When in Rome...

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Simone is the long distance boyfriend of Jessica’s friend Emily. We met him at Jess and Sam’s wedding in August. When he heard that we were coming to Rome, he insisted that we stay with him at his apartment. I’m sitting in his kitchen typing this at 10 am Friday.

We left Montalcino yesterday around noon, after spending our first born child’s inheritance on some Brunello wines that we arranged to be shipped home. It was the first place all trip where we stayed more than one night, and we really became familiar and comfortable. People started asking us for directions! It really did grow on us, but we had to keep the train a rollin’…

Next stop was in Montepulciano, where they produce the namesake wine. It’s a very nice town waayyyy up on a mountainside. Full of shops, cafes, and enotecas (wine shops), it’s like a poor man’s Montalcino, and I don’t mean that with any disrespect at all. There were a lot of tourists, and tour buses there. The people there were the ones who like wine, but don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on it. You can get very nice Montepulciano wines at home, usually for less than $20.

Anyway, we took the 15 minute tour of town, snapped a few shots (by the way, our picture count right now is around 1500, so be prepared to be bored out of your mind when we get home), and had lunch at a café at the Grande Piazza. We had quite possibly the best pizza we have ever had. Instead of tomato sauce, it had truffle cream as the base, covered with mozzarella cheese, shaved truffles and prosciutto.

We hit the road to Rome after that. They have these pretend policemen on the side of the highway to discourage excessive speeding. I can say with total certainty that they have no effect whatsoever.

We found Simone’s apartment reasonably easy. Not so easy is finding a parking space in Rome. His place is amazing! It’s a huge 3 bedroom, up on the 4th floor of a pre-war building. The building has the tiniest elevator ever; it’s honestly 2 feet by 4 feet. The three of us barely fit in it.

He took us out last night to the Trastevere, which is described as ‘the seedy, colourful, wrong-side-of-the-river, the crustiest part of the city’ to some very cool places. Our first stop was an aperitvo bar. These things are brilliant! You go in, order a drink, and then help yourself for free to what is essentially a buffet. They had all kinds of sandwiches, nuts, cakes, cheese, salami, you get the point.

We then walked around the Trastevere. Simone was going to take us to the world’s greatest pizza place, but the guy had been so busy he ran out of ingredients by 10:00 and had to close! Normally, he’s open until 2 or so. Our substitute was the Bruscettaria. You go in and order bruscetta, the way you want it, like a pizza. The menu had at least 50 different options. We chose Speck (a prosciutto-like ham), mozzarella, and spicy diced tomatoes. It was fantastic to say the least.

All this time, we were drinking. We shared Peroni beers, and poured them into plastic cups while we walked around. The Peronis come in 22 oz bottles, so if you try to drink a whole one by yourself, it gets warm and nasty by the time it’s finished.

We met up with Simone’s friend Simone. That wasn’t a typo. The four of us went to the Bar S. Calisto, in the Piazza Calisto. It’s a total local joint, and we were the only tourists. It had a great setup too: you went in, and ordered your drinks from the owner, sitting at his cash register. He gave you a receipt that you took to the bar, and gave to the bartender, who then gave you your drink. The place had a total bohemian atmosphere. There were gays, artists, students, potheads, and your regular, average drunks like us all hanging out together. We played a game called ‘Guess the Americans’. At 1:00 am, the owner walked around with a tray full of pastries that he hadn’t sold during the day, and gave them away to the customers!!!

After drinking about a million Peronis, we decided to go home. Actually, the bars decided for us. They all closed. We staggered around for a bit, while Simone gave us the 2 am tour of Rome. I ordered sheep meat on a stick on the bridge while crossing the Tiber River. We saw the Fountain of the Four Rivers, a bunch of churches and statues. We planned out today as well. First stop: The Vatican. We’re gonna go chill with Benedict for a while. It should be fun, I don’t expect there to be too many tourists at the Vatican, we should be able to blow through there in about 20 minutes….