Three Blocks Down . . .

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This is a game I play in new places. I call it "Three Blocks Down" because I tell myself I will walk just three blocks in any direction from my hotel and get a new perspective, gain some confidence, explore very very locally, and have some fun. It works every time and it is very addictive. Pretty soon those three blocks are three more and then...you get the idea.

Three blocks down from the Turner Hotel, in front of a small pizzeria, stands a muscular young Asian astride a Vespa speaking rapid-fire Italian into a Korean-made cell phone. Anyone still unconvinced that the world is becoming one global village?

Turn right and walk three short blocks to the Piazza Alessandria. Look diagonally to the left. Don’t you dare leave without a visit to Di Cotumaccio Giuseppe, Via Alessandria, 22. Especially if it is Saturday night and every local family is having dinner there.

Every travel guide hints that dining where the locals do is almost always a sure bet for great food and a real-life cultural experience and they are absolutely correct. There are no English subtitles here, but if you try to read Italian, your waiter will speak English with much better success. There are desserts in the showcase like tiny wood strawberries and zabligone, a foamy sort of whipped custard cream. If you are curious, your waiter may bring you a small sampling and, of course, you’ll order some more - - especially those little strawberries. The menu is extensive and excellent. The families filling the dining room with low laughter and quiet conversation look like what Norman Rockwell would have painted, if he’d been Italian.

Learning to explore on your own, to “get lost”, in a good way, has got to be the best travel tip ever. The key to exploring is simple...just walk three blocks down. Or up. Or east, or west, but you get the idea. Curious little adventures lying in wait just around every corner when you decide to get “lost.” These adventures, little secrets, and small serendipitous discoveries are the heart and soul of our romance with travel, but too many times we scare ourselves into group tours and “safe” big-name chain hotels. All too often spending more money than necessary and coming away with a not-so-great experience. With only a week or two per year to experience travel, is that really what you want? Probably, most definitely not.

Europe is great place to start this new “three blocks” exploration. Europe is familiar to most Americans through history, movies, and literature. Guidebooks are everywhere and for every taste. There are bicycling, walking, and hiking tour groups, as well as the more conventional motorcoach or river cruise/tour offerings all of which feature leisure time on your own while in at least one major European capital or large city.

While suggested pre- and post- tour packages are usually overpriced. You can easily put together your own version at a terrific savings and gain a genuine cultural experience by staying close to familiar landmarks in smaller hotels or inns. This is exactly how the extended visit to Rome described in part above, was planned. None of those experiences from the surreal to the sublime would have happened rushing around from mega-hotel to hurried bus tour.

There are a two good rules to live by when venturing out on your own in a big city like Rome. First, research your hotel. What’s nearby? A small, forty-seven room jewel, the Hotel Turner, Piazzale di Porta Pia, 29, 00161 Roma, Rom (Lazio), Italy was recommended by a very seasoned traveler and turned out to be a delightful small European hotel experience.

The Turner Hotel features a small breakfast room and serves a deceptively standard-looking complementary continental breakfast. Deceptive because, if you happen to be from the U.S. (where most such fare is pre-packaged or thawed out overnight), the tarts and assorted pastries are surprisingly fragrant, fresh, and tender morsels to enjoy with fabulous Italian coffee. That’s because they come from the bakery at the other end of the block, near the bank. Right there, across from the Pia Porta. By the way, the bank is a friendly and professional place for cashing traveler’s checks or exchanging money with a very reasonable fee and it’s right in your own neighborhood. Well, by the time you spend just one afternoon exploring those three little blocks, it feels like “your” neighborhood.

The edifice at Porta Pia is one of the last commissions of Michelangelo and was completed in 1562 with additions in 1853. There has been a gate of one name or another here since Augustus built his walls around the city.

The Turner also happens to be very easy walking distance from the Galleria Borghese and the park. The museum’s website is http://www.galleriaborghese.it Tickets are available at http://www.ticketeria.it and are a must. Be sure to check the schedule as it is known to change with the seasons. But, do go and explore this most beautiful little gallery.

The Borghese Park is much larger than just three blocks. In fact, it is a little world all by itself. Taking a walk along the wide avenues or riding the tram which slowly circles the entire park complex is yet another Italian delight. Who needs a novel or a television soap opera, for that matter, when passing young lovers, kissing and now quarreling, on park benches in such surroundings? You’ll find yourself making up a story for them as they pass from view and thinking about them again and again and wondering...just wondering.

The tram ride will take you to a magnificent view overlooking the Vatican and then back to one of several entrances. Near Byron’s statute at the is the Art Cafe serving simple and wonderful entrees, house wine, and with a fresh flower on the umbrella shaded table, a charming and inexpensive lunch al fresco. The walls around the dining area are a whimsical jumble of pieces of roman buildings long gone with bits of words and faces and decorative carving on many.

Refreshed, from the adjacent gate, you can walk to the Spanish Steps and walk down them elegantly (is there any other way?) directly to the designer stores and Café Greco. Café Greco, established 1760, is supposedly too touristy, but it is fascinating and chock full of mementos of the illustrious and notorious of the last few centuries of poets, painters, bon vivants, and rascals who’ve visited. Too touristy? Well, if it’s good enough for Goethe, Mark Twain, Keats, Shelley, Lord Byron, Whistler, what do you think?

Three blocks down and then what’s another block or two? Is that a piazza up there? Don’t you wonder which one and what’s it famous for? After all, this is Rome and everything, everywhere, is famous for something. As you go forward, leaving the three blocks behind, but still able to find your way back, you will discover something else. You’ve become a confident traveler and not just a confused tourist. You will strike up conversations with clerks, waiters, bartenders, street vendors, police officers, bus drivers, even museum docents (even if they don’t speak a word of your native language). Somehow, together you’ll try to understand each other or find others to assist. This is great fun and the essence of travel and a great part of its irresistible appeal.

With an extra two or three days in Rome following a cruise or a group tour, you could find out the best time to see the Vatican Museums (afternoon), discover a very uncrowded, virtually secret museum within St. Peter’s (The Vatican Treasury Museum just off to the left of the Baldachino and Main Altar), declare the best gelato in the city (it’s near Trevi Fountain), and find out where not to order pizza if you’ve just come from Sicily or Naples. But, you have to get off the tour and become your own guide.

The second rule, is “take the tour.” This means, take the least expensive panorama style tour you can to learn the general scheme of the city. If you are somewhere you’ve never been before, taking the tour will help you decide what you really want to see and what does not look all that interesting now that you see it in person.

In Rome, and in most European and quite a number of U.S. cities, hop on/hop off buses are available for very reasonable ticket price points, including half-day, full-day, or even multi-day passes. All include earphones and recorded narration in a bewildering array of languages. This little expense is invaluable for really learning to find your way and around and plan your next “three blocks down” adventure.

The “three blocks down” game is just getting interesting when it’s time to leave and head back home. Across the bridge and three blocks down from the Castile San Angelo is an entirely different experience of this history book of a city. There are so many other places passed along the way, all just three more blocks down, but those mysteries will have to be explored next time.

Whatever your reason for staying a few extra days in a big destination city - - a pre- or post- cruise visit; a group tour, a place to catch a plane; or just because - - get out and explore on your own on a small-scale. Maybe just around the corner from your hotel is the real travel experience you were searching for all along.

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