her thing, and I haven't seen any pecorino cheese around Frankfurt. At dinner, we sat next to an older couple who travels quite a lot... they had all kinds of stories of places they'd been, we shared a few tips with them as well.
Walked down and had gelato at one of our favorite places... oh, story time again!
When we moved here back in 2010, we lived in a hotel in the tourist area for a few weeks before we could move into our apartment. One of the things we did to keep the kids engaged was to test all of the local gelato places to find the best, and we ended up with 4 favorite ones in Italy, with one of them being in the tourist area near the hotel. That's the one that we went to last night, and it was just as good as I remembered. Walked back up the hill to our hotel.
This morning, the wife headed off to work without having breakfast, so I ate without her, then took off exploring. I intended to find a local wine store, or a grocery that had wine, as I've been looking for a wine she really enjoyed when we lived here. Couldn't find it, so just kept walking.
Rome was built on 7 hills, and our hotel is on top of one of them. Just about any direction you go, it's an easy walk downhill, with just enough of an incline that coming back just saps your energy. So I decided not to walk back, at least not straight back. I wandered through the 2 main tourist areas (Trevi Fountain & the Pantheon), and then remembered why I hate wandering through the tourist areas... too many clueless tourists! I took a turn in a direction I've not been in before, and found myself in a section of town I haven't been in before, toward the Tiber River and away from all the tourists. I had the idea to take the metro back to the station next to the Spanish Steps (so I didn't have to walk back up the hill), but discovered that I was nowhere near a metro station... the nearest station was Spagna, the station that I wanted to end up at, but around a mile away from it.
Now, it's time for a confession: I finally broke down and did a millennial thing that I haven't done before...
I rented a scooter. One of those Lime scooters that you get on at a street corner and drop off wherever you end up. It cost me around $5 for a 10 minute ride that would have taken me 45 minutes to walk. I'll probably do it again, too.
I rode it to Spagna and took the passageway/escalator to the top of the hill next to the hotel.
So, now I'm back at the hotel, just hanging out, waiting for the wife to get off work and staying cool in the air conditioning. We'll probably go out to dinner later. If she wants to walk around, I'll probably try to talk her into taking some scooters back up instead of walking up that damn hill. Ciao for now!
So... my master plan of writing an update every day didn't work very well. Now we're back at home, and I'm writing about the rest of the last week. Oh well, won't bother trying that again.
We ended up going out to dinner that night as well, then walked over to a gelato place that one of her coworkers suggested (Come il late, if you're interested) - and that one rocketed up to the top of our list. We ended up going back there a couple of times, even though it was a little out of the way.
Next day, I just hung around the tourist area, explored around a bit. Once the wife got off of work, we got together with her coworker for dinner. She picked a place on the north side of town, close to our old stomping grounds. We caught a cab up there... well, after our cab driver got lost, we finally got up there. We told him the area we wanted to go to (Ponte Milvio, for those of you keeping track at home), but for some reason, he heard "Ponte Sistino" (or something similar). We went a few blocks in the wrong direction before we called his attention to it, so it took a few extra minutes (and Euros) to get there.
The food was great - it was a little similar to a churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse), in that they brought the meats out on skewers, but you had to order the skewers individually, three different flavors of steak skewers. Bottle of wine too. We had hopes of visiting another of our favorite gelato places (in the same shopping area), but they were already closed. The wife's coworker gave us a ride back to the hotel that night.
More hanging around the tourist areas... got dinner at one of the local restaurants - I think the wife had cacio è pepe again (I was picking up on a pattern at this point). Then we walked back up to the gelato shop that the wife's coworker introduced us to.
Wife went to work, I hung out in the tourist areas. After she got off of work, we walked across town a little ways, as the wife wanted to go through the Van Gogh exhibit - she'd had me buy tickets for it for Friday night. We walked to that area, and had a quick bite to eat beforehand... then were turned away at the door, as evidently there was a private event that night. Not sure why I was able to buy tickets for that night if the museum was closed, but... they told us that the tickets would be good the next morning as well, so we planned on coming back Saturday morning. We had planned on getting together with that coworker again afterwards, so we called her, and she said that she'd meet us back at Ponte Milvio. We hopped into a cab, and the wife told the cab driver where we were going, repeating it multiple times like she was working out the pronunciation - solely to insure that he'd heard it correctly. So we made it there in one piece, and met up with her. Turns out she'd made reservations at another one of the local restaurants.
We got to the restaurant, and all of the patrons were gathered out on the sidewalk out front; looking in, there was some sort of medical emergency going on inside. We all stepped out of the way - she had brought her dog along, and we wanted to just make sure that we were out of the way... after a few minutes, we all drifted in different directions, and shortly, we couldn't find the coworker anymore. I looked around, and she'd stepped inside, and was assisting with the first aid efforts going on, with her dog pacing on his leash behind her. I snuck inside and had her give me his leash, to get him out of the way, I took him back outside with me. The wife and I hung out with him for a few minutes, then I took him down the sidewalk a ways to get away from some of the people. He & I chilled out at the end of the block for about 15-20 minutes, then went back to the restaurant after getting a text from the wife that the ambulance was leaving.
The four of us were sat at a table toward the back of the restaurant, and we ate more great food, drank more great wine. While eating, I checked to see what time the gelato place in that same shopping center (that we missed on Wednesday night) closed, Google said 11:00. Around 10:30, I left the ladies at the restaurant and walked around the block to the gelato place.
Google lied.
Got over there, and it was closed. Ended up meeting back up with the ladies, then walking to another place, where the wife got a tiramisu, then we cabbed back to the hotel.
Saturday morning, we walked over to where the museum was, in hopes of using our tickets from the previous night. We got some coffee and pastries for breakfast, then headed toward the museum, getting in line a few minutes before 9 (when the museum opened). Our tickets were accepted without a second look, so we wandered around for a while, checking out all the Van Gogh paintings on display. Not sure why the wife has taken a liking to Van Gogh in particular, but she's seen his work in (I believe) 5 different places: Rome, MOMA in NYC, The Mauritshuis in The Hague, and the Musée d'Orsay and The Louvre in Paris. More power to her - at some point, we'll make it to Amsterdam, and I'm sure we'll see more Van Gogh there as well.
Afterward, we walked back to the hotel and finished packing everything up, in time to get picked up by our driver for our ride back to the airport. An hour and a half flight later, we landed back in Frankfurt, where we attempted to take the metro back to our town... but after waiting for half an hour or so, we gave up on waiting, and just caught a cab back to the apartment (20 minute drive, versus over an hour on metro and bus - no brainer!!).
So that's it for last week - another trip coming up shortly, watch this space.
No comments:
Post a Comment