TD, I think you're right!

Irishface, I don't have a tripod. For me it's not worth carrying an extra piece of equipment. But if there's a railing or something available, I'll definitely use it! I also take a lot more night shots than actually get posted.

Great trip report! Love your style of writing...makes me feel like I am right back there!

"We looked everywhere but found no method of lighting the pilot light"
Perhaps it was the typical kind that you have to turn the dial to a certain point and the automatic ignition begins to click, then the gas flame ignites, then you lower the flame--no match needed.

Thank you, camelbak!

ellenem, I thought about that. However, I've always had an electric stove and have actually never used a gas one, and M has, so she was in charge. I think the only one she's used needed a lighter, I guess? Got me.

Although actually, now that I think about it, I think she *did* try to do something along those lines. Just to make sure she gets credit for trying. But hey, a working stove would not be a very fun story.

I haven't read all of this yet, but the first part was already so helpful for our July trip to Rome that I have to bookmark it. I'll be back with questions.

So glad it's been helpful, kwren!

This part will be shorter... I keep trying to edit but it's hard.

<b>Day 4: You Want Me To Deep Fry a What?! (Wednesday, May 11) </b>

I wake up feeling excited. It’s cooking class day! We headed to Le Fate in Trastevere and - get this - WE DID NOT GET LOST. Not once. (It helps that there were only three streets we needed to walk down, but that had never stopped us before.) I’m feeling good and even liking this city.

Our class is scheduled to start at 10; we got there around 9:30 or so and there was already a little bit of a crowd. Someone with a key arrives about 9:45. This someone turns out to be Chef Andrea’s girlfriend/assistant, Erica, who is from Michigan. She sets up a few things and lets us in right around ten, then tells us that Chef Andrea will unfortunately be a few minutes late. Meanwhile, she gives us a little information about the class. Andrea rushes in about 10:20 or so, market bags on one arm, motorcycle helmet on the other. He sets up quickly in the kitchen and comes back out to apologize for being late.

“I was late because - have you seen the papers? Do you know what’s happening today?”
Erica: “SUPPOSED to happen today...”
Andrea: “It’s a big earthquake! So <i>everyone</i> was at the market, getting food to take out of town with them!”

Yes, our cooking class is running late because some long-dead seismologist predicted a big earthquake today. Hmm. Well, what better way to go than tiramisu and saltimbocca, am I right? We never felt a thing, although apparently there were tremors at some point.

Our menu today, cooked by our class of mostly Americans plus one Australian family, includes deep fried pumpkin flowers (stuffed with prosciutto and mozzarella), spinach and ricotta ravioli (per special request from one of our classmates), beef saltimbocca, and tiramisu. Everything, including the wines for those who got them, is from the Lazio region of Italy (where Rome is). Andrea starts off by showing us how to prep the tiramisu, since it has to set while we finish the rest of lunch. He puts me in charge of making coffee; the poor man has no idea what he’s just done, since I rarely drink coffee and my dad, having given up on the rest of us years ago, spent my childhood drinking instant Folgers. I ask if “this” is enough coffee grounds. Andrea looks at me and says “Jennifer. How many people are here? MORE!” Oops. Coffee made to his satisfaction, M and I are put on Parmesan duty while others prep spinach. Then I’m assigned to cut tomatoes with our classmate Dave from Boston (not to be confused with Dave from Connecticut), but the two of us commit the Cardinal Sin of Tomato Sauce: We trash the juice. Do not do this. Fortunately, the sauce turned out well anyway.

Throughout the class, we chop spinach, tear basil, mash tomatoes, assemble saltimbocca, knead pasta, fill ravioli and stuff pumpkin blossoms. It was so fun and so informative, and the end results were delicious. Andrea is a great teacher, really entertaining and very personable yet straightforward. Somehow you like him even when he’s telling you your ravioli are ugly. (Ours were not, though. Ours were beautiful.)

