First for the boring background bits. [please feel free to skip and go directly to go where you may collect your €200 and proceed to Rome] After several years of increasing frustration whenever I visited Italy [which when the kids were growing up was at least once a year] I decided that I wanted to learn Italian. I’d played with the idea previously, but never done it at all seriously. So about 5 years ago I signed up at our local further education college for an italian GCSE course [which is the exam english kids take in various subjects at age 16] and set off on my journey to get to grips with this beautiful language. Next stop was AS level, but unfortunately our local night school does not offer A level so from there I have moved into a conversation class with others of round about the same standard, though not everyone has done formal exams.
About 18 months ago I went by myself to a language school in the south of Tuscany http://www.linguaterramare.com/ and had a great time there, so when our italian teacher suggested that we could join in the trip to Rome being run by the college for their 16-17 year old students, which would include mornings at a language school, I jumped at the chance, along with 4 other adult learners.
So at stupid o’clock on a February Sunday morning, about a dozen of us, both grown-ups and 16-17 olds, plus our italian teacher, crowded onto a minibus and set off at a sedate pace [we are cornish after all] for Bristol airport and about 8 hours later, we were in ROMA. After what seemed like a pell-mell drive through the streets of the Eternal City, we arrived at our hotel, the Gravina: http://www.hotelgravinasanpietro.it/en/. No more than a 10 minute walk from St. Peter’s in the unfashionable and relatively untouristy area south of the Vatican, the hotel is very modern and quite swish, with monsoon showers and flat-screen TVs, though a bit more storage space wouldn’t have come amiss. We also had an amusing few minutes sorting out the rooms as those of us who were sharing had been given double beds, and those who were on their own, twins. But we got there in the end and by 7.30 pm, we were all gathering in reception for our first roman supper.
As we were all pretty tired we didn’t want to go far, and the hotel recommended we go to the trattoria just up the road, in fact less than a stone’s throw away, the wonderfully named Trattoria Vongole e Farina [clams and flour!] http://www.ristorantevongoleefarina.it/. Indeed they booked our table for us, so when 13 people turned up at the door, they weren’t too surprised. Water and wine arrived quickly [only for the adults, it’s a college rule that the students don’t drink on college trips] and shortly afterwards the kids’ pizzas arrived too - the restaurant has a wood-fired oven which was able to produce the typical thin roman pizza very quickly. The rest of us took more time, both to order and to eat; my fiori fritti [stuffed courgette flowers which are battered and deep-fried] were delicious, as was my spaghetti alla vongole [vongole = clams] and others had calzone, saltimbocca [veal with prosciutto and sage] grilled vegetables, and other local specialities. If you are one of those who worry about being expected to eat their way through every course on an italian menu, I’ve one word to say - don’t; nowhere that we ate did anyone care whether we had 3 courses or one. And they were very happy to explain dishes, in fact they respect you more if you question how dishes are made and what the best dish of the day is.
One thing we did have to do [not so much at this restaurant but at some others] was to scrutinise the bill very thoroughly. We would have done this anyway as we all wanted to pay separately, but we never found a bill that had been compiled or added up correctly. Trying to be generous, we put this down to the difficulties of serving 13 people, and it must be said that the mistakes were corrected with good grace and very quickly, though the time that they were €50 out did stretch our credulity somewhat!
After supper we were all too excited to go straight to bed, especially the kids, so we all walked over to St. Peter’s for the first look that some of us had ever had at the Basilica. Though cold, it was a lovely bright evening and the way they light the cupola at night is stunning and it was great to see the excitement that the kids showed - they were so enthusiastic! However we had lessons in the morning, so sadly there was no time for sneaking off to a bar for a beer or something stronger, and by 11 pm we were all in bed.
Tomorrow-some of us go back to school.
Cardinals, Cupolas and Caravans - a week learning italian in Rome.
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Oh, I do like annhig trip reports. Looking forward to more!
I'd love to go back to Rome again and especially to take a language course. Looking forward to reading more.
Waiting for more!
More please, Anne
Oooh, looking forward to more. Much kudos on the language learning! (I take it you passed the GCSE = O levels in my day, right?)
Hopping on
Oh goody! I would love to do this one day ann!
I am starting up my Italian lessons again this weekend but it would be wonderful to do it in Italy.
My mouth is watering reading about your meal.
Waiting for more!!
