Casperia

Several weekends ago Jim and I headed out of Rome for a weekend in the Sabine Hills, north of Rome.  We'd heard about a small B&B in this tiny hill town from my brother Chris, who stayed here with his wife Carmel and friends a few years back.  At the time, looking at his blog photos, the town looked like a perfect retreat from Rome -NO cars or scooters, wonderful views over the hill country and an ample terrace to soak up the sun and enjoy a glass of Lazio wine.

From our local train station in Trastevere, its an easy hour to Poggio Mirteto, the closest station to Casperia.  We arranged with our hosts Maureen and Roberto to have a driver meet us (this turned out to be Roberto himself) and set off mid-afternoon. We were on the train and on our way before we hit a rolling sciopero - strike - at Tibertina.  After a hour's wait and a lot of mobile phoning from us and fellow passengers we were on on way again.

The Torretta B&B is an 15th century country house in the centre of the village, which winds around and up to peak at a tiny piazza with the local belltower and church.  The houses are all of honey coloured stone and the streets are paved with more of the local stone.  Its either a steep climb or descent as you walk around the town.

We had booked dinner at one of three restaurants within Casperia, but first we headed out for an olive oil tasting with slow-food expert Johnny Madge, who runs a little bar in the town.  Johnny is an englishman who has lived and worked in Lazio for 30 years, first as a sculptor, and now promoting the fantastic olive oils and wines of Lazio.  His enthusiasm for the local wine and oil is infectious - we tasted a great local white called Grechetto along with mild and pungent oils from the Sabine Hills.

We loved Johnny's bar so much we returned the next night too - there is a convivial mix of locals and ex-pats in the community and it was a great place to meet people and, for me, practice my italian!

Our dinner at Gusto al Borgo was a great experience. We ate in a big dining room of the owner's village house with some home-brewed wine and lots of good warming dishes, beginning with a crespelle with radiccio and sausage and finishing with an amaretti semifreddo.  The house cats joined us for limoncello (four of them) - they were enormous!  There are obviously plenty of leftovers at the restaurant.

Outside Johnny's Bar

Along with some country walks, another great dinner and more time at Johnny's bar, we had a couple of relaxing days out of the busyness of Rome. We enjoyed it so much we know we'll be back in the future, possibly for a longer olive oil and wine tour.

My italian progress

I apologise for a month (a month!) between posts.

Truly, it has been a busy time for me as a language student.  I've now progressed to the top of intermediate italian, which has been an incredible amount of study over the past nine weeks.  At the moment I'm tackling the passato remoto, which any italian speaker will tell you, is an oft-used tense.   I have one more exam to go on the 22nd of this month, and that's as far as I think my brain will manage at this juncture.

At some stage I'll stack up all my language texts from the school, additional bits of printed matter from the many history walks I've taken with Silvia, the museum guides in italian; and the extra bits of material my language exchange buddies have given me and I'm sure it'll be a surprising amount of paper.

Some words continue to stump me and some verbs are just too close in spelling not to mix up, but all in all I can understand most of what I hear, have a conversation with the locals, make a joke in italian and have the beginnings of an italian rrrrrrr in my pronunciation.  This last one is a killer for me.  Try as I might, my "r" sound is disappointingly anglo-saxon.  A bit of wine helps!

So, I'm sure I'll look back on my time here with a lot of love.  It's an amazing city, Rome, for all it's traffic and chaos.

 

Living here in Trastevere means we are in the centre of city, and we can choose to walk over the Ponte Sisto to the Campo dei Fiori, along the Tiber to the Vatican and on to our new favourite part of Rome, Prati (Jim's discovery, and an area he spends quite a bit of time in), or over the Ponte Garibaldi with a right-hand turn at the Largo Argentina to the Campidoglio and the Colosseum.

 

Today we had a bit of a shopping spree over at Prati - a very satisfying pasttime for people under the weather with colds - followed by a late lunch in the Campo dei Fiori, photographed by Jim prior to devouring.  Tonight I've taken a run over the bridge down to Tiber Island, and we're about to head out to our favourite wine bar in Trastevere for an aperitivo before dinner.

 

I have another post to put up on our weekend away at Casperia in a day or two.

 

Cinecittà Mostra - Cinecittà Shows Off

Walk around Rome for long enough and you'll start wincing at the architecture of the fascist era.   Strictly symmetrical, with a focus on utility of design, these buildings present a no-holds-barred functionality with little decorative value.