It was also really fun to talk to some people with whom we shared a native language. It gave us a little mental break from trying to translate everything and not knowing exactly what was happening! We were fortunate to have a great, fun group of people.

We stayed at the restaurant until at least 3:30, then finally split up, M and I to head to Santa Maria in Trastevere. The mosaics there are really stunning. I’d heard the Trastevere area was a nice, non-touristy neighborhood to walk around, and I did enjoy being there. It felt more like a neighborhood than the chaotic streets across the river. We meandered back to our apartment, taking a different route from Largo Argentina that led us back by the Pantheon. A little shopping, a little wandering, then back to the apartment for an early night - we had laundry to do!

Photos from today: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenthom...th/5778886307/

No editing Jen - I love the long posts! They keep me going until I return in 122 days (but whose counting!)

Please don't leave out any of the details! I love your story!

I'm with you ekc, we are now 91 days and counting.... We love every single little detail

Agree! Next...

Hey, I just did the math and it's 120 days for me! I do not think I will be able to learn Italian in 120 days but I am so excited. Keep it coming Jen, I'm loving every word of it.
CindyP.

I'm a little jealous of all of you getting to go soon! Guess I should count my blessings. Thanks again for the kind words - it helps to know people like reading the details, since I tend to share a lot.

--

<b>Day 5: Sculpture, Shopping, Spagna - Thursday, May 12</b>

This morning was our 11am reservation at Galleria Borghese. This looked, on the map, like the farthest we’d had to walk all week, and it was in an area we hadn’t yet been to, so we left early. This was really the day we discovered the helpfulness of the Rome2Go app - once again, no wrong turns. I REALLY wish I’d thought to use this earlier. It was a pretty long walk, but we got to the Borghese Gardens with no problem and meandered our way to the villa, with plenty of time for an apple pastry and cappucino (okay, I drink coffee in Italy, but mostly because they often don’t have decent tea) at the museum cafe. At one point I heard Maegan say “Well, hi!” I look up, and there’s Dave from Boston from our cooking class! Hi Dave. See, Chef Andrea isn’t kidding about making new friends. Dave was just leaving after his 9am reservation.

When it’s time for our own entrance, we check our bags, though they let me keep my Blue Guide (which was quite helpful, I thought). The museum also had cards in each room describing what you’re seeing.

I’m not an art connoisseur and, though I’d heard of Bernini before, wasn’t that familiar with his work. But I was completely amazed at the sculptures we saw, especially his David. The movement, the expression... now this is art I could love. The upper floors were lovely too, but my favorite part was definitely the lower floor, full of Bernini sculpture. (The upper floors have lots of paintings, including some Renaissance-era work. We walked by a group of girls looking at a Rubens piece. We overheard one of them say “<shrug> I’ve seen better paintings.” Hilarious.)

We were done at the museum around 12:30 and walked around the gardens for awhile. It really is a nice escape from the chaos - it wasn’t until we were in Trastevere the day before that I’d realized I hadn’t seen very many trees or much green space at all the past few days! We just meandered until we decided it was time for lunch, grabbing a sandwich at one of the carts in the gardens. I decided it was high time for a Coke, and didn’t realize until the guy told me how much I owed him that I was now drinking a $6 Coke. Whatever. It tasted AWESOME. (My pizza rossa did not, but I didn’t really expect much from lunch from a cart.)

After lunch the Plan was to head to Santa Maria della Vittoria and/or the Spanish Steps. Knowing the church was now closed for lunch, we decided to just meander down that way, checking things out along the way. We left the Borghese Gardens and crossed into Piazza del Popolo, then happened unknowingly onto Via del Corso, aka Shopping Mecca. I’m not too much of a shopper, but neither will I refuse an H&M (we don’t have one at home). We also found a Lush - the saleslady took one look at us and chased us down with some Dream Cream, saying “Is good for the sunburn!” (It’s possible all that sunshine at the Forum on Tuesday had left us a little worse for the wear...)