Wonderful, I look forward to reading more.
Looking forward to more!!!!
Pazientavi. Tornerò sta sera.
[be patient. I shall return this evening - or words to that effect].
>>Pazientavi. Tornerò sta sera. <<
Somehow, ann, I expect you to be singing that with a Verdian flourish of a cape and a mysterious smile......
Can't wait to find out more about your language, food & cultural experiences in Rome, Ann!
I remember being impressed when you passed your AS level. I was away for ours, thus saving face, but heard that it was VERY difficult.
I always enjoy reading your trip reports annhig and this one (to my favorite Italian city!) is no different. Can't wait to read more!
Phew, I'm back. thank you all for your interest and [for those of you who posted them] kind words.
I'm planning now to post a section about the language school itself, rather than to deal with it on a daily basis. That means that people who are largely reading this to learn about the experience of being at a language school can do so early on, and the rest of you can read or skip it as you please.
this is the school we attended:http://www.languageinitaly.com/EN/index.php
like the hotel it was about 10 mins walk from St. Peter's and it took about 5 mins to walk between the two if them [more like 10 on the first morning as we got lost!] it's on the first floor of a modern building and I suppose that there were about 6 classrooms; while we were there there were 3 classes in operation every morning, ranging from more or less beginners to a level which was [just about] suitable for me. lessons were 3 hours long, [9.30 -12.30] and they followed a familiar pattern - initial conversation about a topic, reading and discussing a text, doing some grammar exercises, etc. etc. half way through the morning, we went to a local bar for a coffee and cornetto or other pasticceria. it was VERY civilised, [and cheap!] and we carried on speaking italian to each other and to the staff who were very good about correcting our italian and not speaking english either.
half-way through the week i got moved up a class, but I still had probably done more italian than the others in my new group; unfortunately there wan't a class above that for me to move into. when going to a language school you might to check that when you are going, as well as your class there will be others that you can move into - either up OR down.
IMO the standard of the teaching was very good; italians are proud of their culture and language and take the teaching of italian very seriously; they also expect their students to be serious about it and expect homework to be done, lessons to be attended on time, etc. etc. That said, our teachers went to a lot of trouble to make the lessons interesting and fun, especially for the college students, who apart from the 2nd morning when they were being difficult, entered fully into the spirit of things.
unless you are a complete beginner most schools will carry out a test on the first morning to see how much italian you have and which class to put you into, Classes are normally between 4-8/9 people; more than that and you are unlikely to get as much individual attention as you might like. we had a wide range of other people in our classes - a young man from libya, a russian woman, a korean priest and a colombian diplomat were in my class, and the beginners were with an american girl on her gap year, a dutch chap who wanted to learn italian for business reasons, and two polish priests. As well as having varied reasons to learn italian, their approaches and abilities can vary to, but by and large they were pretty enthusiastic and willing to learn.
Most schools, and this one was no different, put on various activities in the afternoon and/or evening. it wasn't so important for us as we had our group, but this is great particularly if you are attending by yourself as it gives you a social life where you can carry on practising at the same time.
Sadly we only had a week; two weeks would have been a great deal better. I certainly felt a great deal more confident by the 4th day and had I been able to stay on for another week, I believe that I would have made a lot more progress. our teacher is talking about us going to Florence next year - I can hardly wait!
I'd love to learn Italian this way! Looking forward to more.
I think I will move to Cornwall.
what's stopping you, tarquin?
ok, on with the trip:
Monday morning - queues, what queues?
We were all down to breakfast for 8am, [yes, even the teenagers] and were generally pleasantly surprised by what we found - a choice of juices, cereals, fruit and yoghurt, rolls and cold meats, and a selection of pasticcierie - cornetti etc. plus as much coffee/tea as you wanted including freshly made cappuccini, espressi, etc. i noticed that our italian teacher [shall i just call her DT as in dear teacher?] started with a cappuccino, and finished with an espresso - very italian!
Then we gathered at about 9am to walk to the school, allegedly about 5 mins away. We did well shepherding the kids across the busy road we had to cross [generally even roman drivers stop at red lights] and then after a left and a right found ourselves in the correct road, but then the fun started, as there was no pavement and the cars and buses were coming at us pretty fast. Single file only please! Even finding the right building was difficult, and then the right part of the building, but we eventually made it with minutes to spare.
