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Published: April 17th 2009
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Room with a View
Vicarious view from dining table at Chiavari - just add church bells gently chiming and you are there. Well we made it - and all rather painlessly, or should I say smoothly, as those long plane flights are bits of killers even if the travel is uneventful - and are now settled into Via dei Chiavari. And the apartment is wonderful, everything we had hoped for and more. And as I compose this posting the view I have is exactly the one in the photo, and so here is a bit of vicarious Rome for you, although you won't get the sounds of the church bells chiming and so you will need to imagine that for yourself.
As the cat in Alice in Wonderland said “if you don't know where you are going then any road will get you there” and so far we have drawn from this the inspiration for our exploration of the city. We set out with a general location in mind and then see what emerges as we wander along. This is truly a city that suits my “wow look at that down that alley way - let's go and see what it is” approach. Fortunately Dianne's superior navigation skills manage to save me from myself in this regard, and prevent us from becoming
Monumental
Washed away by the Four Rivers fountain and the monumental scale of Piazza Navona. totally lost (or at least get us back to the apartment in the evening). Still if all roads do lead to Rome then I suppose we can't go too far wrong.
And it is like being in Wonderland in so many ways. On the day we arrived we pretty much headed out straight away to explore and to get some sunshine (of which there is plenty) to counter the jet lag. During the afternoon I realised that I probably had a kind of foolish grin on my face, somewhat akin to being slightly drunk. And in a way I suppose I was - drunk on the sights and delights of Rome. What will now follow will be full of the usual cliches and superlatives - but it's all true so bear with me (or skip to the next paragraph). The architecture and scale of the city is a delight - impressive but not overwhelming, or at least it does overwhelm but it sneaks up on you rather than slapping you in the face. The hues of the buildings and monuments really define the meaning of the word patina - you can almost feel the decades and millenia that have
... and Surprising
Group of columns at Teatro di Marcello - there just because they are. gone in to create the subtle blending of those colours. Magic. And of course around every corner is yet another monument, fountain, column fragment, or ancient wall to greet you. Sometimes they are massive - like the three fountains in the Piazza Navona - and other times they are just there, blending in with the current buildings. The other thing that I realised is that for the greater part the streets are more curved than straight, which makes for a gentle unfolding of the views, enticing you to explore just a little further on.
Of course all this exploring can't be done on an empty stomach and so we set the tone on the first day by dropping by Roscioli bakery just down the street for some Pizza la taglia - two pieces still warm from the oven and rapidly dispatched with a theatric (of course) whack of a cleaver - and later topped this up with some hazelnut gelato from San Crispino (which we stumbled upon among the 1000 other gelateria in the Trevi Fountain area) supposedly one of the gold standards for gelato in town. And the word from Dianne (as hazelnut is her benchmark for gelato) - pretty dam amazing, and I have to agree with her. Smooth and creamy but still light on the tongue (how do they do that?) and the fine graininess of the hazelnut mixed through. Gelato Messina in Darlinghurst will never be the same again - sigh.
And so we continue in this way, not yet referring to a guidebook, but simply heading to a destination and seeing what we find along the way. Eventually I suppose we will need to put some structure into our explorations, but that will be the subject for future postings.
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GemB
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What's Rome got that Sutho hasn't got?
So a bit like Sutho then - the 'olde worlde' architecture, the top quality gelato, people wandering around drunk...why leave the Shire at all? (Don't answer that) It does sound pretty damn amazing - for some reason the photos for this entry aren't working (could quite possibly have someting to do with the 'olde worlde' IT policy here) but your descriptions are certainly enough to fuel my imagination.