Under Mussolini's unified Italy, this modernist style was adopted in the architecture of the 1920's and 1930's, with Rome's Cinema City ("Cinecittà") built to this style in 1937.  Originally constructed for propaganda-film purposes, the complex was bombed during the second world war, and following the war Cinecittà became a misplaced-persons camp.

By the 1950's Cinecittà was once again making movies.  Legendary classics such as the Fellini films La Dolce Vita and Casanova, the american blockbuster Ben Hur and Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet were created here.  And in more recent years Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, and the HBO series Rome were filmed here, too.

Friday at noon we finished our last grammar session for the week and took the Metro line A out to the furthest point on the Anagnina line to visit Cinecittà.  Cinecittà lies about 10km south-east of Rome.

We arrived at the studio in time to take a guided tour in italian, with a handful of us standing in the sunlight listening to our guide recount the early years of the complex, the famous movies that were produced by equally-famous directors and how the intricate crafting of movie sets involves construction of massive wooden mounts, covered in tons of polystyrene, gesso and paint.  And also, how the internal sets are created, used, dissembled and stored in the giant warehouses that stand on the boundaries of the Cinecittà.

We had a great time walking over the huge Gangs of New York set (now looking even more dilapidated) and the impressive sets of the Forum and Subura of the Rome series.  Buildings of imperial Rome are painted in the pompeiian colours of red and ochre, with the "ancient" stones of the forum leading into the jumble of the subura, where the upper-storeys of the houses almost touch each other across narrow alleyways.

Afterwards, we walked though the mostra (exhibition) of sight and sound - a long tunnel-like space is covered in moving images on the floor, ceiling and walls from Cinecittà's epic films - ducking into various smaller rooms to see post-production, costuming and internal movie sets. 

We all agreed it was a fantastic experience.  Although we found the commentary difficult to follow in rapid, non-school italian, it was another facet of learning the language and great to see another side of the city.

After catching the metro to the San Giovanni stop, we ended our day drinking Sauvignon Blanc from the Fruili region at an enoteca in Monti, before walking back down past the Colosseum and Vittorio Emanuele monument in the early evening. 


At the Largo Agentina we said our goodbyes to Karina, who leaves today to fly back to Belgium before Juliana and I resume school again on Monday.  Its been great having Karina around and I'm going to miss her.  The great thing about being here in Rome, aside from learning the language and enjoying the city, is the fantastic friendships I've made over the past few weeks.  We all plan to meet back in Rome in the not-too-distant future.

Exams over, normal blogging resumes

Yesterday I celebrated, along with my fellow students, passing exams and moving on to the next level of italian.  We've all had a pretty hectic week of revision, experienced some jitters, and had lots of practice conversation and review of those pesky past tenses, passato prossimo and imperfetto.

By now, our group is able to converse in jerky sentences about most day-to-day things in italian.  Often we mess up the tenses or use the wrong pronouns, but we're all progressing in the language.  And after a couple of glasses of wine after school, we all seem to  understand each other :-)

Last night, by way of celebration, we started off with drinks at the Cul-de-Sac, a tiny wine bar with a great selection of bottles.  Cul-de-Sac is in the Piazza Pasquino, the square abutting the Piazza Navona and the piazza is home to Pasquino, one of Rome's talking statues.

Pasquino dates back to the 3rd century BC, and was unearthed in the Parione district of Rome in the 1500's.  He's been the mouthpiece for Roman residents for over 500 years, mostly being covered with anti-government (and at one time, anti-papacy) satirical poems.  Walk past on most days and the statue will be pasted with anti-establishment slogans and messages.  From the outside tables at Cul-de-Sac, you can face Pasquino and raise a glass to him.

 

After dinner in the truly lovely Via della Pace, more wine, and a mixture of italian, english, french and flemish conversation we headed off home in different directions.  My walk took me through the Campo de' Fiori, over the Ponte Sisto and on to the Via delle Cinque.  It's been warmer and drier this week, and crowds of people were out enjoying the clear night.  At 11.30, some groups of revellers were only just sitting down to dinner, and my local bar, the Ombre Rosse, was hotting up.

 

I had all good intentions of heading over to the Monti district today.  It is a characterful, up-and-coming part of Rome and I've heard so many people praise its restaurants, tiny winding streets and artisan workshops. Monti is located slightly uphill away from the Colosseum and is described as a much less touristed, more "local" part of the city.

 

I took a detour through the Pigneto district and on to the Trevi Fountain, specifically looking for the Ace of Cups, incorporated into the Trevi fountain during construction.  A local curiosity, I learned about it through one of my italian tutors back at home.  At the time I made a mental note to look for the enormous stone cup, created by the fountain's architect Nicola Salvi.  The story goes that as work on the fountain progressed, a local barber who had a shop in the piazza was very loud in his criticism.  Salvi put the big travertine cup in front of Barbershop to block the barber's view (and his criticism, presumably). 