I found myself in a class with one other adult and the AS level students, and though they struggled a little, I really enjoyed the 3 hours, probably because it was too easy for me. [not boasting, getting the right level so that you are stretched, but not too much, is really important]. the adult beginners, who by and large had been learning italian for only 6 months, were placed in a so called beginners' class which had started the week before, but had some people in it who had been doing italian for a LOT longer than that. They emerged 3 hours later looking shell-shocked and muttering words of rebellion, but by the end of the week they had progressed an enormous amount and were happily talking to people in shops, ordering things in restaurants, and were generally far more confident than they had been on the monday morning.
Whilst we were in the class, DT had set about organising our afternoon excursion, and by chance, rather than the walking tour of the centro storico that she had originally planned, she had swapped that with the wednesday Vatican museum and St. Peter's tour. What a stroke of genius that was - a miracle perhaps - as on that Monday, there were no queues to get into the Vatican museums or st. Peter's. At all. So we simply walked round the endless vatican walls to the museum entrance, picked up our tickets, and we were in!
Last time i went to the vatican museums, we spent about 5 hours in there, mainly because we made the big mistake of trying to see everything AND got lost round the egyptian rooms, which we saw twice! This time I was much more discerning, and wandered very slowly round the rooms that interested me most which was a real joy. Of them all I best liked the map room - which in reality is a very long corridor - lined with C17 maps of Italy and the world beyond as it was known at that time. Also I think that they must have changed things, as it is now possible to by-pass quite a lot of the museum [the Raphael rooms in particular] to get to the Sistine chapel; I didn't do this but it does now mean that the rest of the museum is not clogged up with people who have really only gone there for one thing!
There is also a cafeteria just before the S/Chapel which could make a very useful meeting point if you get separated from your party, and want a place to meet up before the exit.
As ever, the chapel was heaving, but we managed to find places to sit around the edge and to shut out at least some of the noise. Having seen it before I was less overwhelmed than some of my companions, but the enthusiasm of the kids was infectious, and we spent quite a long time trying to spot different aspects of the work that they had read about; it was nice to see it through their eyes. But after about 30 mins we'd had enough, and seeing it was open, we took the "group exit" door at the back of the chapel on the right, and going down the stairs exited the museums and headed for St. Peter's.
For those who are not familiar with this door, standing with your back to the altar it is at the rear of the chapel in the far right -hand corner, and it bypasses the long and largely uninteresting trek back to the museum exit, and the walk back around the vatican walls, AND the security check [and queue] to get into St. Peter's; the only reason for not using it might be if you wanted to use the audio-guide which has to be returned to the desk by the entrance. We had deliberately not taken the audio-guides for that very reason, and our feet were very grateful!
The sheer size of St. Peter's cannot fail to impress no matter how many times you've been, and the richness and bustle of the interior can be quite overwhelming. despite being secured behind glass, the Pietà transcends it all though, and i spent a long time looking at her. The rest of it is not really to my taste, and i was certainly ready to leave by the time DT had finished her tour round the building with the kids.
Hardly able to believe our good luck in having got into the vatican museums AND St. Peter's without having to queue at all, we walked back to the hotel ready for a rest before dinner, and in my case, a cup of tea, which sadly I knew I wasn't going to be able to have - no kettles were provided in our hotel, I'm afraid to say.
Next - no cardinals, but we still got a good dinner!
Greatreport! (I remember your reort about the Italian school you attended awhile back.) I loved your "stupid o'clock" comment.
Looking forwrd to the rest of the story!
Thanks, irishface. I'd like to lay claim to the phrase "stupid o'clock" but it is actually borrowed from my DD - her other phrase for the same time of day is "sparrow fart" which I think is equally vivid.
perhaps because this was officially a college trip, or because she is preternaturally cautious, our DT allowed a huge margin for error, accident or Act of God in the time we had to get to the airport - for our departure from Bristol she had us leaving Truro at 6.45 am for a 13.15 flight, and in Rome, at 12.30 pm for a 16.55 flight. This gave us 3 hours to cool our heels at Bristol, and about 4 hours at Rome, and short of outright rebellion, nothing we could do would dissuade her. never mind the italian, i could now do a GCSE in the shops at Bristol, and an AS level in the ones at Fiumicino.
I admire your 'higher-learning' pursuits, annhig!
