Trip Report: A Christmas Trip to the Eternal City...Roma, Italia!

I had booked this trip in December 2006, yes, I know, I’m a bit of a planner! I decided that I wanted to go to Rome on a Rick Steves tour. For those of you who have read my other trip reports, you know I have done this in the past and generally I will book the tour and add on extra days for independent travel at the beginning or end of the group tour. This works for me very well and this Rome trip was no different. The group tour was a 7 day stint and we arrived 2 days before the tour began.

So now I was off to plan the trip! Yes, even though I participate in a group tour I do a lot of planning so I know what other options I have when not doing something with the group. I hate not having a variety of options and sitting around wondering what should I do now, but I’m digressing here. My mom also decided she wanted to accompany me on this trip and I am so glad she did, we had a great time!

Now I’ll get to general trip comments. We flew Delta airlines from Savannah, Georgia to Rome via Atlanta. The airline gods were definitely on our side when we arrived at the airport, yes, in my usual fashion some may think I get to the airport too early, but I would rather be early then rushing in a hyper-ventilating state to the gate to board the plane. When we walked through the doors of the airport, I could hardly believe my eyes, there was No One in line at the Delta desk, in all my travels I cannot remember a time when this happened, and it was the Saturday before the Christmas holiday…boy was luck on my side or what? I even said something to the ticket agent and his reply was, “You should have been here at 4:30 this morning, we had people out the doors”…it surely paid off this time to take a later flight! And we had no delays even with bad weather in the northeast, instead of going up towards NY/Canada and down over Ireland, we banged a right just below Washington,DC and cruised over lots of open water and came in over Spain…kind of neat to look at the flight on the screens in the plane! The only event that occurred while going over was during take off the overhead bins where we had placed our carry-on bags popped open and for a brief shining moment I thought I would have to launch myself out of the seat to catch an errant bag, but luckily there were no bags flying out of the bin!

And speaking of luggage for all the carry-on/check bag people keeping tabs. We did carry-on roll-aboards for the flight over, so no checked bags. I try to pack light when traveling and this was a new way of thinking for my mom (remember she hasn’t traveled like this in over 15 years) and I think she has seen the light…it was such a breeze just having to de-plane and not have to deal with baggage claim. Although my packing standards were at first blush looked upon with a weary eye by my mom, she was certainly amazed with herself that she was actually able to comply with the “packing warden’s” (that’s me by the way) policies! We did check the bags on the way home because, honestly I don’t care if my bags get lost on the return home.

The flight home was a bit more eventful. There was a family with adult children who must have had problems with their reservations and their family members were seated all over the plane. Mom and I had the “pleasure” and I use that term loosely, of being seated across the aisle from a brother/sister duo. It wouldn’t have been bad, except they constantly whined that it was going to be an 11 hour flight and they had to go to Atlanta before going to their final destination, Boston, and they would be flying right over Boston. That wouldn’t even have been so bad, but when “brother” broke out the chewing tobacco and continued to jump out of his seat every 20 minutes to open the over head bin and take out a variety of pretzel or chip bags it got pretty old pretty fast. I still can’t figure out how he could chew tobacco and eat pretzels and chips at the same time! Oh well, it’s all part of traveling.

We arrived in Rome on December 23rd to grey skies and drizzling rain. I had booked a car service to pick us up. If it was me traveling alone I would have taken the train into Rome, but since it was a special “re-introduction to the travel world” trip for my mom, I booked with Rome Cabs and Stefano was terrific. The price was 45 Euro each way and well worth the money. When we came out of customs & immigration I was looking for a sign with my name on it. After walking through the sea of drivers holding up signs I couldn’t find my name. I made a quick call to Stefano with Rome Cabs and he directed me to the exact location where our driver, Luca was standing.