 

Up behind the Trevi, and approaching the Quirinal Hill, I headed back down past the recently re-opened excavations of Trajan's Market.

 

Around 2pm I was getting hungry and the rain started to fall.  Having come out without an umbrella I was getting drenched, and eventually ducked into a doorway near Trajan's column.  That doorway opened into the Enoteca Provincia Romana. 

 

So, the upshot is, I still haven't visited Monti.  But I spent a fantastic couple of hours looking over the excavations of Trajan's Market from my table inside the enoteca while the rain fell.  The Provincia Romana showcases products from the Lazio district (of which Rome is part) - from Affile to Zaporolo, my menu informed me - and a very good lunch, with wine, is 15 euros.

 

Tonerelli filled with spinach and ricotta, sauced with slow braised pork and sage is the best pasta I've ever eaten.  With a glass of light red wine, and espresso and biscotti to follow, I'm in food heaven.
 

Obelisks and Obika

I've had a great relaxing weekend in Rome. The weather has been clear and sunny (albeit cold), and there's been a good mix of study and leisure.

Saturday started with a school trip up to San Giovanni in Laterano, the "official" church of the papacy. One of the great things about my language school are the cultural trips, usually involving some aspect of ancient Rome. These take place every Wednesday evening and some Saturdays, and are usually led by Silvia, a historian engaged by the school. Silvia's enthusiasm and knowledge of ancient, medieval and baroque Rome is fantastic. And her italian is slow, clear and easy to understand :-)

Quindi, Saturday morning saw me crossing the Tiber at the Ponte Garibaldi and haring off to the Lateran for our meet-up. Despite the cold and my lightweight coat, I was almost steaming by the time I sped up towards the obelisk of San Giovanni.

Don't you find the obelisks of Rome fascinating? Trophies of Rome's conquering heroes, 13 of these giants exist in piazzas all over the city. Eight were shipped to Rome from Egypt between AD 40 and AD 400, using specially constructed ships to carry the weight of the stone. The obelisks were transported down the Nile to Alexandria, and across the mediterranean sea to Ostia. Pliny wrote about these ships in his Natural History, and it's thought ships carried the obelisks suspended under the water to bear the weight. 

At 11am, our small group huddled at the base of the obelisk under a bright blue sky and listened to the exploits of the Emperor Constantine - his creation of the original church in the 4th century and his battle against Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge - and the remodelling and enlargement of the  church under Pope Sixtus V, and further embelishment  by Borromini in the 1600's. And we learned too that the Lateran obelisk originally stood in the Temple of Karnak in Thebes before Constantine had it shipped to Rome in 357. Standing first in the Circus Maximus, the obelisk was moved to its present location in 1588. As Rome's tallest, it can be see directly from the Colosseum taking the approach along the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano.

 

The interior of the cathedral of San Giovanni is certainly magnificent but we were all captivated by the cloister. Curved and twisted columns, inlaid with mosaic, line the covered porticos of the cloister, guarded at each of the entrances to the central garden by stone lions and tiny sphinxes. Along the walls of the cloister, sarcophagi, statuary and fragments of columns are embedded.

We crossed over to the Scala Sancta, the sacred steps, and watched groups of people climb the ancient steps, thought to have been brought to Rome in 326 from Jerusalem. Medieval legend says these are the steps Jesus Christ ascended to meet Pontius Pilate. Pilgrims and the devout climb the stairs on their knees as an act of holy indulgence. At the top of the stairs is a sanctum containing an ancient relic, the icon of Santissimi Salvatore Acheiropoieton (or "not made by human hands" - that is, the work of angels). During Easter the Scala Sancta are climbed by thousands of pilgrims who make the journey to Rome.

 

Our Saturday tour was a long one, with about four hours touring the Lateran complex. We had a late lunch on our way back down to the city, afterwards walking down though the late afternoon sunlight to the spot that always seems to be Rome's marker, the Vittorio Emanuele Monument.

 

As always, after a few hours of italian my brain is tired. But on Saturday I was bodily tired too - a lot of walking (10-12 kilometres)! Today has been a relaxing day, with a walk through the Largo Argentina onto Rome's Via Condotti and the Spanish Steps.  The winter sales continue: Hermes, Armani, Max Mara,  Prada and Furla are clearing their stores for Spring.  Bargain hunters are everywhere and the Via del Corso was packed with people.  There were so many people sidewalks were abandoned; most were walking along the city streets.

