Our last full day in Rome, and we decided to do a number of small things in the centro storico. We slept late, had a leisurely breakfast, and then N did some packing while I walked down to the nearest public phone (through the arch and down a block). I needed to call the Naples people and make final arrangements. Here my phone luck ran out; the mobile number I called gave me a really bad connection, and there was noise on my end as well from a delivery truck in the piazza. I connected to the person I was supposed to call, Marco, but instead of giving me an address (I had only a street name, Via Arte della Lana), he gave me a different address (Santa Maria dell'Aiuto, 17) to which I was supposed to take a taxi on arrival. This made no sense to me, and I tried to get the building number on Via Arte della Lana through the intermittent connection. He gave me yet another number and name, of someone called Titi. "What is the apartment number?" I said, and he started giving me what was clearly a phone number, when my L.5000 card ran out.
After that frustration, the day got much better. We crossed the pedestrian bridge and walked up to Piazza della Rotonda and past the Pantheon to the Tazza d'Oro cafe. I ordered an espresso at the bar (decent, but not exceptional) and two granite di caffe, which consisted of layers of coffee ice and whipped cream in a small plastic cup. The kids and N ate this on a bench outside. It was an overcast day, almost cool.
A few streets over was the church of Sant'Ivo, another Bramante courtyard creation. It was larger than the Tempietto, being designed to fill the fourth side of a courtyard between two colonnaded buildings. The concave facade betrays no hint of the lovely interior: a type of stellated hexagon whose marble walls rise high to a small cupola. We sat there for quite a while, the kids moving around to examine the building from various angles.
San Luigi dei Francesi is a small church a little north. I would never have thought to go into it, but in the last chapel on the left there are three paintings by Caravaggio dealing with the life of Saint Matthew. As we walked up, some tourists were peering at it in the gloom; I found the light box, dropped in a L.500 coin, and the paintings were illuminated. They were quite marvellous. We watched until the lights went out again.
Sant'Agostino, again a bit further north, had two Madonna statues by Sansovino (one bedecked with flowers and pictures of babies, since it's invoked for safe pregnancies) and a Raphael fresco, just sitting there on one of the pillars (how did they get him to do it, and why didn't he do more?), but their Caravaggio was off at the exhibition in Palazzo Venezia.
Near this was the restaurant Myosotis, which we walked past, but it wasn't due to open for another forty-five minutes. So we walked back to Piazza della Rotonda and to the east to another restaurant listed in our books, Due Colonne. It was open, but empty; we sat down. The menu didn't seem quite what the books suggested, but for a change we had some nice big salads (mine, for instance, had rocket, tomato, lettuce, mozzarella di bufala, olives, and other goodies). A opted for the special of the day, crepes with ricotta and spinach filling. When I tried to use a credit card to pay, the chef came out and explained that the ownership had changed, they had been open a week, and their application hadn't made it through the bank yet. It was a tasty meal, with good house wine, and we had no complaints.
We asked A what we should do next: the Galleria Doria-Pamphili? She wanted to see art, but she had another idea: the Caravaggio exhibition at Palazzo Venezia. I had a couple of coffees to try, first, so I gave N the City Secrets book (our best map) and money to buy the tickets, and I dashed off.
I found the Bar Sant'Eustache on the piazza of the same name, went in, and ordered a caffe -- since they made it "Neapolitan-style", with sugar, I ordered it "amaro", and they simply whipped up some froth with a small spoon. But it was an undistinguished cup. Across the piazza to Camillioni for another cup: better, but not up to Caffe Farnese standards. That ended my list of potentially great coffees in Rome.
I found N and the kids inside Palazzo Venezia; they had secured tickets, and up we went to the Caravaggio exhibition. This turned out to be another surprise, since not only were the Caravaggios good, but we also enjoyed the interspersed display of artists influenced by him or treating similar subjects. The wall texts were decent but not excessive, and the palazzo itself suitably grand but not overwhelming or depressing. This was the second time A had chosen an art exhibit for us based on posters (the first being the Delaunay exhibition in Paris two years previous) and the second serendipitous success.
We walked back via Tiber Island, crossing onto it by the Ponte Fabricio (built in 62 BC, the only unrestored ancient Roman bridge still standing) and, on the other side, walked a bit south to see the exit of the Cloaca Maxima, the ancient sewer (still in use), rendered a bit less picturesque by the homeless people camped out on the platform at its mouth.
Home to rest. For our last night in Rome I had booked us a table at Antico Arco, a more upscale restaurant than many we had eaten at, up on the top of the Janiculum hill. We had the choice of taking the bus up or walking, and I convinced N that we could walk up slowly and not get all sweaty and out of breath. Between the pedestrian area of Trastevere, the stairway up to San Pietro in Montorio, and the wide sidewalk of Via Garibaldi after that, we had no problems with traffic, and the gradients were quite manageable.
Arriving at Piazzale Aurelio, though, we found a stready stream of cars zipping through what was essentially an intersection (I guess that's why it's only a "Piazzale"). The restaurant was a discreet door next to a bar with a big sign; had I not had the address, we would never have found it. But it was early, so we walked up to the Garibaldi monument and had a good view of Rome, then a little further along the Passegiata di Gianicolo to see the statue of Garibaldi's wife Anita, galloping along on a horse brandishing a pistol with an improbable baby in her left arm.
It was time for dinner, and we made our way back, managed to cross the manic intersection, and opened the discreet door. The restaurant was small and low-key, reminding us of places in Berkeley or San Francisco (though those tend to be much noisier). We were asked if we wanted Italian or English menus, asked for Italian, and were brought English ones. This actually makes choosing somewhat difficult for us, since the translations are often imperfect or difficult to reconcile with what we know. For instance, one of the primi we chose was listed as "fettucine with crisp garlic, dry mullet eggs". I guessed that the last ingredient was bottarga, preserved roe that is shaved over food to provide a salty, sharp flavour. This seemed about right when the dish arrived. Our other starters were ravioli with baby squid and potatoes, and tortelli of scorpion fish with fresh tomato sauce. Presentation was nice and everything tasted great. There was much swapping of tastes and plates over the table.
The wine list was extensive and interesting enough that I could have spent twenty minutes just reading it with pleasure, and the markups did not seem exorbitant. I should have tried something really fancy, but for nostalgia's sake I chose a La Braccesca Rosso di Montepulciano 1999 (remembering the week we spent there when Z was six months old).
For our secondi, we chose red mullet and asparagus flan with zucchini flower, fennel, and radicchio raviolis; guinea-fowl stuffed with king prawns and vegetables; and lamb tenderloin with pecorino and basil (the last was my choice, and my favourite). We had ordered three of each course, but we ordered four desserts: each was a mixed plate consisting of honey ice-cream with caramel sauce, vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce, mille feuille, chocolate and coffee mousse. It was perhaps an atypical meal with which to finish our stay in Rome, but it was a treat.
N and I had spent plenty of time beforehand discussing the best way to get up and down the hill, and checking out bus stops. But since I hadn't quite finished the bottle, and N had helped sparingly, we declined the offer of a taxi and walked back down, managing to avoid serious traffic practically until the arch.