Urban Hiking

Friday June 10^th

Today we spent most of the day just walking around/across Rome in what I call an urban hike. All three of us love hiking and we all have a lot of strength and stamina for extended walking, which is good because by the end of the day today we had walked 11.5 miles! We prefer our hiking in the woods or at National parks, but an urban hike was a nice way to see a lot of Rome.  The metro system here does not come into the city center at all, but just skirts the edges of the city, so if you want to see al lot of the city, walking is the way to go.

We started our day in the far southeastern edges of the city at the old Roman city wall.  We walked through the gate where the Appian Way entered the city. We walked for a few blocks along the “new” Appian way, which now looks like any other urban street. The sprawl of the city of course has now extended far past the original city walls, so what was once quite rural is now just a part of the city.  You can actually go out in the countryside to see parts of the original Appian way and some aquaducts and catacombs, but we did not chose to go outside the city today.

Once you pass through the city gate, an interesting church is immediately off to the left.  This church is legally part of Vatican City, even though it is far from Vatican City itself.  There are three main churches in Rome that are part of Vatican City due to their historic and religious significance.  This church is San Giovanni in Laterna and it is the first legal Christian church in ancient Rome, established by Emperor Constantine just after he legalized Christianity. It is the home church of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) and houses the cathedra (bishop chair) that the Pope must actually come out to the church and sit in once elected to actually assume the papacy.  The church is stunning with gorgeous floor mosaic and an incredible decorated ceiling.  There are amazing mosaics, my favorite of which is Jesus and the 12 apostles depicted as sheep. The sheep that is Jesus is in the center of the flock with a halo.

Across the street from San Giovanni are the Scala Santa (Holy Stairs). These are the stairs from Pontius Pilate’s house in Jerusalem, brought here in the 300s by Emperor Constantine’s mother.  Jesus climbed these steps on the last days of his life.  Allegedly there are blood stains from Jesus on the steps. Regardless of what you believe it is interesting to see the faithful pilgrims ascending the stairs on their knees, praying with each step forward. The stairs were actually closed when we were there around lunch time, but we went back later in the evening to get a peek.

From San Giovanni we walked across the ancient regions of Rome, past Palantine Hill and the Circus Maximus and past the Mouth of Truth to the Tiber River and the old Jewish Ghetto.  One of the popes actually forcibly relocated all the Jews of the city here in a region of town where the Tiber floods repeatedly, and built a walled ghetto to keep them in.  They were free to move about during the day, but were locked in at night.  At each of the two gates into the ghetto, Christians built large churches to try to convert the Jews, and at times in history the ghetto residents were required by law to attend weekly masses, Despite this, the community thrived and is actually now an increasingly trendy region.  There are a lot of excellent restaurants here, including our destination, Sora Margherita.

Sora Margherita is a small hole in the wall restaurant without a sign or a menu, recognized only by its red curtained doorway, and it is not even technically a restaurant but a cultural association.  It was highly recommended to us by our veterinarian (of all people) and it sounded interesting enough to give it a try.  We are really glad that we sought it out, because it was an incredibly fun eating experience.

We were seated at a small wooden table near the kitchen. The walls are plastered with write-ups about the restaurant in all different languages.  The hostess spoke to us in Italian and a bit of broken English, indicating that she was going to bring us some artichokes.  Two whole fried artichokes soon arrived on our table. The leaves were all crispy and dripping with oil, while the heart was softly fried.  She saw that we had never seen anything like it before, and broke off a crispy petal crying “Totale, mangi totale!” and popped it into my mouth.    It was delicious, and unlike anything I have ever eaten before.  The heart was even better, soft in the center and crispy on the edges. 

We weren’t eating fast enough for our hostess though, and when she saw we had not yet started on the heart since we were still eating the leaves, she began pointing and crying “the heart, mangi totale!!!”  Ok – we were trying to pace ourselves as more food kept appearing.  Soon the artichokes were joined by two plates of fried squash blossoms, which were filled with a dab of cheese and something else I couldn’t identify. I’ve never had squash blossoms before, and now I highly recommend them, at least these, which were delicious.  Before we could begin to make a dent in the squash blossoms, and we still working on the artichokes, a giant ball of buffalo mozzarella appeared, surrounded by small cherry tomatoes, cut artistically.