 

It was all a bit crazy, so for sanity's sake I dropped into Obika, the mozzarella bar in the Campo de' Fiori for a glass of wine and a plate of San Daniele prosciutto and fresh cheese:

 

before heading back for a long and newsy Skype with Jim, followed by an hour with one of my conversation exchange buddies, also via Skype, on my weekend in italian. 

Monday marks the beginning of my fourth school week, with an exam at the end of this week to (hopefully) move up into the next level.

Wish me luck!

It's not all wine and roses, y'know

I'm going to come clean: I'm finding it tough being a student.

I know, I know - you think I'm sitting about in cafes, drinking endless cups of espresso and ambling idly off to school for a couple of hours, don't you?  I can relate to this, because that's pretty well what I envisaged for myself.  I'd just put in a little bit of effort and somehow, miraculously, the language would just wash all over me.

This is emphatically not the case.

For starters, every weekday, for three and a half hours, I sit in a schoolroom listening to, or talking in, italian.  No breaking into english.  No sneakily using the internet to translate a tough sentence (though trust me, Google Translate does not translate; neither does Babelfish).  No opening your dictionary and checking out a word.  And its rapid-fire italian too.  Don't know, or can't differentiate, the difference between ho sbagliato (I made a mistake) and ho svegliato (I woke up)?  Well, avanti! Work it out and move on!

On top of that, there's about four hour's study a day, to get through the set revision and prepare for the next class.

On top of that, there's the need to read as much as possible, talk as much as possible in everyday situations, and watch the news, documentaries, sit-coms, commercials - in fact anything that will help with the spoken word.

When Friday evening comes around, I feel quite liberated.  I excitedly plan the walks I'll take through Rome, the museums I'll visit, the shopping I'll do and the leisurely coffees I'll drink.  I don't do Friday's revision because I'm planning my weekend, chatting with Jim on Skype, or messing around on the internet in a devil-may-care, hey-what-the-heck-it's-Friday sort of a mood.

So I spend Saturday sitting in cafes, smiling at everyone, strolling down to Trastevere or over to the Campo de' Fiori, and having a bit of social time.  Then I realise it's Sunday and a) I haven't done my laundry or any shopping and more importantly, b) I haven't done my homework and it's all a mad scramble again for Monday.

Sometimes I feel like this:

When I want to feel like this:

Despite which, I have to say, I'm loving it. My brain is engaged, and sometimes I can grammatically make myself understood. I actually get a kick out of having a conversation with the cashier at my local supermarket, or an even longer conversation with one of my language exchange buddies. Just today, I talked for half an hour about the concept of dumpster diving, and the adoption of food-scavenging, by the X- and Y- generation middle-classes. I might just nail this language yet.

Link: A taste of school life

Want to envisage what learning italian in Rome is like?   Check out this video made by my school http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQgQMsZvZM8. 

Most of our teachers are featured, including blonde Silvia who takes us around Rome on historic walks with such enthusiasm and knowledge for her city, and the lovely bearded Claudio, who makes Tuesday dinners, and weekend tours, so much fun.

 

Down to San Clemente

This afternoon I found myself standing outside the Colosseum, with some of my fellow students in probably the coldest Rome day yet.  At 2pm in the afternoon, it was 3 degrees.

I've already mentioned that my language school, the Leonardo da Vinci scuola, runs extra activities during the week for students.  These range from Monday tandems (language exchange) to Tuesday pizzas or pastas, Wednesday history walks with Silvia, Thursday pronunciation classes and Friday or Saturday tours or trekking.

Today we visited the Basilica of San Clemente with Claudio.  We arranged to meet outside the Colosseum Metro stop at 2pm.

I took a detour before meeting up with the group through Rome's Jewish quarter where the restaurants, who specialise in carciofi dishes, were displaying the last of the season's bounty.

These beautiful artichokes are slow braised until tender, then crisp fried in olive oil and served as an antipasto dish, and I plan on trying some before they disappear in the Spring.

After climbing up to the Capitoline Hill past the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, and a very quiet museum office, I headed down past the Roman Forum onto the Via dei Foro Imperiali.  From Trajan's Markets, you can look back to the huge Vittorio Emanuele monument, with the quadrigas on top visible from just about anywhere in Rome.

Rome is very quiet now with only a smattering of tourists.  As we stood fidgeting in the cold, and listening to Claudio recount the history of Nero's Palace, the Great Fire of Rome and the subsequent construction of the Colosseum by the Emperor Vespasian, I was slowly conscious of beginning to pick up more and more italian.  Of course Claudio's expert mime techniques also help with comprehension.

