The alarm would have gone off at 6:30 but we awoke at 6:00. The ship had already docked in Ravenna, we think. It was so foggy outside that we weren’t sure.
We had to experiment on how to send a text to our driver because the eSims we bought for our iPhones didn’t include texting. We succeeded and he replied that he would be at our ship at 9:00. So we had plenty of time to kill.
We had a leisurely breakfast and left the ship just at nine, which was the time everybody had to be off the ship. Our driver texted us that he would be there at 9:15. He arrived exactly at the time he said and we had a nice hour long ride back to our hotel in Bologna, the same one we stayed in the previous week.
Our room wasn’t ready so we left our bags and went out once again into lovely Bologna. We stopped at an ATM to get more cash and then sat at an outdoor cafe in the Piazza Maggiore and had cappuccinos. They were very good but barely lukewarm.
Later, we went back to the hotel and went up to our room. The hotel had upgraded us to a suite. It was almost as weird as the apartment we been in the previous week - crazy furniture - strange decor - light switches all over the place, some of which did nothing - uncomfortable seating. The interior decorators hired by this hotel must have been very strange people.
After a while we went out again to visit something in Bologna that we had read about and which our driver had recommended - The Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio which is a hall once used for anatomy lectures and displays held at the medical school, part of the University of Bologna. The theatre was built in the mid 1600's and modified in the 1730's but was almost completely destroyed in WWII. It was rebuilt after the war.
The building containing the theater was built in 1562 and was the seat of the University from then until 1803. The walls had elaborate carvings and the building had frescoes and other extremely complex decorations everywhere.
Also we got to see the Stabat Mater Hall, an old classroom. Inside it was a barred door. Peeking between the bars you got an amazing view of room after room of bookcases containing very old books. This was the Biblioteca comunale dell'Archiginnasio, a very large, old collection of books and manuscripts, containing 850,000 volumes and pamphlets. The visit was a great surprise experience.
Afterwards we went out and got sandwiches at a little place called Bella Vita. I had a Tigelle with mortadella. Donnie had a Piadina with mortadella and squacquerone (a kind of cheese) - yum.
We wandered around more little streets in the old town and found ourselves in front of another branch of Paolo Atti e Figli where we bought some cookies. Then, somehow Donnie led us to a gelato store called Oggi. Of course we had to get some. We then went to the Sala Borsa, the Bologna public library. It had been recommended by our driver also but wasn’t very interesting.
In the evening we really didn’t feel like going too far to have dinner or eat a fancy meal so we went to a pasta restaurant a few steps from our hotel. It got mediocre reviews online but we were too tired to go anywhere else. The food turned out pretty good so it worked out well.
It was another beautiful day. It was supposed to get warm later. We went for our usual breakfast at Piano Piano. Afterwards we did a final wander around old Bologna. It isn't a tourist city, and outside the old city walls it's like any other large city, but inside the walls it's charming and we liked it a lot, especially the food.
Eventually we checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the train station. The taxi left us off at an underground road entrance. We were unsure where to go. An entrance on one side listed some platform numbers and another entrance on the other side of the road listed different platforms. There was a video screen showing train departures but our train was scheduled too late to be on the board yet. We picked an entrance at random and took an elevator up to the station proper, which was still underground. We had to wait quite a while before our train appeared on the board so we could see which platform we had to go to. Fortunately, we were in the right section of the station. The train arrived on time and we boarded. It was a little tricky to get our heavy luggage on the car, but a nice man helped with the second bag.
The train was a Frecciarossa, which is the high speed train run by the Trenitalia company. Frecciarossa means "Red Arrow". It was very modern, comfortable, and immaculate inside. It was also very quiet. Some people we know have claimed that Italy has a very poor train system - they're wrong. The two companies, Trenitalia and Italo have excellent high-speed trains all over Italy. They make Amtrak look terrible. Oh, wait, Amtrak makes Amtrak look terrible. No, I’m sorry, Amtrak doesn’t look terrible. It is terrible. Thank you Congress.
We pulled out of the Bologna station exactly on time. A few minutes later they came around with snacks and drinks. We elected tea and potato chips for Donnie, and coffee and potato chips for me. The coffee was Illy coffee, a very expensive, premium Italian coffee which we have had before in Europe and have even bought at home. Even though this time it was pumped from a carafe on the snack cart and not freshly made it was pretty good.
The coffee we have had so far on this trip has ranged from so-so to pretty good. We haven’t had really bad coffee like you get at home, but we also haven’t had really good coffee which we have had previously in Europe. With the coffee I finished the delicious cookies we had bought yesterday from Paolo Atti e Figli. They were still very fresh.