We did eventually wind our way to Santa Maria della Vittoria, where I saw yet more Bernini in the form of St. Theresa in Ecstasy. It was easy to tell what the main attraction of the church was - there was at least one tour group in there, all crowded around the sculpture!

After the church, there was more wandering and more shopping on our way to Piazza di Spagna. We got to the top of the steps in the late afternoon sun - it’s a lovely piazza. Still, it is basically just steps after all, so we didn’t feel the need to spend a ton of time there. I took some pictures and we were approached by one of the guys trying to sell us flowers. “No grazie.” “It is gift. You are beautiful. Here, it is gift.” Oh, fine, I will take the dang flower. I stuck it in my bag and M held onto hers. “Would you like me to take your picture?” Uh, <i>no grazie</i>. We start to walk away and he just says “Money?” Of course. We immediately hand his flowers back to him and walk off. Not a big deal, just annoying. (We didn’t really encounter anything else at all on the whole trip - no children begging, no women asking us about gold rings or anything. Just those guys selling light-up toys and flowers everywhere.)

This being our last evening in Rome, we’ve decided to have a nice dinner out somewhere. But first, gelato! Having learned our lesson on Tuesday, we head directly to Gelateria del Teatro. (Side note: I have mistakenly been calling this “Gelato del Teatro” the entire time. A small but annoying mistake. Sorry!) Oh goodness, I’m going to miss this place. This was my first encounter with Greek yogurt gelato, which pretty much rocked my world. It tasted there like cream cheese icing, but cold and better. YUM.

Back to the apartment for a bit, we went back and forth between going somewhere in our “neighborhood” for dinner (we had seen tons of restaurants along the side streets around Piazza Navona on our Tuesday Night Lighter Search) and going back to Le Fate. But Chef Andrea’s words about family restaurants and homemade pasta are very convincing, and we decided the walk was worth it. We knew it would be good food at reasonable prices, even if it was a pretty long walk.

A note on my frame of mind: It was so. much. better. You learn a lot about yourself when traveling, and one thing I’ve learned is that I’m so much more confident and relaxed when I feel like I know where I’m going and how to handle myself. I have friends, like M, blessed with the gift of rarely feeling out of place, but I definitely didn’t get that one!

By this beautiful Thursday night, walking to a place where we’d been before, I was feeling good. We walked by a group of police officers who looked straight at us. As we walked by I caught a definite “... <i>bella</i>...” It hit me that the more confident we felt, the more of that attention we got. The Italians seem to be a very confident people themselves. And cliche as it is, I was totally fine with it. I think it was marigross who noted that all these looks and comments from Italian men really aren’t lecherous - not like a creepy “How YOU doin’?” Just more “Well, hi there. I notice you.” Which, let’s be honest, is nice.

(I’d asked a guy friend of mine from Vicenza if Italian men <i>really</i> go around telling all the women “Ciao bella.” He said “eh, well, it’s mostly for the tourists.” I don’t care. It’s nice. Besides, he’s from Vicenza, not Rome, so I can pretend that in Rome it was all sincere!)

We got to Le Fate and were seated by a very friendly host, then waited on by a very friendly waiter. We’d been hoping that those amazing pumpkin blossoms we’d cooked the day before would be on the menu - hooray! They were! We got an order of those and an order of ricotta with jam to split (the ricotta was good, but we both preferred the honey we’d had at Naumachia to the jam). M got a pasta special, with zucchini and “king prawn”. I got pasta gricia, which basically was rigatoni (or something like that) with pancetta and plenty of Parmesan. Mine was awesome. M was surprised to see that “king prawn” meant “one giant shrimp, shell and all, resting on top of your pasta.” But she liked it, once she figured out how to go about eating it. (Let us recall that both M and I are from landlocked Southern states, and got most of our seafood growing up fried and unrecognizable as an animal.) The waiter brought us a couple of complimentary limoncello shots to end the meal. Holy moly. That stuff is potent. The restaurant definitely caters to students; they have a student menu every day that’s three courses and maybe even a glass of wine for a very good price - maybe ten euro? I’m not positive, but it’s cheap. There was a group of eight or nine American students next to us taking advantage of it. The restaurant just has a fun, friendly feel to it.

