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Published: November 17th 2008
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Piero Pugnalini (painter)
The artist standing beside a painting I had just bought of the Piazza Navona We started our day with a walk to Piazza Sant Eustachio's "Il Caffe"
www.santeustachioilcaffe.it/for our morning Espresso and Cappucino. Just as we had finished ordering and taken our coffee ticket to the counter, we looked up and realized the place was full!!! It was pouring rain outside. And I don't mean a sprinkle! We took our time with our drinks not willing to give up the precious area we had at the counter....so of course ended up ordering another (not much of a hardship). I ended up browsing through the various items for sale and bought 2 packages of ground coffee (one was for a gift...I ended up keeping it for myself as this stuff was "My Precious"!!! : P ) and some of their chocolate covered espresso beans. I didn't realize until after we'd left Rome how good these were....they actually had a bit of liquid espresso surrounding the bean...WHY oh Why??? didn't I buy more from here???! (something for people to keep in mind that love coffee who end up in Rome in their travels). After about 1/2 an hour the down pour turned into a sprinkle, so my honey went out to look for an umbrella for me.
The [i]Frozen[/i] Man
A busker in the Piazza that looked like he was in motion but in reality was standing still. Returning a few minutes later with one in my favourite colour we were off again....
Along the way back to our hotel to drop off my purchases we stopped into a Murano glass shop where I bought a Christmas ornament and necklace for myself and some souveniers for friends.
The sun came out and the day turned beautiful so after our hotel stop we continued on and explored. We stopped into a mall (Galleria Alberto Sordi?? I think) where we went into an Optical store and had excellent help in picking out our designer sunglasses that I had to buy in Italy : ))
I'm a spa girl and try to book at least one spa when on holidays....I had found one online prior to our trip called
"El Spa" elspa.it/en/home.html and had us booked for the Turkish Hammam, followed by a massage. After our shopping escapades we took a cab to the spa where we were buzzed in and welcomed inside. My first impression was a very calming atmosphere. We were each led to separate change areas and given a robe, slippers, and a little wee tiny itty bitty g-string thing. Ummm ok then. After changing we
Shopping Mall
We were amazed at how beautiful this shopping mall was... this is where we got our cool Italian shades ; ) were led downstairs to the waiting area...it reminded me of a sultans harem room...the lights were dim, beautiful jewel coloured pillows lining the couches, relaxing turkish sounding music playing, and a wonderful aroma of exotic smelling herbs. Ahhhhhh : ) We were brought a plate of dried fruit and nuts, as well as an option of turkish tea or water. After enjoying our munchies and drinks the attendant lead us to another area where she made to help me off with my robe.....AAACCCKKK! My shy canadian girl instinct kicked in and I held on for dear life...she was trying to explain to me that it was ok and what the process was but it seemed like we were still out in the open-not a private treatment room....I finally said to myself "when in Rome...." so passed it over...feeling extremely awkward : P She led the two g-string clad Canadians into a room that was so humid and thick with steam that we couldn't see each other or even our hand in front of our face. She motioned for us to lie on a huge marble slab that looked like it was covered with cheesecloth. After a few minutes of laying
Inside the Vatican Church
Ornate carvings, polished marble, we felt very small inside the grandness of the building... there feeling the warmth and humidity, & the sound of water dripping from the ceiling I finally started to relax. D of course, not as prudish as me had relaxed long before we even entered the room....men! ....anyway, i gave into the experience and in no time we were both covered in water? sweat? from the steam (both probably). Two attendants came into the room and started to rub us with black soap and then afterwards loofah type gloves they wore. D & I were sitting back to back, so I turned my head to check out how he was doing and was amazed by the amount of skin clinging to him in rolls from being scrubbed. EEWWww! then I looked down at myself and saw the same...I was amazed at how soft my skin felt - Wow!! Our attendants then got buckets of warm water and poured them over us....followed by a bucket of icy cold (my attendant was chuckling in perverse glee when she dumped it over my head! actually she was chuckling as I braced myself and told her to do it...very nice lady really). We were VERY relaxed when we were led back to the waiting
room to wait for our massage treatment. I dream of going back to Rome just to go to this spa again--Highly recommend it.
After our treatments we went back to the Vatican so we could go inside the church. They are very strict on dress code there and D got stopped our first day there as his shorts did not cover his knees. Who would have thought that my honey had obscene knees! Ahahahhahhaaa...I had a good laugh (for hours) about that as I thought I'd be the one to get turned away : )) The area leading up to the Vatican is very good for those on the look out for knock off bags etc.
In the evening we met up with the couple we were travelling with and took a taxi (another experience in itself) to a restaurant in the Piazza S. Maria in Trastevere called "Ristorante Galeassi" which had a wonderful atmosphere-there was even had a violinist wandering between the tables. Loved the food!!
www.ristorantegaleassi.it/inglese.htm What a perfect way to spend out last night in Rome.
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