A few minutes later, I noticed a screen that said that the next stop was the Roma Termini station which meant that there were no stops between Bologna and Rome so the two seats next to us would be empty for the rest of the trip. Also we didn’t have to worry about someone stealing our suitcases which were in the luggage storage area at the end of the car.
A little later, the screen showed that the train was traveling at 288 km/h! (179 mph for Americans). Most of the time, however, we were only averaging 250. We got to the Roma Termini station right on time. The same nice man who had helped us with our luggage in Bologna helped us again to get our bags off the train. Here we were again in Rome for the third time.
The station was huge and crowded, but we found the taxi stand and got a taxi without even any waiting in a line. A few minutes later we were at our hotel, The Hotel Campo de’ Fiori, which, not coincidentally, is right next to the Campo de’ Fiori, a small piazza. The name means "Field of Flowers". We had stayed in this hotel on our last visit to Rome and we liked it, so we booked it again.
Our room was ready and we checked in and went up to the room to drop off our stuff. In Bologna this morning, we had to wear light jackets. In Rome when we arrived it was almost eighty degrees, in late October!
Very high on our agenda was a visit a few steps away to the Il Forno Di Campo de’ Fiori, a well known bakery that makes some of the best Roman Pizza. Unfortunately we couldn’t go immediately there because they close from 2:30 to 5:00. Their style of Roman pizza is called Pizza al Taglio and is more like a thick flatbread that’s made in long rectangles about three feet long by a foot wide. It’s sold in pieces and you indicate how big a piece you want and they cut it and wrap it in paper and then you pay the cashier, according to the weight. My favorite was Pizza Rosso, which just had a topping of tomato sauce, but it was scrumptious.
After a little while collecting ourselves, we went out wandering. First we walked the ten steps to the Campo de’ Fiori. The Campo is a small square in the heart of old Rome. It’s not far from the Pantheon, Piazza Navonna, and the Trevi Fountain, three big tourist attractions. The Campo is lined with restaurants and bars, all with outdoor seating, at least at this time of year. During the day the Campo is filled with an outdoor market. It used to be a typical produce market, but now it mainly has tourist junk. There are a few vendors of produce and flowers.
The daily market was closing but some stalls were still open. I, once again, took a picture of the statue of Giordano Bruno which is prominent in the Campo. Bruno was a philosopher, scientist, scholar, mathematician and genius. In the sixteenth century, not only did he advocate the Copernican system, but believed that the stars were suns with their own planets which might harbor life. So, naturally, the church burned him alive, in the Campo de’ Fiori. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be too smart. He was only five hundred years ahead of his time.
Then we felt it was time to have our traditional afternoon Spritz. We walked to the Piazza Navonna, a very large piazza which is a major tourist mecca.
We took a few pictures and then walked around nearby outside the tourist area and found a place to have a Spritz. The Spritz’s came with a small bowl of potato chips. Donnie thought they were stale because they were soft instead of crunchy but I realized that they were homemade.
We did more wandering in the little cobblestone streets in the area around the Piazza Navonna. We even found a wonderful restaurant we had been to during our last visit to Rome, called Virginiae. We hoped to be able to go back this time.
As we wandered we got a definite feeling that there were many, many more pizza places and gelateria’s than just four years ago. Even though it was late October, there were a very large number of tourists. It was getting close to sunset so we wandered back in the direction of the hotel and went up to their rooftop terrace and watched the sunset over Rome - nice.
In the early evening we went out to dinner. It was still 70 degrees outside. We felt that we were too tired to go all the way back to Virginiae, but we discovered that another great place we had eaten at before was only a very short walk from our hotel. It was called Hosteria Farnese and the food the last time was excellent. So we went there. All the tables were reserved but they found a table for us anyway. To summarize - the food was delicious.
After dinner we wandered some more. The Campo de’ Fiori was alive with tourists, diners, and even street musicians.
We walked around looking for a good place to have gelato and stumbled upon a place called Gelato del Campo that had very good gelato at a low price. We each got a cone with two large scoops of gelato and the total cost was six Euros. That's about the price of one small single-scoop cup in New York. We wandered back to the Campo to eat our gelato and then, exhausted, we went back to our hotel room.
The next day we had to get up very, very early because we had booked a special Early Entry tour of The Vatican Museum which included breakfast. Unfortunately the tour started at 7:30 AM and we had to arrive by 7:15, so we had to be down at the reception desk at 6:30 to get a taxi to the Vatican. This meant that we had to set our alarm for 5:45 AM!
Wow! That word pretty much sums up the entire Vatican Museum experience we had this morning.
