Rome Unvisited: October 2010

Part 2 of my giant update is here! I just got back from an English fieldtrip to see some Caravaggio paintings in three different churches around Rome, including The Calling of St. Matthew and The Conversion on the Road to Damascus. We ended up at Santa Maria del Popolo (in the Piazza del Popolo). On our way home, we stopped for pizza at Alice's (our new favorite) AND gelato at a famous gelateria called Giolitti, where William and Jacob tried a combo of raspberry and champagne flavors!

This past weekend was our group trip to Pompeii and Naples. We all took a charter bus from the residence early Friday morning; it was about a three hour ride to our wine tasting and lunch at the Cantina del Vesuvio -- an incredible winery at the base of Mt. Vesuvius. We met Audrey, our guide for the weekend, at the winery, and proceeded to eat a delicious and entirely local lunch along with our wine tasting. The owner of the vineyard, Maurizio, explained that all the food we were eating came from no further than 7 km away, and most of it was produced by family members or close friends. We had bruschetta with freshly baked bread, tomatoes, and olive oil made at the winery, a spicy pecorino, fresh salumi, and a simple spaghetti with tomato and basil. For dessert, along with apricot infused grappa, we had slices of the traditional "Pastiera Napoletana," typically eaten at easter, made with ricotta, candied orange peel, and wheat-berries. The wine Maurizio produces can only be purchased on-site. He doesn't have an online business or export his product even within the country. We tried a white wine called Lacryma Christi (tears of Christ), then the Lacryma Christi rosé, and finally a rosso Maestro from 2007: Aglianico Pompeiano. Audrey and one of the vineyard staff led us on a walking tour post-lunch, and we got to taste all the varieties of grapes right from the vine.

Eventually, we had to tear ourselves away and pile back onto the bus. Our hotel -- a converted monastery overlooking the bay of Naples -- was in the small town of Castellammare. We were split up into doubles, so Kate and I just stuck together. It was pretty nice having a private bathroom with decent water pressure for a couple of days. We were all on the fourth floor, with beautiful views of the bay from the balconies on either end of the hall. Our meals, aside from bag lunches the hotel provided, were all served in the dining room downstairs, and were actually incredibly good. There was a breakfast buffet with freshly baked cornetti both mornings, and they served delicious two-course dinners with wine and dessert. The first night we were there, their chef of the past 30 years was having her retirement party, and Audrey encouraged anyone who wanted to attend the festivities after dinner. Most of the group went straight to bed since it had been a long day, but a few of us stuck around and stood there sheepishly until Vincenzo, the 80-year-old gardener/life of the party, welcomed us in and practically force-fed us pizza and prosecco. We were beckoned wildly by a group of scurrying partygoers to move out to the garden, where we discovered that fireworks were being set off! Then it was back inside for cake and dancing; Vincenzo was the most enthusiastic participant in both activities. After a little while we decided to head up to bed, and Vincenzo told us how much he had enjoyed seeing Americans who smiled so much (because for him, we are usually very serious).

Our tour on Friday included two separate villas in Stabiae, about 4.5 km southwest of Pompeii itself, which had been rediscovered during the 50s by a highschool principal. Stabiae was basically a resort town, and these villas were summer homes of the wealthy, nestled in the mountains overlooking the bay of Naples. This area, now called Castellammare di Stabia, has always been valued for its natural spring water, said to have medicinal properties. We got to drink this water during our stay, which was cool because a lot of it is naturally slightly carbonated. On Saturday, we were in Pompeii itself. We had a guided tour for part of the time and were on our own to wander around for a few hours toward the end of the day. It's incredible how well-preserved the whole town is, especially many of the frescoes inside the houses. Seeing the body casts was also very strange and disconcerting. The casts were made in 1863 after Giuseppe Fiorelli had the idea of filling the body-shaped cavities with gesso, so that a precise cast of each body could be created. My favorite part of Pompeii was the Villa dei Misteri, a house set somewhat far-off from the rest of the town. There are particularly vibrant frescoes on the interior walls of this villa, depicting cryptic rituals (thus the name "Misteri"). There are also tons of stray dogs in Pompeii with red collars who are up for adoption, which was kind of heartbreaking -- a few of them followed us around for periods of time.

