Rome
Already the anal traveler, I managed to get Lisa and I out of the airport, onto the train, into a cab, and at the front door of the Hotel Romano fairly effortlessly. The Hotel Romano, on (our words) Chaos Street, was across from a traffic circle that was like nothing we’d ever seen before, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a traffic circle like it, since. Could be that virgin thing going on – the first traffic circle in Italy is always the most memorable. From our room, we had a view of Chaos Street, the traffic circle, and slightly in the distance, the Vittorio Emmanuel building. I know this building gets a lot of grief for being ugly, but at the time, it was pretty impressive.
I almost immediately went across the street to a little deli and bought a bottle of wine, thrilled and astounded, of course, by the breadth of selection and the low prices in what seemed to be a simple market and deli on Chaos Street. Lisa and I rested and drank it in our room. I can’t tell you how blown away we were already, and it had only been a couple of hours.
At dusk we ventured out for exploration and dinner. Right by our hotel, we stumbled upon one of those excavated areas, the ones that have all the ruins coming up and colored lights shining on them. We looked at the ruins, and looked at each other, our jaws dropping and our eyes about to pop out of our heads. I will never forget seeing what I saw, that first night in Rome.
We wandered. We passed a bizarre looking bar called “Queen Lizard” that was not open for the evening yet. “We have to go back there,” I told Lisa, but I could not find it later that night. We had a lame touristy dinner, nothing special, but one of the street vendors with lighters that look like phallic shotguns came around and we bought some stuff from him. When you are a virgin, you don’t know any better. Then we hit a couple of bars, and all of a sudden it was really late, like two in the morning. We were buzzed and how I ever got us back to the hotel is a complete mystery to me. While walking back, cars kept pulling up with guys in them, trying to pick us up, but hello – I knew about “VA VIA” from the Rick Steves book! These guys weren’t kids trying to pull that cardboard trick thing – they were just horny Roman youth.
Another little tidbit NOT in the Rick Steves book was the leaving of the hotel key with the desk clerk before venturing out into the night. “Damn, this key is BIG,” Lisa said as she put it in her purse earlier that evening. Well, when we arrived at the hotel, it was all locked up and dark, of course. We banged on the door until the desk guy, looking baffled, also sleepy, came and let us in. “Dove Chiava?” He said. “We HAVE it!” We said, like he was an idiot or something.
When Elliott and Donna came the next day and filled us in about the leaving of the key, we were mortified. We learned fast, at least.
The next morning, Lisa and I were a little hung over. We’d been running on adrenalin, and that was pretty much gone. We went down and had our first Italian coffee and some dry toast packaged in a cellophane wrapper on Chaos Street, then wandered off for our first whole day in Italy. Italy is possibly, in itself, the best cure for a hangover you could hope for.
We walked to the Colosseum, and our looking at something random/looking at each other/jaw dropping began afresh. There is no way to describe accurately your first look at that amazing structure. To make things even better, we walked up a little street to get a better view and discovered a bar there. A bar, across the street from the Colosseum! We went in and ordered white wine and pointed at some sandwiches. The barman was immediately in love with Lisa and motioned for us to go and sit outside with a big, happy smile on his face.
Well. We just kept looking at the Colosseum, up at the blue sky, at each other. We were so completely enraptured with the whole experience and we hadn’t even taken our first bite of panini yet. When we did, it was the best bite of sandwich we’d had in our lives, at that point. Thinly sliced eggplant and melted cheese on crusty, grilled flatbread, washed down by cold white wine. All at a little bar across from an ancient behemoth world wonder. While we sat there, two police went down the little street in front of us in their car. “Look, Lisa” I said. “Their outfits are Armani.” At that moment the policeman on the passenger side blew us a kiss. “Holy F*&^&ing F*&^&.” I said. How was it that I’d been on the planet 34 years and not been to this place of magic before?
From there, we walked around, absorbing Rome. Donna and Elliott were due to arrive in the late afternoon, so we walked back to the hotel to get them. They were there, but resting, so we had a short rest too, and then we all headed out to dinner. We crossed the river into Trastevere, and found our way to a restaurant called Taverna Mercanti. This was a lucky find. Now I find it is a touristy kind of place, but at the time, it felt very Roman to me. The restaurant was full of what seemed to be locals, anyway. I ate a plate of antipasto from the antipasto bar, and had my very first Italian pizza, with arugula and tomatoes. What a revelation that was. For dessert we ate profiteroles – another revelation.
