3rd Installment: New pope, same gelatoria

First off I would like to offer a shout out to all of the new subscribers that I hounded into joining the site, Welcome Aboard newbies (newbs?)!

Disclaimer: You might not recognize this as a traditional travel blog because I do tend to offload random observations from time to time and wander down unplumbed depths of my brain, waxing nostalgic on unrelated thoughts apart from travel. Click, click, click (that’s people abandoning the site wondering if Wheel of Fortune is on yet)

Anyways, it’s shoulder season here in Rome so crowds would be manageable except it’s Jubilee year and the old pope couldn’t hang on until we left so there’s a madding crowd down every street in the central core. Around all of the iconic sites; Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, etc. there is a gaggle of looky-loos with selfie sticks in one hand and postcards in the other.

We were here back in the good old days (2017) and saw all of the must-see places with just a ripple of touristic intrusion. We knocked them all off in the first couple of days so we could do what we like best, walk neighborhoods, eat, and drink, and soak up some sun on patios. But the Romans planned for years to clean up the capital’s mainstays and hoped to have everything pristine for Jubilee and the Trevi, which has stood since 1762 and finished by Giuseppe Pannini (he also developed the first sandwich iron) was repaired and polished to perfection just in time, so we thought we would compare this year’s version to 2017.

We started from Piazza Venezia and elbowed our way through the crowds for the 10 blocks to get to Piazza di Trevi past the tourist traps and tchotchkes hawkers and climbed the steps of the baroque church across from it. Nope, this was as close as we would get. It was a pickpocket’s dream come true.

The one good thing was that we finally got to use the miniature set of binoculars that we purchased just that morning from an enterprising Sri Lankan sidewalk vendor. ‘I give very, very good price. ‘Ya, how much?’ ‘€50’. ‘What! For €50 I could buy the Hubble telescope!’ I responded. ‘Okay, €40’. ‘Nope.’ ‘€35?’ he cried. ‘I’ll give you €8 and not a penny more’ I said. ‘You are a very, very bad man. My children have no shoes, but I will do €30’. I’m Mennonite so I know a good deal when I see one. ‘Okay €30 and €20 for the authentic Chinese nail clippers’. ‘You are a very, very, bad man’ he said, as I skipped down the street trying to get them to focus.

Anyways, someone had stolen the binoculars from my backpack while we were at the church (must have been a Mormon) so we called it a day in the historical area and headed back towards our favourite haunt, the Trestevere neighborhood (pronounced tress-tev-er-eh) with it’s winding 2000 year-old narrow streets and laneways.

Less populated by tourists, Trestevere has plenty of authentic restaurants, leather goods vendors, floral , and bakery shops dotted amongst dead end lanes with worn cobblestones under foot and dense foliage growing up the sides of the buildings. Unfortunately, one thing it also has is graffiti by the boatload. It is omnipresent all through Rome, in every neighborhood. Only churches and the protected structures are immune.

Rome attracts a lot of high end buskers and we saw a trio of them on Ponte Sisto, a 15th century masterpiece that spans the Tiber. There was a duo playing Cuban style with percussion and guitar, then a 5 piece jazz quintet who were outstanding, and finally a pair of Italian blues players, one on slide guitar and vocals, and the other with metal rings on a washboard and tambourine. They played traditional delta blues à la Robert Johnson and Son House and I watched them for about half an hour.

Julius Caesar had a house in Trestevere and there are large medieval villas topping almost all of the nearby hills. Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) was Caesar’s victory cry. Of course his last words were ‘Hey Brutus can you just scratch this spot on my back? It’s killing me’.

We stopped at many eating establishments looking for the right vibe and prices and settled on La Lucia with just 5 tables placed outside along a stone wall in a narrow alleyway. We typically share a meal and sometimes do it again later in the day so we can double the experience. We heard the people at the table behind us raving about their meal, as it was recommended by the chef. So, we decided to try the Bombolotti Amatriciana with the most delicate meatballs. The meatballs were almost a pâté texture and it reminded me of ground mouse ears, yes that tender. The pasta was cooked al dente, which is the favored style for Italians. Back home we boil the pasta until it takes on a pudding texture so we can slurp it with a straw while watching Jeopardy on the couch.

Well, I’ll get right to the most asked about question, did we see the pope? Uh, if you’re Catholic, which almost nobody is any more, unless your home is a nunnery, or a 10 x 10 cell, then you might want to skip down two paragraphs. Everyone knows it’s the conclave of cardinals that make backroom deals and hammer out the details on who’s the best candidate. The winner goes down in history while the runners up divey up the pot at the vatican bank. One for you, two for me.

While the conclave is deciding who wins, the tradition is that black smoke comes out of the chimney at the papal palace. Most people don’t know that the smoke is generated by burning the old pope’s rubber gardening boots. When the fire goes out a plume of white smoke is released created by a steaming pot of bombolotti. Pope Leo IX didn’t speak long from the balcony because he had a golf date at Mar-a-lago to pay homage to the Chosen One. Oh, nasty, sorry Bernie and Margot.

So, we had a choice, to go to the Vatican and stand amongst a throng packed so tight that the chance of making it to the porta potty was zero or go to a world famous gelatoria called Fatamorgana where the Gelato was as smooth as mouse ears.

Our 3 days in Roma are up and tomorrow we’re off to Venice (Venizia) by train. We’ve never been there before but I feel like I have from all of the action films that have been shot there over the years.

Arrividerci newbs and friends.