You've inspired me to look into Italian classes at our local 'community college for the retired' this spring in preparation for our up-coming trip to Italy! A few years ago, DH & I took a Beginner's class. It was all so new that it was a bit overwhelming & stressful. When we began to conjugate verbs, we thought our brains were going to 'blow up'! We perservered & did all our homework. And it was all so worth it at the end to be able to understand some Italian & to communicate simply during our travels. Though kind folks were quick to assess that their English was better than our rudimentary Italian and we often switched to English!
Looking forward to more!
that's great, 2010. yes, it is hard at times, but so worth it when on our last day we were in a deli buying sandwiches for the trip, and we were able to talk to a fellow customer who, it turned out, had got a son teaching english in London, and had actually been to Devon on holiday so unlike 99.9% of all known romans, she knew where Cornwall was! result!
good luck with your studies - let us know how you get on.
Your teacher sounds like me, annhig - having been in charge of a large group doing international travel a few times, I've always left plenty of time. You never know what's going to go wrong (one time we had a mixup between someone's ticket and reservation, which I had no idea were even separate things!).
Your trip sounds so fun. I'm building my savings account back up so I can hopefully travel internationally next year - I'm hoping it involves Italy again.
Meeting with my Italian chat group is the highlight of my week, but I'm longing to do some more formal study. My grammar and vocab can use a lot of work! Your report is convincing me to look into a week (or hopefully two) at a school in Italy. Thanks for sharing this. I'm really enjoying it!
jent - we were flying with easyjet, which means that you can check in up to 30 mins before your flight time, and you don't have a ticket, just a reservation. I know what you mean about allowing plenty of time for things to go wrong, and I would never cut it that fine, but i have frequently got there with an hour to spare and had no problems at all. on the flight back she had allowed 2 hours to get to the airport when the journey in had only taken 30 mins so we arrived at the airport too early to check in, and had to sit around with our luggage for an hour.
I wouldn't have minded so much except that it deprived us of a last lunch in Rome - we could easily have left a couple of hours later and STILL had had 2 hours at the airport.
OTOH we did have the luxury of transfers from the airport to our hotel rather than having to take the train or bus, so I shouldn't grumble too much.
BTW, at Fiumicino they are advertising a bus transfer which goes to Termini and the Vatican for only €5 pp - by far the easiest and cheapest way to do it if you haven't got transfers arranged or paid for.
jmct - Ironically we are in the process of setting up an italian chat-group, hoping to draw more people into the more formal lessons at the college which are under threat because we are running out of people. The conversation classes do provide quite a lot of grammar - for example this week we are doing the conditional - as well as chat, but talking is what we all need more practice in. Definitely go for 2 weeks if you possibly can - I have felt that with a week I've just been getting going when it's been time to come home!
Tonight - the cardinals are cancelled!
None of us wanted to go far after our explorations of the Vatican museums and St. Peter's so we headed for a restaurant we'd spotted the night before - I've no idea of the name but it caught our eye because the walls were covered with pictures of cardinals and popes! Sadly it was closed on Mondays, so we set off back up the main road to see what else we could find. Down a side street we found a little place with only two people in it where the menu looked OK [ie cheap] and despite the dubious look on DT's face, we went in.
After a lot of humming and hawing over the menu she agreed that it looked "ok" so the waiters arranged the tables for 13 [our lucky no - did you know that in Italy, 17 is unlucky? no, neither did I!] and we sat down. For antipasta I had carciofi alla romana, and for secondi saltimbocca. For those who don't know it, saltimbocca is a favourite dish with the romans, comprising a thin piece of veal [or pork] accompanied by prosciutto crudo and sage. meaning "jump in mouth" the sage is supposed to leap out at your taste buds, and much to my surprise, it did! everyone else seemed pretty happy with what they had too, even DT who said that she was pleasantly surprised, as the surroundings had not been auspicious.
I don't remember how much the bill was, but i do know that it was cheap! After their pizzas and pastas the kids had decamped to the local gelateria so we "adulti" were left to finish our dinners and coffees in peace, which was nice, but by 10pm we were finished and by 10.30 we were in bed - even if we'd wanted to stop up, there was nowhere to go!
Today - the kids are revolting and getting to grip [just] with the buses.