The first body cast we saw....right before my camera died

On Sunday, we went to Naples for a few hours, really just enough time to look around the museum, which houses a lot of sculptures, frescoes, and smaller artifacts from Pompeii. It was too bad we didn't have more time to get Neapolitan pizza or explore the city a bit more. Although, it was a Sunday morning, so a lot of shops and restaurants were closed. From what I saw, Naples has a very different atmosphere than anywhere I've been in Northern Italy. The buildings are very brightly colored and things seem a bit dirtier. I'd like to explore the south of Italy more...

I'm sure my avid fan-base (mom and dad) has been waiting with bated breath for this update. Since I need to cover both my weekend trip to Venice, and THIS weekend in Naples and Pompeii, I'm splitting the post into two sections. Here goes part one...

Last weekend, the weekend of the 24th through 26th, Kate, Jacob, William, Andrew, and I went to Venice together! It was a 6.5 hour train ride, but the tickets we found were almost half the price of the express train. Once we got to the train station in Venice, it was just a short water bus ride to our hostel, which was on the opposite side of the grand canal, about a 30 minute walk, from the Piazza di San Marco. The hostel was called The Museum...I'd recommend it to any young person traveling to Venice. It's basically just a beautiful old palazzo with high ceilings, venetian chandeliers, and ornate moldings, staffed by a bunch of 18-23 year olds from Australia, New Zealand, and London, who took us out both nights we were there. There was also a 5 euro dinner they offered, which we ate the night we arrived. It turned out to be delicious -- pasta and quiche -- and was a good way to meet some of the other people staying at the hostel. It rained pretty hard on Friday night, but luckily the storm was over by mid-morning Saturday. Since we only had one day for sight seeing, we hit the ground running.

We got cappuccini and cornetti (pastries) at a caffè to get us going, and started making our way in the general direction of San Marco. En route, we passed through the big fish market, which was really cool to see. When we were almost at the square, we noticed some people tying plastic bags around their ankles to protect their feet. Then we saw that the entire piazza was flooded with about 5 inches of water from the rain plus overflow from the canals. I guess this is a pretty common occurrence, which the Venetians call "acqua alta" (high water). They had set up some raised walkways, but many tourists were either using the plastic bag method or simply rolling up their pants and wading through the water. We decided to go for the latter technique and waded through the piazza, which, despite the filthy water, was actually pretty cool. The sun was shining brilliantly and it almost seemed like Venice was sinking before our eyes. Once we got to the other side of the piazza -- there was no point even trying to get into the church at this point -- we headed for the Traghetto stop to take us across the canal to the Guggenheim. The Traghetti are simple wooden gondolas that cost about 50 euro cents to get to the other side of the grand canal. They turned out not to be running because of the acqua alta, so we just walked to the Ponte dell'Academia and got to the museum from there. The Guggenheim in Venice is one of my favorite museums, largely because of the setting, but also because of the amazing permanent collection, so it was fun to take my friends who'd never been before. We had tea and some lunch at the museum caffè after looking at the art, and then headed back toward San Marco. By the time we got back to the piazza only a few hours later, it was, oddly, completely dried out. Unfortunately we could only get a peek into the cathedral, because there was an exclusive mass hosting some important bishop that only Venetian priests were allowed to attend. After wandering more and freshening up at the hostel, we found a place to treat ourselves to dinner, called Osteria Vivaldi. I had a really good prosciutto and melon antipasto and the Vivaldi risotto with seafood. Even though we had to pack up and be at the train station by noon the next day, it felt like we'd fit a lot into the weekend and it was well worth the long travel days. We made it back to Rome just in time for family dinner on Sunday!

P.S. I've discovered a couple really excellent gelaterias in Rome: San Crispino and Gelateria del Teatro. I've been to San Crispino a couple times, and I think it remains my favorite. The first time I went I tried a combo of white fig and hazelnut/meringue, and the second time I had banana and caffè, each of which was absolutely perfect. Today we tried del Teatro for the first time, and I had sage/raspberry and white chocolate/basil. The sage/raspberry was delicious, and I want to try more of their flavors, but so far San Crispino takes the cake.

Part two coming very soon!