As we made our way over to the Basilica of San Clemente, we passed the excavated gladiator school and stood peering over the edge into the honeycomb of rooms used for training and fighting.  Claudio recounted how the gladiators used a secret tunnel for approaching the Colosseum, no doubt springing into the central arena to much audience surprise.

 
 

I've written about San Clemente before, the three level church that stands just behind the Colosseum in the Via Labicana.  The 12th century church at today's street level is really lovely, with its golden mosaic apse and Cosmatesque marble floor, and its ancient columns of marble and granite.  What makes this church fascinating, though, is that it stands over the footprint of a 4th Century church, and under that, 60 feet down, is an a Roman house of the Flavian period and mithraic temple.  For five euros, you can collect your ticket from the kiosk and descend 2000 years.

As we explored the faded mosiacs of the second level, Claudio told us that scholars have been able to discern the passage from Latin to vernacular italian in the annotated scenes of the life of St Clement.  And there is profanity here too, with the capture of the saint by Sisinnius who exhorts his slaves 'Fili de le pute, traite', which translated means 'Come on, you sons of bitches, pull!'.

 
 

Climbing down to the lower level, once a Roman street, we passed the narrow passage between the private house of wealthy Romans and the public offices, thought to have been the imperial Mint of Rome.  

Within this room, the subterranean waters can be heard rushing below, and a niche cut into the rock shows the water cascading down over the stones.  Claudio told us there were two theories as to the source of the water: it either comes from one of the original aqueducts of Rome, or a lost spring, attributed to the deities.

Talking and Eating in Rome

Finally winter has arrived in Rome!

Today it has poured with rain.  The puddles are several inches deep around Trastevere, and also over on the Via del Corso, where I went today for a meet up with my new languge exchange buddy, Mario.

We met for an hour and a half in the Feltrinelli bookshop cafe (Feltrinelli are the largest chain of bookstores in Italy) and it was challenging and fun.  Although it is a bit daunting to meet a total stranger and mangle their language in front of them, I found Mario a genuinely nice person who was very easy to talk with.  And of course, like most Roman X- and Y-gens, his english is near perfect.

We have agreed to meet up once a week over coffee and split the conversation between italian and english.  This is great for learning in an equitable environment; there is more of a balance when both parties are learning (as opposed to a teaching situation, where the balance is always towards the teacher). I'm hoping I can continue to talk with native speakers via Skype when back home.

Above is the Piazza Navona, photographed from under my umbrella as I walked over to the scuola after my meet-up.

School today was fun - we are currently working in the future tense, with some inventive 'In the future [classmate] will...'. Stories ranged from become a famous actress, play professional soccer, become a prima ballerina, speak italian better than the italians...

I really love my new class, and my classmates are a great bunch of people.  Some of them have come to Rome to live, some are here only briefly, and some have a few months like me.  New people come and go all the time, and today an Australian guy joined our group.  We both got some pleasure out of hearing each others accent and have arranged to hook up at some stage for a drink (something we do better than any other race, we think).

Yesterday I missed my class as I'd previously booked a Context tour before switching to afternoons. The tour took us through some of the food highlights of Rome.

First stop was in the Jewish Ghetto to taste some olive oil from a Tuscan producer, who has opened a small farmshop in the city. The oil was grassy, slightly cloudy, fresh and delicious.

Next stop, for a range of cheese tasting and wine, was at Beppe e i Suoi Formaggi.  An absolute standout was the gorgonzola, paired with nebbiolo wine.  As Beppe, the owner, has married a frenchwoman the store showcases italian and french products. The shelves were stacked with cassoulet, duck confit, foie gras, dried pasta, chocolates and wine.  And the smell of cheeses, when walking in, was pungent and heavenly.

As we walked, our guide explained the eating culture in Rome, and particularly the adherence to the traditional four pastas of Rome  - carbonara, amatriciana, cacio e pepe and gricia.  Gricia deviates only slightly from the amatriciana in that there are no tomatoes in the sauce.  This hails back to when the italians were highly mistrustful of the tomato (related as it is to deadly nightshade).

We continued on over to Rosciolis in the Campo de' Fiori area to taste Rome's best pizza and watch the enormous slabs of dough being worked, prior to going into the oven.  A few minutes later the dough has transformed into  golden and crispy pizza bianca. The pizza chef was a natural showman :-)

Onward into the Campo de' Fiori piazza and to the Norcereria, to taste salame, prosciutto and other cured meats.  One salami was studded with black truffle - it was really something to taste AND smell.