After that wonderful dinner, we all walked slowly back to the hotel, but passing the Hotel Forum, decided to go to the rooftop bar for a drink. Lisa made immediate friends with the bartender, Fausto, and we had cocktails and a dish of another new find, giant capers.
The next day we all went to the Vatican. The museums and the Sistine Chapel were amazing, but St. Peter’s was what totally blew me away. I actually prayed there, and was moved to tears. The church is so huge and full of feeling. We climbed the gazillion steps to the top and looked out over Rome. What a city! I was falling in love.
We had our lunch in a tavola calda near the Vatican. Once again I was totally blown away by all the food and it barely cost us anything. I went in and pointed at a bunch of stuff, the bar man brought it out to our table, and we feasted on arancini, a few squares of pizza, fresh mozzarella balls and the darkest green beans I’d ever seen, plus a bottle of white wine for us ladies and a beer for Elliott. It cost something like $25 for all that stuff. You can’t even get an order of nachos and two beers for $25, at TGI Fridays.
That evening, we all walked to the Spanish Steps to soak up the ambiance of a Roman Saturday night. The Steps were covered with young people drinking and hanging out, and it had the air of a festival. While there, I started talking to two really handsome, well-dressed businessmen that were also hanging out, and they recommended we try a restaurant somewhere up above the top of the steps. I forget the name of the place, but it was a good meal served up by a Polish waiter. At the end of the meal I asked the waiter if I could buy him a drink, and he brought a whole bottle of vodka out to the table to pour us all shots. I’m fairly sure I didn’t have a shot, of vodka at least, but my recollection is a little hazy so maybe I did.
Back to the Forum Hotel for another drink on that beautiful roof and a visit with Fausto the bartender, and then back to the hotel to totally crash.
Our last day in Rome, we went to the Colosseum. I am mortified to even say this but I wore SHORTS that day. Suffice to say, I have never since worn shorts in any Italian city, or even outside the perimeter of a pool or beach area I have visited in the countryside. On that day, I did though and it’s all right there on film so I can’t try to deny it.
At the Colosseum, Elliott talked us into going on a guided tour, which I did not want to, and the tour was so large and the guide spoke so softly that I couldn’t hear a thing. I left that group pretty quickly. Once we all saw everything we wanted we went back to the bar we’d gone in the first day. Lisa’s little barman was there again, and he stuck his tongue out at her. We had no idea what that was all about, but he was nice enough (like, he did not appear to be sticking his tongue out because he disliked us). Then Lisa and I took off to walk around, and Elliott and Donna went off to do something else. We found a wine shop, and we both bought a bunch of bottles of wine and trippy liquors that we couldn't find at home. We also discovered we could buy Four Roses bourbon and coke in a can. The wonders of Europe never cease. I loved walking around Rome. I could care less if I ever go back inside the Colosseum, but I’ll need to get a street fix from time to time, for the rest of my life.
After our last Roman dinner, we all went back for one last drink at the Hotel Forum, but the bar was closed! Our disappointment was so obvious that Fausto, who we ran into in the lobby, took us over to one paneled wall and opened it up, revealing a bar behind the wall. He poured limoncello for us all, on the house, and we drank it with him and the night manager (who really looked like a creature of the night,) then we took off.
It was late, but I had to do one thing before leaving Rome. I had to find the Queen Lizard, the bar we’d passed on the first day, to have a drink. So I grabbed Lisa – Elliott and Donna were done – and we went to try to find it. Miraculously, we did. Thus began one of the most bizarre middle-of-the-nights of our trip. Inside the Queen Lizard, there was a bar upstairs and a karaoke bar downstairs. We stayed upstairs, with the bartendress who was a bit S & M and the owner, who looked like John Belushi. There was nobody at the upstairs bar when we got there, except one dude with a ponytail, but by the time we left the small bar was packed. John Belushi told us he named the bar after his hero, Jim Morrison, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him Jim Morrison was the Lizard KING. We drank and talked and pointed and laughed with all these random Romans for hours. I asked ponytail boy what he liked to do, and he said, “I like to make love.” Hmm… At one point I bought a round for the bar, and it was something like 40,000 lire. Lisa started kissing John Belushi. I think I wanted to kiss the bartender, but thank god I didn’t. Who knows what time we got home, but eventually we did and passed out for one minute until we had to get up and get a car and drive, all the way to Sorrento. Elliott and Donna wanted to go to Pompeii, so that’s where we went.