A nice walk back to the apartment, and our last night in Rome is basically over. I have mixed feelings - I’m ready to be somewhere more relaxed, but I’ve just started to like this place!

Pictures from today: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenthom...7626732575445/

(note: that’s the last set of pictures I have edited, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to edit more! I’ve got after-work plans the next couple of nights. So there might be a pause button for a couple of days. Not only do I want to post pictures with each day, but it helps me remember what we did! )

Fabulous photos, jent!

I visited Rome with a pharmacist friend, too, and she happily posed next to every "Farmacia" sign we encountered.

The details are the best parts. Tell everything!

My, that shrimp was certainly a giant!

Thanks, fanshawe!

I'm still working on photos and the next section (it's been a busy week!), but had to share this. I got a text from M at 7:30 yesterday saying "I think I just saw my Swiss Guard on TV!" The Today Show was broadcasting from the Vatican.

<b>Day 6: Wandering Venezia (Friday, May 13)</b>

We checked out of the apartment with Alessandro at 9:15, then caught a cab to Termini for our 10:45 train (&euro;10; thanks to the Fodorites who responded to my query about appropriate taxi fare - you made me feel much better about not getting ripped off!). We shopped a little and grabbed some lunch to take with us while we waited for our platform to show up.

I had bought our tickets thinking we’d be across a table from each other, but it turned out that we were actually on the same row but in window seats across the aisle. No biggie - we were spending a solid two weeks together, so I’m sure M was okay with not being right next to me. She sat with two Italian <i>nonni</i>, taking their six-year-old grandson on his first trip to their Venice time share. I sat with a family from LA, taking their 7-year-old son on a monthlong European trip and meeting his grandparents on the train in Bologna. They were all great to share a train ride with. It was really fun to hear the 7-year-old talk about his trip - he got out of school for the month, but was doing “homework” in the form of writing a page in his journal about every day they were gone.

We all got off at the end of the line: Venezia Santa Lucia. As soon as I walked out of that train station I felt more relaxed. Aaahhh. Rome, I like you a lot now that we’re friends, but as the dad from LA said on the train, “I don’t think there’s a relaxing way to do Rome.”

First order of business: Pick up the 72-hour passes I had preordered from Veniceconnected.com. (I just realized I forgot to include these in the “prebooked” list in the first post, so there you have it.) Once I figured out which number on my email was the one they wanted, picking them up was a cinch. We were headed straight to the b&b. Lorenzo, the owner, knew which train we were taking and had told us to call or text him when we got to the station, take the #42 boat, and he’d meet us at the San Zaccaria stop. M tried to text him but it didn’t go through (Lorenzo says this happens a lot with US phones) so she placed a quick call. We had a little trouble figuring out what to do with our passes - remembering the old yellow validation boxes, I headed there, but looked like an idiot trying to get my pass to go in a lot where it obviously did not fit. Fortunately another girl saw me and explained that I just needed to wave it in front of this newfangled box. No one ever checked for tickets - honestly it would be pretty easy to ride for free on the boats, I think, but they do have signs posted telling you what happens if you get caught, so maybe that’s enough of a deterrent.

We got off at San Zaccaria and Lorenzo found us. The walk from there to Ai Tagliapietra was short and only had one bridge, but I am so thankful that Lorenzo was there to show us the way. We saw SO many people wandering around with tons of luggage trying to figure out where their hotels were - we were grateful that we only had carry-ons and a Venetian to show us around!