 

By now the rain had really set in, and dripping under our umbrellas, we headed to an artisanal gelateria on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele for gelato.  Vice is a relatively new gelateria in Rome, and has already made a name for itself.  The gelateria uses single-sourced producers for their flavours - sicilian mandarins, lemons from Amalfi, pistachios from Bronte, hazelnuts from Alba.  And the chocolate is made from Valrhona.  The good news is, there's only 4% butterfat in their gelato.  That's better than yoghurt!

Our last stop was to see the coffee roasters at Sant' Eustachio, one of the best and most famous cafes in Rome.  By now our group was ready for the restorative power of espresso (although it was interesting to learn that coffee was banned by the christian church a few hundred years ago, until one particular member of the papacy relented).

 

After our tour finished, I joined one of my fellow travellers to see the presepe (nativity scene) in the church opposite the cafe, before it is dismantled until next Christmas. This one is fantastic in its tiny detail, including the faithful reproduction of the buildings of the Piazza San' Eustachio. Even the tiny bakery has a glowing wood oven!   As the festive season is now officially over, the Christmas lights are beginning to come down, and it'll be quite bare along the Roman streets when the last ones are taken away.

Immersing (slowly)

I've started this week with a class change to afternoons.

This is very good news for me, as it now means my classes run from 2pm to 5.30pm.  Most school extracurricular activities begin at 5.35 so I now have the luxury of getting up later, enjoying a little more leisure (and more of Rome) during the day and continuing on into the evening.

I'm one happy student. I was finding my original class was just too disruptive with a teaching style that wasn't engaging.  My new teacher Marta uses a far more didactic approach and the class size is smaller, which has meant a great day of off-the-cuff story telling (trust me, this is hard with my current level of fluency) and some conversation about our weekends and our backgrounds.

Tomorrow I have a day off school as I'm booked on a Context tour of Rome's culinary gems - this includes coffee tasting, visiting the Ghetto for carciofi fritti, artisan gelati and Rome's best pizza houses.    Fortunately I walk so much that I'm not too worried about the calories -  I find I walk at least two hours a day, including lots of time climbing stairs.  Stairs to my classroom at the scuola, stairs to my apartment, stairs up to the Gianicolo..

Last night my landlady Sari and I drove over to Testaccio for dinner at Angelina in Testaccio and it was an amazing meal - home made pasta with rosemary and guinciale.  Testaccio has become a mecca for good and innovative food, and its popularily is attested in that we spent more time circling the streets looking for somewhere to park than in driving over from Trastevere (about 5 minutes in the car). Rome belted out a storm while we ate with impressive amounts of rain, thunder and lightning and the roads were almost deserted.  We managed to pull up right outside and avoid getting completely drenched.

The restaurant is in a converted warehouse and is decidedly un-Roman like in the decor and well spaced tables, however the service and the food is italian in the most positive sense.  I find I am slowly understanding more of the language and could order my food with relative confidence. Piano, piano.

Yesterday I took the plunge and put a profile post up on the Conversation Exchange site seeking some italian conversation buddies. The concept is that you either meet your buddy face-to-face, chat via skype or use email or Facebook.  In 24 hours I've had a lot of responses from italians wanting to improve their english in exchange for me speaking in italian.  Tonight I've chatted with Angelo from the north of italy, who is not only learning English but also Polish, and who is a history teacher who connects with people all over the globe. I really enjoyed the opportunity to practice the language and can't have been too excruciating as we are chatting again on Sunday.  I also have a face-to-face meeting over coffee this Wednesday with a young Roman man who is learning english so I'm hopeful I'll get the opportunity to learn more colloquial italian. 

Una bella giornata

Rome produced a beautiful winter's morning for me today.
 

I was out the door a little before 10am and the sun, although shining was still low in the sky, creating deep shadows in my piazza. This is the view from the front door of my building, looking towards the Trattoria degli Amici.

I like this little restaurant. As part of the Trastevere Sant' Egidio community, the proprietor employs some disabled staff who look after their customers with an engaging friendliness.  And the food is delicious.

Note the staff T-shirts, a very useful memory aid for me in learning gender-specific nouns :-)

After a coffee and cornetto over the Tiber at the Piazza Farnese, and a quick stop for bread from the forno in the Campo de' Fiori, I headed back over to my local market, the San Cosimato for some healthy fruit and veg (this to counteract all the pizza, pasta and bar snacks I've consumed this week).  The market is about three street blocks away from my apartment.