Our first lesson had gone quite well, I thought, but for reasons we never got to the bottom of, the youngsters did not want to co-operate today, and were virtually mute. By break-time our poor teacher [a lovely smiley girl who was very lively and cheerful and a lot of fun, so should have been able to get through to them] was tearing her hair out, so at break, the other adult and i had a word with them and asked them to think of her, if no-one else. They expressed themselves surprised and said that nothing was wrong, but there was a noticeable improvement in their demeanour after the break and after that, things went a bit better, though they were still quite quiet.
This did not bode well for the afternoon when we were due to go to the colosseum and forum, but after a spot of lunch [in a lovely cafe where they did extremely well-priced sandwiches and drinks] they perked up, and after getting 36 bus tickets [€1.50 each] from the local tabac, we hopped on the bus which should have taken us all the way there, but unfortunately stopped at the Piazza Venezia instead. oh well, the kids were very impressed by the Vittorio Emmanuale Monument and walking down the pavement next to the forum gave us a great view of the colosseum. DT had already booked the tickets so after showing our reservation e-mail, we were able to escape the dreaded queue and go straight to the ticket office. Then we were in!
It is difficult to imagine anyone NOT being impressed by the colosseum. I had my little guide book from last time so we read a bit from that, and then let the kids go off by themselves whilst we went upstairs to get a better view. It was lovely and sunny so we got some great pictures. I could see people right up at the top so they were obviously doing the tours of the underneath and the upper floors - definitely something I'd like to do next time. Honestly we could have done with longer, but DT was keen to get onto the Forum so after some more photos of the kids and us outside the colosseum, we were off again. Or we would have been had we been able to find the entrance!
Since making the Forum part of the same ticket as the Palatine and the Colosseum [it used to be free] they have moved the entrance down to the bottom of the Via Sacra and you can now walk directly onto the Palatine Hill from the Forum which makes it much nicer and somehow makes the whole area make far more sense. So we enjoyed a very pleasant couple of hours there, before setting off to try and find a cup of tea.
Next - How much???
I am really enjoying your report, Ann!, especially because it looks like we were both in Rome at the same time. Reading your description of no lines at the Vatican made me smile because we had the exact same experience (we were there on Wed last week). I'm also very impressed with your study of Italian. Good for you!
hi msteacher, funny that we were there at the same time.
the reason I mentioned the queues is that whenever we walked past St. Peter's later in the week [and because of where we were staying we walked past it at least once every day] the queues were massive.
I'm glad that you managed to avoid them too. What time did you get to the museums?
Oh dear, annhig, that does sound like overkill! I'd be miffed about that last meal in Rome too!
So strange about the kids that day. I'm glad you were able to get them to at least be polite!
>>So strange about the kids that day<<
I'm guessing (a) hangover (b) homesickness (c) general lassitude after doing the same sort of study for several days in a row - maybe? I can remember in my first job getting very involved in discussions at a sequence of conferences and suddenly finding my brain shut on about the fourth day of saying the same sort of thing over and over again.
jent - they are lovely kids, funny and hard-working - they must be to give up a week's holiday to go on a trip that included lessons. but we never did get to the bottom of what happened on that day, and later on in the week, when they were being so co-operative, no-one wanted to raise it again.
it'll just have to go down as one of life's little mysteries.
Hi annhig.... We arrived at the museums sometime around 11. Then we did exactly as you did and took the group door out of the Sistine Chapel right into St Peter's. We skipped the dome because it had a very long line (I've done it before, anyway). I have a trip report (well actually 2) if you click on my name. It's funny how similar parts of our report are! Look at the second one, tagged Cyprus... for some reason the website was acting funny for me that day and wouldn't let me tag multiple countries.
The whole brain-breaks down thing happened to me on a 2 week immersion course. Very frightening but for 3 hours I couldn't speak French whatever I did. Everyone on our course had a similar problem and the staff just carried on..
Keep going Ann sounds fun
Ann, what's happened? Your very interesting Rome report is drifting down and down the Fodor's tunnel.
sorry Tarquin, work and life intervened - but I'll try to do some more this weekend.
I am enjoying the report, too. I admire you for taking the Italian classes. I keep thinking I should do a vacation with a language course included but I am probably not going to pursue this until I retire. Spanish makes more sense for us and there are a lot of good options in Central America.
We were last in Rome almost exactly six years ago and I would love to go back. Your description of visiting St. Peter's after dinner the first night made me think of how much we enjoyed sitting in the courtyard by the obelisk as dusk fell one evening before dinner.