We knew that we were coming to Rome and even though we had seen the museum almost twenty years ago we wanted to see it again, but nowadays it has become a bigger tourist attraction than ever and it’s mandatory to get timed tickets ahead of time. But when looking online we discovered an option that allowed you to take a guided tour before the museum was open to the public, and it included breakfast. We weren’t sure if we wanted to do that because it required that you arrive very early in the morning.
Our alarm went off at 5:45 - not fun. We did our usual morning routine and eventually we got a taxi to the Vatican Museum entrance. It was still dark out. We had to wait for a few minutes until the museum opened for the early morning guided tours.
Our guide, a nice Italian lady, took us through the museum explaining a great deal. Her descriptions and explanations were very good and she threw in a little humor now and then. Her Italian accent didn't prevent us from understanding her.
The best part of the experience was that the only people in the museum were the early entrance guided tours so the museum was practically empty. We walked through the museum, seemingly for miles. The Vatican Museum consists of two very long corridors. We saw sculptures, paintings, tapestries, highly decorated ceilings, etc., etc.
After a while we got to see the Sistine Chapel - another Wow! It was magnificent, of course. We had seen it way back in 2003, but this time, because we were there before official opening time, it wasn’t nearly as crowded.
Our guide took her time explaining many things about the ceiling. She also told us that she could only do that because we weren’t there at normal hours. Otherwise explanations inside the Sistine Chapel are forbidden because of the huge crowds. I might mention that photographs are permitted in the Vatican museum but NOT inside the Sistine Chapel.
One fact became extremely clear - those old Popes had gobs and gobs of money. I once observed that the art in Florence and Venice must have taken hundreds of thousands or even millions of man-hours to create. In the Vatican Museum the number must be billions.
Seeing the museum and the Sistine Chapel without crowds was wonderful.
Eventually the guide walked us outside to the courtyard where we bid her goodbye and got on line for our Breakfast at the Vatican. Breakfast was served in a large, covered glass-walled structure in the middle of a grassy courtyard. At first there appeared to be a long line but it moved quickly so we were seated quickly. The tour included a set American Breakfast so we didn’t have to order anything except to specify what kind of coffee we wanted. We had cappuccino’s, of course.
The American Breakfast included scrambled eggs, potatoes, two kinds of sausages, bacon, salami, cheese, ham, rolls, pastries, and orange juice. It was too much food.
After breakfast we went back into the museum because Donnie wanted to see two specific world-famous statues - the Apollo Belvedere, which was being restored so wasn’t available, and the Laocoön, a very famous ancient Greek statue.
After seeing the latter, we exited the museum via the famous, impressive spiral ramp/staircase and began to walk around the wall surrounding the Vatican with the idea of going into St. Peter’s square. As we walked, the crowds got bigger and bigger. When we got to the entrance there was a huge line to get in to the square. The square itself was barricaded off so the line was the only way to get in. The wide street that leads up to the square was packed with people. We quickly abandoned our idea of visiting the square and the Church.
Later the taxi driver that took us back to the Campo de’ Fiori told us that today was the day for an audience with the Pope - yikes. That explained the long lines and crowds.
Here I need to tell a story about the first time we were in Rome. It was December 2003, just around the New Year, and we had chosen to visit the Vatican. You could just walk into St. Peter's Square that time, so we did. We noticed that there were large numbers of people carrying large blue cards, but we didn't think anything about it. Just outside the church under the colonnade there were a large number of security stations with metal detectors and x-ray machines and people were lining up to get checked by security. We joined one of the lines.
We went through the security and went inside intending to wander around inside St. Peter’s looking at the art and other tourist goodies, but when we tried to do that a Swiss Guard in his silly looking red, yellow, and blue medieval costume stopped us and directed us to sit down in the next available row of chairs among a huge group of folding chairs set up along the whole length of the center of the basilica. Eventually the chairs filled up. We didn't understand why.
We were looking around wondering what was going on and finally an Irish Priest who was sitting in the row behind us, seeing our confusion asked us why we seemed so confused. We explained what had happened and he was shocked. We had inadvertently gotten into a very special New Years ceremony by the Pope! The blue cards everyone was clutching as if they were made of gold were highly coveted, almost impossible to get tickets to the ceremony. Nobody had asked us for tickets. The priest laughed and said stay and enjoy the event. He told us that the blue tickets were only obtainable from your local parish priest who had to apply to the Vatican to get them and that they were only available in very small numbers.