 

At 11.00am the market was reasonably busy, with the covered stalls on the perimeter selling fresh meat, cheeses and other cold goods, and fruit and veg stalls in the centre.  I particularly liked the semi-circle of school kids, busily sketching half a swordfish gorily displayed on the fish seller's slab. 

 

Loaded down with garlic, asparagus, apples, blood oranges, zucchini, leeks, potatoes, carrots and cavolo nero cabbage (and a little bunch of parsley - prezzemolo) I headed back through the Santa Maria Square to my apartment; at the left here is the little street that runs between Santa Maria and my square, the San Egidio.  Just look at that winter sky!

 

I've got a big pot of minestrone on the stove as I write and it smells fantastic.

Last night I had drinks with my landlady, Sari Gilbert, a journalist and New Yorker who's lived in Rome for 30 years.  Aside from being funny, extremely fluent in italian and a great mimic, she has a fantastic knowledge of the city, having co-authored the National Geographic Traveller guide to Rome with fellow american Michael Brouse.  If you are travelling to Rome (or even armchair travelling), it is really worth investing in a copy of this guide - it truly is the best one I've used.   

This afternoon I headed out with Sari's guide in hand to explore the Renaissance and baroque palaces in the Campo Marzio area, which was the name the ancient Romans gave to the broad expanse of uninhabited land that stretched from the Quirinal Hill to the Tiber River.  From about the 4th century BC this vast flood plain was used for military encampment and exercises, and subsequently for games and athletic competitions.   

Starting near the Piazza Farnese (which lies within the old Campo Marzio), I headed up past the L-shaped 16th C. Palazzo Ricci - my newest favourite palace in Rome - to the little marble plaque that marks the perimeter of the ancient Roman neighbourhood and dates from the reign of the Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54).  In September Jim and I stayed on the Banchi Vecchi almost next to this plaque and neither of us noticed it. 

Rather modestly, it says:

'Boundary Mark Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (The Emperor Claudius) son of Drusus, High Priest, Acclaimed Emperor in the 9th Tribunate For the 16th Time Consul For the 4th Time Censor, Father of the Fatherland, after having increased the Territory of the People of Rome, extended their city's confines, here marked by the 36th Boundary Stone.
XLIX A.C.'

After heading all the way along the Via Monserrat and then all the way back along the Via Guilia, I went over into the Jewish Ghetto, past the very lovely Turtle Fountain  and skirted past the Theatre of Marcellus.  This theatre, built by Augustus and dedicated to his nephew (and heir, had he lived)  pre-dates the Colosseum by a good 80 years and seems rarely visited.  With the Portico of Octavia closeby, and approaching from the Ghetto side, it's a great city walk.

I continued on over the Campidoglio to look out over the Forum in the late afternoon.  Very few people were moving out among the ruins, and the temperature had dropped sharply.  The light is very soft at this time of the year and up on the Palatine Hill the vegetation looks very lush and green.

On the way back up past the Campidoglio I saw this very delightful bit of topiary.  The twins still need to fill out a bit, as does the she-wolf's snout and undercarriage, but you get the general picture.

 

Fa Freddo (or, It Makes Cold)

A shortish post today, on day three of my 12 week language course.  I'm finding my days are pretty full, with over three hours at school each morning, further study in the afternoon, and extra school activities at night.  Here's how a typical day arranges itself.



Via Guilia
 

My morning walk to school is mainly along the Via Guilia, one of the first streets to be constructed in Rome since antiquity.  The Via Guilia skirts the Tiber river, and runs in a straight line for a full kilometre. It was constructed 500+ years ago by Donato Bramante (who was also responsible for the Basilica of St Peter).

The arch spanning the street was built by Michelangelo as a plan to link the Palazzo Farnese (now the French embassy, and one of the most imposing and beautiful palaces in Rome) with the Farnese villa on the other side of the Tiber, in Trastevere.  It was never completed.

All along the Via Guilia are the backs of palazzi interspersed with antique and design stores.  The cobbles are extremely uneven here and I've already ruined two sets of heels (although this has forced me to locate the calzolaio - the cobbler).

 



Fountain of the Mask

A little further along the street, behind the Palazzo Farnese is the Fountain of the Mask.  It was commissioned by the Farnese family in 1626 and is a happy combination of two ancient sculptures.  According to myth the family would make wine gush from the fountain at party time.

When I arrive at the scuola, there are usually students milling about with takeaway coffee (and quite a few of them are furiously smoking their cigarettes down to the stub).