Luca was charming. Although he insisted he did not speak much English, I wish I could speak Italian as well as he speaks English! This was a pleasant drive into the city even though the grey sky was threatening. As we were driving Luca asked if it was our first time in Rome, it wasn’t but our last time there was in 1984. While driving we seemed to be going into what appeared to be a residential area. And in a few minutes time we came to a stop by a big door. Luca asked us to get out and brought us around to this giant door and asked us to look through the keyhole….now I’m starting to remember something about a view…yup…lo and behold we were in the Aventino area and as we looked through the keyhole we could barely see the dome of St. Peter’s. When my mom looked through the keyhole she could hardly believe it…she said, “what a way to be re-introduced to Rome…it almost brought tears to our eyes and I was thrilled. At that moment I knew we were going to have a great time! Once we were finished ohhh-ing and ahhh-ing Luca loaded us back into the car and we were off to our hotel.

We stayed at the Hotel Aberdeen at 48 Via Firenze (www.travel.it/roma/aberdeen). I was very pleased with this hotel. It was clean and the room was larger then I had expected, although I was told the single rooms were quite small. The staff here was very friendly and helpful. A buffet breakfast was included with the room price and it was sufficient. A variety of pastries, cereals, breads, fruit, cheese and cappuccino …cappuccino was a foundation of this trip! J Since we arrived 2 days before the group tour began we paid 98 Euro per night for our double room. I’m not sure if this was discounted due to time of year or because we were part of a tour group, but I believe the regular rate is 150 Euro per night. I thought the location of this hotel was good for the price. The termini train station was approximately a 15 minute walk away. There was a metro stop just around the corner (Piazza della Repubblica) and a bus stop for the number 40 bus also around the corner on Via Nationale. So, although not steps from the Centro Storico, it had good transportation options and the walk to the Trevi fountain was only about 15 minutes.

Day One, December 23rd…Hello Rome!

As I mentioned above our flight to Rome was smooth and we touched down at FCO at about 8:30am and we found the driver from Rome Cabs (http://www.romecabs.com/index.html). After our drive into the city and the keyhole experience I talked about above we arrived at the Hotel Aberdeen at about 10:30am. This was a bit too early to check into our room but the desk receptionist was more than happy to keep our bags while we went for a walk. He said our room would be ready at around 1pm.

We set out with a map and began walking around the general area of the hotel. We found a restaurant that one of our co-workers had recommended around the corner from the hotel and made a note to come back here for lunch. The restaurant was Dagnino and it was a bakery/bar/tea room/restaurant. We walked in and experienced that first great smell of cappuccino and baked goods. I can sniff out a good bakery a mile away!

It was still a grey day and it was raining lightly but nothing we couldn’t handle, hey, what’s a little rain when we were in ROME! We made our way to the Trevi Fountain and took lots of pictures. We decided to toss our coins in the fountain right away just in case we didn’t get back to the fountain, fat chance of that happening. For the first couple days I used the Trevi Fountain as a landmark and I knew if I was near there I could find my way back to the hotel…much to the chagrin of my mom, who said we must have passed the fountain 1500 times in 8 days! We continued walking around but fatigue and hunger were starting to get the best of us.



Instead of fighting the weariness we decided to head back to Dagnino for lunch. In walking back to the restaurant I made the mistake of turning on Via della Quattro Fontane. There wasn’t anything wrong with the street per se, except there was a bit of a hill to get to the top of the street and me in my 40 year old body with daily gym work-outs forgot what it could be like for my 60-something, jet lagged mom to walk up-hill. I learned fast to look for alternate routes! But mom was an absolute trooper and we made it up the hill and back to Dagnino where we were greeted at the door with a smile and seated promptly.

By now it was around 12noon and we were famished and thirsty. We ordered bottled water and I had the eggplant parmigiana and mom had eggplant bucatini. The eggplant dishes were excellent, or maybe it was just because we were tired and hungry! Mom had a coffee since we were trying to warm up a bit with the rainy weather outside and how could we pass up the specialty of the house…canoli. We each had one and mom isn’t much of a sweet eater, but I completely enjoyed it! The bill came to 35 Euro.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, by now it was after 1pm and we were able to check into our rooms. And the staff had even taken our bags upstairs for us! I typically like to stay up for as long as I can on the first day but mom was exhausted and really wanted to go to sleep. She crawl into bed and in a matter of minutes was fast asleep. I spent time unpacking my bag…I’d be in one place for the whole trip so it was a luxury to be able to not live out of suitcase for a week. By about 2:30pm I was starting to hear the pillow call my name and against my better judgment I closed my eyes.