VT - my pursuit of italian learning is more or less entirely selfish - it gives me an excuse to go to Italy without my family, and a reason to dominate the conversation when they do accompany me.
being serious i love learning languages and find doing so both great relaxation and distraction from my day-job, AND it's something I can do in the winter when gardening is less enticing. in a way I don't think that the language matters, so long as you are motivated to learn it - and as you say, spanish would make sense for you.
we were very lucky with the position of our hotel as we were able to walk past St. Peter's virtually every day - I was almost becoming blase about seeing it! [but not quite].
ok - finally, the trip report resumes: [where were we?]
right i remember now - HOW MUCH is that pot of tea?
After walking round the colosseum and the forum, we were all beginning to flag, so a cup of tea or similar beckoned, at least to the over 50s in the group. Knowing that there were some cafes on the via Cavour we made for there, but DT thought that the first ones we came to would be too expensive for our under 18s, so in the way of such expeditions, we actually ended up at probably the most expensive cafe in the whole area. Having got 13 people seated, which is quite something in itself, it turned out that the kids didn't want anything except gelati, so they went off in search of those, leaving us to our cakes and ale, or in my case a very nice choux pastry bun and a spremuta. [the bun has got a special name in Rome but I'm afraid to say I've forgotten it]. others who were trying to save money decided just to have pots of tea, but rather than the €3 that was quoted on the menu, the bill said that they were €5 which was more than my spremuta and bun - it turned out that this was an extra charge for the tea being served in a specially shaped pot!
after a "lively" discussion between DT and the cafe owner/manager the bill was sorted [the bill for the tea being a "misunderstanding"] and we set off for the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument, and the Campodoglio. However, all the faffing about over where to have our tea, seating 13 people, ordering, questioning the bill, paying it, etc. etc. had taken so long that everything was closing, so in an attempt to see something, we set off for the Bocca della Verità.
you will not be surprised that it took us longer to get there than some of us [not me, I've traipsed round Rome before] had predicted, and when we finally found it it was shut. "So that's why there was no queue to show us where it is" said one bright spark. Hey ho. to my mind it didn't look much anyway, but others on this board have since said that I'm wrong. In any event it won't be top of my list of "must sees" on my next visit.
Supper in Trastevere was on the agenda, but it was a bit early, so we crossed over onto the island in the middle of the Tiber, and wandered around for a bit until it was about 7pm, which was thought to be a respectable time to go looking for our dinner. Never having travelled with an italian person before, I confess that I was surprised throughout the week by DT's willingness to ask total strangers that she passed in the street for directions, not just to places and monuments, but also to restaurants. I was even more surprised that more often than not, this tactic worked! I don't know about you, but asking a random person I might come across where there was a good restaurant is not something that i would do at home - how do you know if their advice is going to be reliable?
anyway, that's what we did, and as a result of this random recommendation, we found ourselves walking into darkest Trastevere [are they deliberately economising on street lighting or is this done to make it seem more atmospheric?] to a restaurant whose name we didn't even have, but it was on a corner with a seating area outside!
well we located somewhere that answered the description we had, the menu and the prices looked right [ie local and cheap] so in we went, and were shown to the basement where they had long tables already set up, as if for groups like ours. By now the kids were chewing their knuckles with hunger, so they and some of us "adulti" opted for the menu del giorno, whilst I, not being that hungry after my bun, decided to try one of the roman specialities that so far I'd missed - trippa alla romana. [that's right - tripe!].
the 4 course €13 menu was indeed a bargain - bruschetta, large helpings of pasta, secondi of escalope alla milanese or chicken, AND puddings including fresh fruit salad, however I was very happy with my choice - carciofi again, the tripe served in a strong tomato sauce with puntanesca greens seasoned with garlic as a side, and a coffee. I'm not sure that I would bother to have tripe again, but I was glad that I'd tried it.
As we hadn't planned to go to Trastevere we had no idea of which bus/es would get us back "home" but yet again, DT consulted the locals [in this case the waiting staff, who might have been expected to have some idea of how to get to the Vatican] and rather to my surprise we were directed not to the nearby bus station, but to a bus stop back over the other side of the Tiber. oh well - we needed to walk off that dinner.
the bus we caught took us back to the Vatican and then it was a short walk back to the hotel - thank goodness. [note to self - buy the bus map at the beginning of the week, not halfway through!] one good thing was that this gave those of us who'd bought Vatican post office stamps to post our postcards; although the post office itself was closed off when we got there, we could still use the post box by the conveniently placed Vatican post office caravan [you were wondering where that was coming in, weren't you?] which when we were there was sitting in the middle of the colonade on the right HS of the Basilica. OK, it didn't actually SAY that it was the post box, and there was no-one there to ask, but what the hell? what else could it be?