After a while the main huge doors at the back opened and a precession started down the aisle. In the middle was The Pope, John Paul, elderly and frail, who was riding what can only be described as a Pope’s Golf Cart. The crowd, rather than treating the whole thing as a solemn, religious event, were acting as if their favorite sports star were there. They were standing on the chairs and snapping flash pictures by the hundreds.
Eventually the Pope was seated in his throne at the front of the room and gave his speech, in Italian, very softly, almost unintelligibly. Later outside, we saw him being driven around the square in his domed "popemobile". It was the most unexpected, unforgettable experience.
Back in the present, we took a taxi back to our hotel, dropped our stuff in our hotel room and went up to the hotel rooftop terrace to relax for a while. And then, the time had finally come. We went to Il Forno Di Campo de’ Fiori and got some of their Pizza al Taglio. We went to a bar next door which advertised that you could get pizza at the Forno and then sit outside at the bar and have drinks, so we did. Once again I got Pizza Rosso, covered in just tomato sauce. It was even served cold, but it was delicious. Unfortunately Donnie, who got some kind of veggie topping, said hers was dried out.
Still - Pizza al Taglio - Aperol Spritz’s - sitting outside in 70 degree weather in the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome - happiness. We were so relaxed that we didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing any sightseeing.
In the afternoon we went back to our hotel to rest and shower and contemplate dinner. Dinner is an important thing to contemplate. When in places like Rome, or Bologna, or Venice, I contemplate Dinner a lot, except perhaps when I'm contemplating lunch.
We did more research and elected to try a restaurant about fifty steps from the hotel. It was called Antica Hostaria Romanesca and on its website it claimed to have been in the Campo de’ Fiori for thirty years. The place was empty when we arrived which is always a little worrying but later it started to fill up, with Italian people, a very good sign. The food was great, but very filling. So filling that Donnie didn’t even want gelato.
We walked just a little after dinner but we were tired, having gotten up at an ungodly hour so we went back to the hotel early and crashed.
We woke to yet another beautiful day. We went out for a coffee and a croissant. Sorry, I meant cornetto, Italian for croissant. It was chilly outside in the morning but it was supposed to get much warmer later.
We had tickets to visit the Borghese Gallery today. Donnie has wanted to go there for a long time. The last time we were in Rome we tried to go but all the tickets were sold out for a month. We hadn’t realized that the gallery was so popular that you had to book tickets way in advance. This time we made sure to do that.
We took a taxi to the Borghese grounds and found the entrance which was was down where the Palazzo cellar must have been. Ironically, the entrance area which contained the ticket office, bag check, cafeteria, etc. was ultra modern. The Palazzo, now a gallery, wasn’t.
When our appointed time came we walked the eighty steps up to the museum. The lower museum floor was dedicated to sculpture but Donnie wanted to go up to the top and work our way down. So we climbed more stairs and spent some time walking through the rooms of paintings. I have to admit that I came down with a bad case of religious art overdose. There were a few nice paintings but I couldn’t take any more Jesus paintings or Madonna and Child pictures.
Then, after a while, having seen everything on the top floor, we went down. The lower floor could best be described as marble, marble, and more marble. The walls and floors were covered in highly elaborate marble decorations. There were a lot of ancient Roman busts in multicolored marble and even some ancient Egyptian statues, and Roman mosaic floors. The main attractions were large marble statues by famous sculptors, the best of which were by Bernini. After seeing all that we could we took the eighty steps back down. The Borghese gallery was yet another very impressive place.
We had a light snack in the Borghese cafeteria and after exiting the Palace there wasn't any nearby taxi stand so we walked and walked and ended up walking a few miles through the Villa Borghese Park and the streets of Rome past the Fontana Di Trevi and The Pantheon.
The Trevi Fountain was only surrounded by about a million people. OK, I’m exaggerating. It only seemed like a million. The area around the fountain was solid people. The streets nearby probably only had a few tens of thousands of people. The plaza in front of the Pantheon wasn’t hugely crowded but the line to get in was several hundred people long. We decided to skip the Pantheon on this trip. We had been there before, twice, without waiting in a line. We continued walking back to the hotel, where we rested for a while. After all the walking, I needed the rest.
After another bout of Dinner contemplation we went to have Dinner at Elle Effe, another little place a few steps from our hotel, this time away from the Campo. The online reviews were excellent.
I had Zuppa Faraglioni, Cacio e Pepe, one of my favorite Roman dishes, and Tiramisu for dessert
Donnie had Bruschetta, Tonnarello Branzino E Finocchiella and Panna Cotta for dessert.
The reviews were right again. It was the best meal I’d had in Rome. The Tiramisu was the best I’d ever had!
Copyright © 2022 by Jeff Kravitz