We really needed to pick up the pace now!  We began carving into the mozzarella, which was larger than a softball, and it melted deliciously in our mouths. At the same time we kept working on the artichokes and the squash blossoms, eventually cleaning those plates which were quickly whisked away.

I bit into one of the cherry tomatoes and turned to Paul eyes wide. “Did you taste this?” I asked in amazement. “Yes, it’s delicious,” he sighed in return. The tomatoes had some kind of very light dressing on them that made them just burst with flavor. We quickly devoured the tomatoes and kept working on the enormous mozzarella, our bellies beginning to fill.  Katie kept right us with us on everything but the tomatoes, which she didn’t like (unbelievably).  She really liked he squash blossoms though.

We finished everything except for a small section of the buffalo mozzarella, but our hostess refused to bring anything more out until we had cleaned our plates. “FINISH!” she shouted pointing at the sliver of mozzarella.  So we slowly carved it up and enjoyed a small bit more each.

Now satisfied, our hostess brought out the first course of pasta.  We received a family size bowl of gnocchi in light tomato sauce, and fettuccine with oil, ricotta cheese, pepper and grated parmesan cheese.  The gnocchi was good but I’m not a huge fan of gnocchi so I can’t say how it compares with others. Katie loved it though, surprisingly because she doesn’t like potatoes. The fettuccine though was amazing.  It was freshly made and scalloped along its edges giving it a wavy appearance. The waviness gave it a funny feeling in your mouth, almost a kind of tickling that amused you as you ate it.  The sauce was simple, but absolutely delicious. The two bowls of pasta slowly but surely disappeared, the fettuccine first and then the gnocchi as we parceled out the last few soft pillows of dough evenly.

At this point I was completely stuffed, but the secondo course of meat was yet to come. “Please tell her we are finished and can’t eat any more,” I begged Paul.  As our hostess came around, he got her attention and told her “finito”.  She began to clear our plates in preparation for the next course.  “Finito, no more.” Paul tried again. She looked sternly at us hand on hips.  “FINITO??” she shouted, “But the meat!!”  “No, no Finito,” Paul reiterated.  She looked very disappointed in us, but agreed.  As she was arguing with us over the meat, I saw platters of well-seasoned lamp chops headed to other tables and knew we made the right choice. No matter how delicious they would be, there was no way I could eat lamb chops on top of the five courses we had already eaten.

We soon headed out blinking into the sunlight, happy that we had followed up on this recommendation.

From the Jewish quarter we walked across the Tiber river into the Travestare section of town and followed a small walking tour, then headed along the banks of the Tiber through St. Peters square, then along the walls of Vatican City to the backside and up the hill to our apartment. All told, this section of our urban hike covered over 7.5 miles and took four hours, but with a couple of those hours for lunch!

We rested in the apartment for a few hours and then headed out again in the early evening. We went to see the Holy Stairs which we didn’t see earlier, to see a church that claims to hold the remnants of the Holy Manger (the relic area was disappointingly closed so we can’t comment on what it looked like) and a church that was built on the remains of a roman baths. 

We then walked across town past the Trevi fountain, which was a mob scene, past the Pantheon and to the Piazza Novona with the fountain of the four rivers.  A huge concert stage was being set up right next to the fountains.  We got some gelato at Tre Scalini and ate it as we watched tour groups coming and going, and people browsing around the artists in the square. We finished the day by walking up to the Spanish Steps past all the designer boutiques and watching the people there for a while. Our feet were exhausted by now and we had logged 11.5 miles of walking.

 All in all I prefer the Trocadero in Paris to the Spanish Steps.  My main complaint about Rome is one of its charms for many people – it is so busy and bustling and crowded.  There is little open space, as can be expected in such an old city, but I prefer the open green airy spaces of Paris. Even in one of the main open areas – Piazza Navona - there is little space to sit unless you are in an overpriced restaurant ringing the edges, and you are even blocked from approaching the fountains by metal railings.  Contrast this to Paris’s urban spaces, filled with trees and liberally sprinkled with chairs for you to sit in and relax. The Parisian fountains are open for all to sit on the edges and relax and children sails wooden boats across them.  Rome is a wonderful place to visit, but overall it is not my kind of city.