In fact the postcards arrived home before me - they were posted on the Tuesday night at about 10pm, and arrived by the first post on Friday, which is no slower, and very often quicker, than UK 2nd class. so if you want to post something which needs to get home quickly and you're Rome, I suggest a trip to the Vatican PO.
Only pausing the fill up our water bottles at the horse-trough round the corner from St. Peter's [which earned me some tut-tutting from a passing french family who clearly hadn't read about the superb qualities of roman water fountains] we trudged home to bed.
Tomorrow - we explore Rome by bus and foot - again.
from now on I won't go into detail about the morning lessons at the language school - the followed the familiar pattern of checking home-work, conversation on a chosen topic, etc, etc. Half way through this morning they decided to move me [not I think because I'd been naughty, but you never know] and I found myself in a class with what might be described as an interesting dynamic. as well as a couple of students I'd come across earlier in the week there was a mother and son in the group; the son spent most of his time sparring with the teacher, and the mother spent most of her time grumbling at the son. As this was carried out mostly in Italian, [the rest was in a mixture of english and russian, that being the mother's mother tongue] it was instructive as well as entertaining, though what the korean priest who was also in the group made of it I'm not sure.
work in this class was more difficult and i was quite grateful when lunchtime arrived and i met up with all the others in our group which was scheduled today to explore the centro storico, ending up at the parco borghese. at least the kids were scheduled to do this, we adults had already decided that at some point we would head off and do our own thing. Bus tickets obtained from our usual tabacchi, we jumped on the 527 bus, vaildated our tickets and kept our eyes peeled for the right stop along the corso vittorio emmanuele for the campo dei fiori. no, no, no, YES! phew - is everyone off? [it's harder than you might think to get 13 people off the bus at the same time, especially when most of them have no idea of where they are going, and even fewer of them are paying attention!]
First stop the campo dei fiori market and while some of us shopped, the others came to terms with the weird way that the shops that sell pizza by the slice operate. the one we ended up at required you first of all to choose the type and size of slice you wanted, then to be given a ticket, which you take to the cash till on the other side of the shop [thus crossing the stream of people trying to get to the bakery part of the shop at the back] then pay, then crossing the same stream of people, to present the receipt in return for your pizza. What a palaver. the idea apparently is to prevent the pizza cooks and cutters from having to handle money, but there must be easier ways. still, when in Rome...and the pizza was excellent.
After the mandatory shopping, [the cheese prices were very keen we thought] we managed to shepherd all our charges across the corso, and following the signs for the Piazza Navona, we managed to find it without too frequent recourse to the map. Despite all the picture sellers, the hawkers, the mime artists, the levitating priest, and the rest of the tourist crud, it is still extremely impressive, particularly the fountain of the four rivers in the middle, which our young photographed from every possible angle.
Sadly I must leave you now, as England are about to play Italy at rugby, so I'm afraid on that cliff-hanger I will have to depart - hopefully for not as long as last time!
spero che ci vediamo subito!
see you soon!
"asking a random person I might come across where there was a good restaurant is not something that i would do at home - how do you know if their advice is going to be reliable? "
Because they're Roman. And because, except round St Peter's, Staz Termini and a couple of massive tourist traps, there's no such thing as a bad Roman restaurant anyway
It doesn't work in touristy areas where you're likely to be asking an Australian, which would make the blind leading the blind sound positively rational. The same tactic works in Lyons.
"asking a random person I might come across where there was a good restaurant is not something that i would do at home - how do you know if their advice is going to be reliable? "
Because they're Roman.>>
strangely flanner, none of the people that DT accosted had "I'm roman" tatooed on their forehead. perhaps she could tell they were local by their shoes? it was really the cultural differences that I was commenting on, which I came across last time i did an italian language course and went out with the teacher - the italian obsession with food means that if you manage to locate a local, they WILL know the best restaurants and this is something which as an italian, you know that you can rely upon.
Flanner, I'm Australian!