In the morning, we caught the 23 bus down to Piramide station, and then took the metro south to EUR. This was the new district created by Mussolini; we were there not to see the urban architecture, which was relatively soulless (wide streets with cars parked in every possible spot, almost no one on the sidewalks) but to visit the Museo della Civilta Romana. This reminded N and I of museums we had seen in China and India: huge halls, dusty and with laconic guards and staff, with dated models and exhibits badly labelled. If one wasn't interested in authenticity or scale, this would be the only place one needed to go in Rome: there were scale models of just about all the buildings we had seen, and casts of many of the important sculptures and busts. The kids had fun dashing from one to another chirping in recognition, and especially enjoyed the large-scale model of Rome in the late Imperial era. It wouldn't have meant anything to them at the beginning of the trip.
We retraced our steps as far as Piramide, then walked up Via Marmorata a bit, turned in, and went into the covered market of Testaccio, the last one remaining in Rome proper. Nothing was particularly impressive, compared to other great markets of the world (La Boqueria in Barcelona, for example), but it was pleasant, and uncrowded. There was even a considerable amount of space between stalls. After that, we crossed the street and went to Volpetti again -- not to the delicatessen, but to Volpetti Piu, the tavola calda / pizzeria around the corner run by the same people. On one side was displayed behind glass a number of tempting items, and on the other side there were a few nice tables. We had a feast -- rectangular slices of pizzas: with potato, with funghi porcini, with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil; suppli; a plate of finocchio al gratin; a bowl of farro soup; water, and a half bottle of wine. Everything was excellent, we were stuffed, and it cost us less than L.50,000.
After lunch, we bought forgettable pastries at a nearby pasticceria, and then walked over to the base of Monte Testaccio, the hill created by centuries of dumping broken amphorae. We couldn't climb up it (fortunately, perhaps, as it was getting quite hot) as it was closed for archaeological reasons. But through the gate, we could see either an excavation or a reconstruction of the way the shards of pottery had been carefully layered and terraced. We walked a little way around the base, where restaurants, artist's studios, and other small businesses (historically, garages and other working-class establishments) had been built in caves scooped out of the hillside.
Home to rest via the 23 bus, and then in the afternoon we walked down through the gate into Trastevere and up Via Garibaldi to reach San Pietro in Montorio. What we really wanted to see was not the church proper (there was a painting by Sebastiano in it recommended by Frank Stella in City Secrets, but a wedding in progress prevented us from going in) but the Tempietto, a tiny, perfect chapel built by Bramante in the courtyard. The kids were ecstatic -- a church on their scale. They ran all around it, up the front steps and out the side door, and peered into the crypt below.
Dinner was in one of the streets below, at a trattoria called Da Lucia -- in a couple of our books, including Plotkin, but as it turned out, a little too touristy for us. The menu was covered in plastic and rather skimpy, listing mostly quite familiar dishes. Linguini cacio e pepe for the kids, gnocchi for us (a little too sticky, though this was preferable to leaden or rubbery); rabbit for the kids and I, which was pretty tasty; grilled fish for N, and a warm and rather sour red wine to wash it all down. Not the most stellar of meals.