 

We have two 1.5 hour classes, grammar and conversation, with the last 15 minutes or so of the conversation class an open "Ask Me" session with the tutor. This is where questions, such as What do I do (and say) when I spill my dinner in a restaurant and how do I get the waitress to help me, How do I offer my seat on the bus without giving offence, and What's the italian placatory equivalent phrase of "no problem" get raised (and sometime answered; some seem unanswerable).

 

This afternoon, I've spent a couple of hours revising today's grammar while sitting in the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, which is the main piazza just behind my own tiny square, the Piazza San Egidio, in Trastevere.  I can hear the quarter-hour peal of this belltower from my sitting room window.

 

I've been sitting at the cafe opposite the church sipping a bitter aperitivo, whilst grappling with direct and indirect pronouns.  Later this evening, the scuola offered a walk though the palazzi of Rome - the Cancelleria, Farnese and Spada palaces.  Perhaps twenty of us met and explored these renaissance buildings with our italian guide.  I was surprised at how much of the guide's conversation I understood.  We finished our walk with a look at the site of Pompey's theatre, including viewing the ancient foundations under the Campo de' Fiori.

 

Consequently I'm now luxuriating in my central heating back at the apartment, further revision yet to be done in preparation for tomorrow.  As you can see, Rome has clouded over today and it feels colder this evening.  For the first time, I've ventured out wearing both a scarf and gloves.

 

 

Alla scuola

First day of language school today which meant an early start.  At 8am I was crossing the Tiber at the Ponte Sisto bridge and it was cold - so cold my breath was coming out in opaque wisps.  Despite this, the sky was again clear and sunny. I had to stop on the bridge and look out towards St Peter's to remind myself that I 'm actually here in Rome, living and studying in this wonderful city.
 

It's a very pleasant and picturesque walk to school, crossing first the Ponte Sisto, then travelling up the Via Guilia, skirting past the back of the Farnese Palace, turning again at the Via Banchi Vecchi and crossing the Corso Vittorio Emanuele to the Piazza Orologio.  In all, it takes just over 15 minutes from my front door in Trastevere to the school, which is near the Piazza Navona.

The language school (up above here) is housed in an old palazzo that dominates this tiny square.  At 8.30am, there were two dozen or so people waiting for the school to open and there was a small stampede when the doors finally were unlocked and we were allowed in to the tiny foyer.   Partly this was due to the heating therein.

By 8.55 I was allotted my four page test and given 15 minutes to complete it.  Yikes!  After very quickly answering the front page questions in italian, (Where are you from?  Why are you studying here? How did you know about us? How long will you be in Rome?) I got stuck into answering various multiple choice questions on grammar.  I then had a five minute conversation with a language teacher, again all in italian and was sent out, along with my fellow students to await the result.   After about an hour, I found myself graded to fourth level of a potential 12 levels, which means by the time I leave the school I should be relatively fluent. 

For now, I am studying with one canadian girl, one puerto rican teenager, one  spaniard twenty-something, one nederlander and one korean priest.  I am the oldest by far.  Four of the students are continuing on from last year, with Maud from Holland and myself the new students. Our teacher is a zany italian who communicates by a series of mime, whistles and rapid fire italian.  It should be an entertaining few weeks. 

We began with some conversation today, then switched to my least favourite grammar topic - prepositions.   I managed to understand and be understood.  It's a comfortable pace, and it feels like I'm in the right class.  There are extra school activities most days, such as conversation and drinks, history walks, trekking, eating out, museum visits and extra classes on aspects of the language.  Taking advantage of these can only help improve my fluency.

This afternoon  I had a quick stop at the apartment, a skype conversation with Jim, and a walk through the tiny streets of Trastevere to the San Francesco a Ripa church to see this work by Bernini. It's entitled Beata Ludovica Albertoni and Bernini was 71 years old when he began the sculpture for the Cardinal Albertoni (later Pope Clement X).  Interpretation of the statue's true meaning of "ecstasy" varies, but regardless, its an astonishing sculpture with a level of realism in the cushions and draperies to the figure.  The church was deserted except for one priest pottering about so I had the work to myself.

 

Rome seemed a lot quieter today (perhaps the end of many family holidays) and Trastevere almost empty.  I took a walk up to the belvedere to look out over Rome at dusk.  The christmas lights are all still hanging in the neighbourhood and there's very little traffic moving through the streets.

 

From the belvedere you can look out over Rome and it's a wintry scene, looking through bare tree branches to the Castel San Angelo, and further to the left, the dome of the Vatican.

 

Right now, I'm back at the apartment working on some revision for tomorrow's class with a glass of Venaccia to hand.   Tomorrow's forecast is similar to today - cold and clear - and I've got a slightly later start at school.