Eating Roman

Much of our home cooking is Italian, so we felt right at home in Rome...plus there were three supermercados, the huge New Esquiline Market, numerous alimentaries and produce shops, and other things within a few blocks of our appartamento. Besides, when in Rome...

At the produce market just outside our building's door

Bulk wine store around the block; BYOB; sadly, I didn't get here much

Home cookin'--Vicki's veal picatta and pasta alfredo

Chef's board at a resto whose name I've forgotten, near Piazza
Reppublica

Roman pastries are attractive, but we mostly stuck with the
gelato; a really good gelato shop, San Lorenzo, was just a block
away

In an alley just beyond our bedroom window was Saltimbocca,
a restaurant we liked

In part because of its meter deal...a meter's worth

of Roman tapas, plus an aperativo, for 10€

Her pizza

My saltimbocca

Artichokes a specialty in Trastavere and the Jewish
Ghetto

At Dar Poeta

With the beyond decadent calzone filled with
ricotta and nutella

Italian broccoli

In the huge Nuova Esquilino Mercado, a few blocks away; the
entire central aisle (nave?) was seafood

Fried artichoke at Tonnarello's in Trastavere

My salmon

Her carbonara

Ultima cena in Rome, a selection of Italian sausages and pasta

National Roman Museum, 2022

On our last full day in Rome, April 24th, we returned to another favorite, the National Roman Museum, near Termini. It was at least our fourth visit, others recounted at:

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/05/museo-nazionale-romano.html,
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/11/national-roman-museum-2013.html, and
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/05/national-roman-museum-2018.html.

So I think I've already posted all the things we like about this wonderful museum, except to re-emphasize the Villa of Livia, our happy place in Rome, all four frescoed walls of a 1st century villa's subterranean (to avoid the summer heat) dining room, a four-wall garden landscape, as breath-taking an experience as Monet's water lilies at the Orangerie, but ever more so because of its very great antiquity.

Villa of Livia

The Museum has half a floor of re-assembled rooms from various
villas and homes, a must-see in order to appreciate what you'll find 
in the Forum or Pompeii

Vatican Museum, 2022

This may have been our seventh visit to the Vatican Museum, fifth since retiring. So I think I've probably already posted anything I might want to post, and then some, in one or more of the following:

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-to-vatican-city.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/en-route-to-sistine-chapel.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/papal-apartmentsrafael-rooms.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/sistina-cappella.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/vatican-sculpture.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/vatican-pinacoteca.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/11/more-vatican-museum-2013.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/11/vatican-museum-out-takes-2013.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/vatican-museum-2017_25.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/04/return-to-vatican-museum.html

Of course, with a museum this immense and this old, there are always a few new discoveries, a few new ways of looking at things, not out-takes exactly...but...

Rained in the morning...our only rain for three weeks in Rome

In the Pina Colada (pinoteca), which we always
visit first, fearing an afternoon closure, an 11th
century Judgment

Most Judgments show people rising out of their caskets, etc., but
this one shows them being disgorged by the animals that ate them

"Hey! You! Get off of my cloud!"

One of our favorite Vatican museums...closed!

I used to think the pine cone here was just another stupid nod to
contemporary art...but no...it's old, very old, used to sit outside the
Senate in the Forum...we had lunch at the resto nearby

Yet another bit of the Museum closed...a huge hall of ancient
Roman signs and sayings and so on, thousands of them...actually,
what we'd really like to see are the Vatican libraries and particularly
the Sistine Salon...permanently closed...

The Vatican Museum has a serious "no dicks"
policy--see the encyclical "Contra Diccus" by
Pope Prudius XXIII--evidenced on thousands of
male statues throughout the museum, either
covered by a fig leaf or simply lopped off, as above

But, in our extensive researches, we found a couple of exceptions:

the Laocoon: who would dare?!

And this untitled marvel, which we have called...

"When a fig leaf just won't do"

Speaking of untitled...when you can't figure out some untitled
piece, just sneak around back of it...

"You want a toe? I can get you a toe..by 3PM"

Church of St. Paul Without The Walls, 2022

My favorite church in Rome...one of the four papal churches, 5th century, although partially reconstructed after the 1823 fire. Previous posts include: https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/11/basilica-of-st-paul-outside-walls.html, https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/11/basilica-of-st-paul-outside-walls-2.html, and  https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/st-paul-without-walls-2017.html, and probably others. It was a rest day for Vicki, so I took the Metro B line out to it (outside the city walls), enjoying the opportunity to ride the Metro line we often took when camping at Prato Smeraldo in previous years. I'll post just a few pix to entice you, gentle reader, to look at the posts above.... It's a beautiful, ancient, and important church.

Piazza del Popolo And SM Del Popolo

Our walk across town, mostly on the Via del Corso, finally got us to the Piazza del Popolo and the SM church we had missed there the week before. After visiting the church and its art, we made our way back to Trastavere, again, and a nice meal at Tonnarello's there. 

The Via del Corso issues onto the Piazza between the "twin"
churches of SM in Montesanto and SM dei Miracoli; the taxis
are massing for attack

Fountain of Neptune

The Popolo Obelisk, brought to Rome by order of 
Augustus in 10BCE; originally in the Circus Maximus;
moved to the Piazza here by the architect Fontana, who
mostly did fountains, and surrounded it with, you guessed
it, more fountains

Rome between the Tiber and Aniene is the other flanking fountain;
above and beyond, the Pincian Hill and, way beyond, the Villa Borghese

Now in SM del Popolo, admiring a 15th century
Pinturrichio

Bernini's Habukkak; alas, couldn't see his Daniel; although
the good news is that SM del Popolo's Divine Illumination
Machines are now free, although a donation is requested

Caravaggio's Crucifixion of St. Peter; more pix from
SM del Popolo are here

And his Conversion on the Road to Damascus,
featuring Paul and his unconverted horse