Rome Day 11
Rome, Italy
April 23
We woke up with tired feet and worn out bodies, vowing not to do a lot of walking today. Somehow, though we found ourselves afoot once again toward the Coliseum to see it during the daylight hours and see where the wind blew us from there. We followed the Roman Forum from the Coliseum toward the Victor Emmanuel Monument, the excavated ruins showing far below the current ground level of Rome. It captivated us to see how far below the city streets sat the once great downtown plaza of the Roman Empire.
The Victor Emmanuel Monument is a massive sculptural building that is relatively new for Rome being built in the early 1900’s. Once there, we climbed to its rooftop balconies for panoramic views of the city. We exited the monument from its upper level onto Capitoline Hill on which it sits and strolled to the adjacent Campidolgio, a famous piazza design by Michelangelo and famous for its architectural expression of vanishing points and three dimensional perspective. There we saw a small sculpture that AJ loved of a mysterious medieval hooded man with a sword. There was no plaque or description of who this sculpture represented, but after researching it a bit later we learned that it was a sculpture of Cola di Rienzo. We found his story extremely dramatic and interesting, and we recommend linking to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cola_di_Rienzo to read about a humble man rising to extreme power, letting it go to his head and then eventually getting mobbed and killed by his own people (An all-around captivating medieval tale). All along the leading back to the Coliseum there were musicians, artists and costumed human “statues” vying for the tourists’ attention and coins. Our favorite was the man who perfectly resembled the Statue of Cola di Rienzo. His costume and movements were extremely well done. See the photos of the actual statue and the photo of the impersonator for comparison. We were impressed!
For dinner, we headed to a particular street dotted with a few recommended restaurants. We chose this street solely because we like its name, “Sommelier!” We settled into Santa Croce Restaurant to be entertained a restaurant run by another proud Roman family. This place was pretty much staffed with only family members, aunts, uncles, sons, and daughters… the works. Our server was the son of the owner. We took his recommendations and ordered the Roast Lamb with potatoes and the Saltimbocca. We started with a Frizzante, one of our newly developed favorites, and then tried a Montepulciano d’ Abruzzo. Montepulciano is a neighboring DOCG of Montelcino where we visited Castello Banfi. It sits on the East coast of Tuscan Italy and had been eager to compare this red wine to the Brunello of Montelcino. It was fabulous! Extremely well balanced, with nice violet and herb notes mixed with vanilla and aged raspberry. I got welcome wafts of root beer upon each sip.
When he delivered Pugliese bread to the table, we decided to inquire as to why we hadn’t seen a lot of Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar in accompaniment to the bread as we see so much in the USA. He explained something about that being more of an American development and that the olive oil sits in the stomach and fills you up before dinner. We decided that didn’t make a lot of sense since the Italians always offer pasta, often adorned with olive oil, as a first course before the Entrée. We smiled and nodded and he brought us the house EVOO and Balsamic so we could compare it to our Jasoh gourmet. The verdict? Jasoh EVOO and balsamic CANNOT bet beat! After AJ’s lengthy conversations in Italian with our server we had become good friends. The beauty I thought was that I actually caught about 50% of what was being said instead of being completely in the dark as I mostly had been through these Italian discussions for the past ten days… ironic since we were to leave Italy in the morning! Anyway, AJ’s Italian banter once again paid off and we were gifted with Grappa and Limoncello and also a bottle of Castelli Romani Red Wine with a special “Santa Croce Ristorante Pizzeria” label on it for safekeeping. Gratzie Santa Croce Ristorante! Benissimo!
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