We had the one room to the left of the front door, with a big double bed for M and a twin for me, plus a wardrobe, desk and nightstands. There was a small flat screen TV mounted in the corner (which fortunately got cable channels, since we had grown to love RealTime, essentially the Italian version of TLC). Our bathroom was huge, especially by European standards. It looked new and felt modern, with a shower, sink, toilet, bidet and shelving. In short, we were really pleased. I assume the other rooms are similar, but we didn’t see them so I’m not sure what the differences were. Lorenzo gave us a map, marked where we were, gave us a couple of restaurant suggestions and told us the best gelato in town was Gelato Fantasy. Yes, this guy is our kind of guy.

After getting settled, we headed over to Piazza San Marco on our way to find gelato. We got lost, of course, but in Venice I was expecting that, so we didn’t really get frustrated by it. Eventually we found it, on Calle dei Fabbri, and yes indeedy it was good. Different than Gelateria del Teatro; the portions were much bigger and the flavors weren’t quite as delicious, but it was still really good. (Gelateria del Teatro remains the best gelato we had on the trip. I think we got spoiled early.) We took our cup and cone back to Piazza San Marco and (unknowingly) illegally sat on a step to eat and people watch. The orchestras were starting to play; the one next to us had a Sound of Music theme going. It was a lovely evening, crowded on the piazza but not insane.

After awhile we got up and headed to the Rialto (I mean, why not knock out the two huge tourist areas in one night?). We took pictures, wandered a bit, and stalked an older couple who walked along the Grand Canal, arms around each other. One of my favorite things I saw the entire trip. We wandered more, making our way to a random campo (Campo San Aponal, as it turned out). We just sat for awhile, doing that thing people here like to call “soaking in the local culture.” Apparently we looked like we were soaked so much we actually knew what we were talking about, because an American woman dressed in a tank top and yoga pants came into the campo with her husband and headed straight toward us. Her: “Do you know where the vaporetto stop is?!” Me: “Well, no, not really, but there’s a sign pointing to the train station and I know there’s one there, so maybe head that way?” Her: “There’s a TRAIN STATION here?!” Yes. Making a good name for the rest of us. Thanks.

We had a coupon from Lorenzo for Da Mamo, near the Rialto, so we headed there for dinner. The entire staff of male waiters around our age was very happy to see us. We both got pizzas, M’s with ham, brie and eggplant, and mine a “Torcello” - mozzarella, apple and Gorgonzola (no tomato sauce). I also got some grilled vegetables, having had very few since we’d started our trip! More free limoncello from the cute, flirtatious waiters. I’m starting to wonder if this is a trend. (M was a little disappointed - she hoping we’d get the little chocolate things everyone else seemed to be getting!) We hung out for awhile, asked for our check, and the waiter with curly hair and glasses (my personal favorite, of the four or so who’d helped us) said “No.” Aw, they love us. “You finish limoncello, I bring the check.” Sorry, dude, but that is just not happening. We can’t handle that stuff.

Dark by this time, we went back to Piazza San Marco to see it lit up with the orchestras playing, then back to our room, relaxed as all getout.

Pictures from today: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenthom...7626879961910/

Hi jent,

so sorry I've only just found your TR after you've left Rome! your apartment isn't far from the one we stayed in last year, so we must have walked through that little square at least a dozen times. did you even use the bar in the corner - they did a good cornetto and cappuccino for breakfast, and weren't at all phased when i went in on our first night and asked them to sell me a litre of milk.

incidentally, [and I know it's too late for you this trip, but it might help next time] the amount of prosciutto you wanted was "un etto" which is 100gr.

anyway, thanks for the credit [not sure how i helped, but I'm glad that I did] and for the TR - keep it coming.

Ah, Gelato Fantasy! Yes, that was it (couldn't remember the name). It was at the "intersection" where we turned to Campo San Gallo, where our gate was.

Love your photos. And I'm envious you were able to be in Venice in a non-jet-lagged state.

BTW - if you think that €6 was a lot to pay for a gelato, the local paper for where i was staying in southern tuscany had an article about 2 german tourists being charged €20 each for gelati. As I was en route to Florence that worried me a bit, but in fact, i managed to find a place near where I was staying that charged €1.50 for 2 scoops - which struck me as a bargain.