Well, you could say that we were sleeping beauties because other then opening our eyes 3 times during our “rest” we slept through until the next morning. Which was a blessing because the remainder of the trip we were bright eyed and bushy tailed every day! There was a method to my madness, I figured we might get hard hit that first day, especially since mom hadn’t done this in a while, so in my trip planning mode I had chalked up our first day “on the ground” to mostly looking at the insides of our eyelids…and I was right!

Day Two, December 24th

We got an early start today because I had booked a walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere with Rome Walks (http://www.romewalks.com/). The starting time was 10am, and we were to meet the guide at Largo Argentina. We left the hotel at about 9am and it took roughly 30 minutes to walk there, with our trusty map and only asking one police officer if were heading in the right direction we arrived at Largo Argentina 30 minutes early. We walked around the ruins and took lots of pictures. The weather was holding out so far, it was still a bit overcast, but the sun was starting to peak out from the clouds.

There were 4 of us on the tour and the tour price was 40 Euro per person. The tour lasted 2 and a half hours. Our guide was Consuela and she was good, but at that point we didn’t have anything to compare her too. We walked through the Ghetto area and got a good overview of the Jewish history in Rome, then we walked over the Tiber to Trastevere. We stopped to see the Santa Maria in Trastevere church and we walked to Campo de Fiori where the tour ended at about 12:30pm.

From Campo de Fiori mom and I headed over to Piazza Navona where the Christmas/Befana market was held. If you ever wanted to buy a befana this was probably the place to do it. There were lots of stalls selling the little witches as well as nativity scenes and other various crafts. There were also several stalls with games and clowns walking around. It was a rather festive atmosphere and had the feel of a community fair.

It was shortly after 1pm and we were getting hungry. In my pre-trip research I had come across a write up on a mozzarella bar/restaurant called Obika (http://www.obika.it/) located at Via dei Prefetti 28, in Piazza di Firenze not far from the Pantheon. We thought that would be an interesting place to try. Again, using our trusty map we were able to find the place…thank God for that map! And while walking to Obika we passed the restaurant we had dinner reservations at that night…good karma…we were finding our way around!

The menu at this place was extensive and making a decision was tough. In the end we decided to try a sample platter of 4 different mozzarellas on a bed of fresh spinach with dates. It was all delicious, but the definite winner was the smoked mozzarella. The sample platter was 28 Euro and with water and a soft drink the bill was 34.50 Euro.

After lunch we took a leisurely walk back to the hotel and stopped by the Pantheon on the way. We went inside to see the oculus and the nativity scene all pretty impressive. We would be back here tonight for mid-night mass.

After taking a brief rest back at the hotel we got ready for dinner and decided to take a taxi. When planning this trip I figured it may be a good idea to have a restaurant reservation for Christmas Eve. After doing some internet research and reading a review on Chowhound I found a place called Ristorante SanGallo and made a reservation there before leaving home. The restaurant is located at Vicolo della Vaccarella, 11/a. The restaurant is about 4 blocks from the Pantheon. The web address is
(http://www.ristorantesangallo.com/english/index.html)
We decided to take a taxi to the Pantheon and walk the rest of the way to the restaurant. We arrived a few minutes before our 7:30pm reservation but had no troubles being seated, in fact I was a little nervous because there was only one other table occupied at this point, but I kept telling myself 7:30 is still early for dinner in Rome. Believe me, after 30 minutes I had nothing to worry about, the place was full!

As soon as we sat down 2 glasses of prosecco were poured for us and when the waiter ascertained that we wouldn’t be having a started he brought us each a small tasting plate of mozzarella, olives, tomatoes, and eggplant puree, all very good. We ordered some Pinot Grigio and perused the menu. I decided on having the cod fish fillet served on top of thinly sliced eggplant (I LOVE eggplant!) and pecorino cheese, it was wonderful. Mom had roasted red mullet and she was very pleased with her food too. We then treated ourselves to dessert since it was Christmas Eve. I had a pear and almond torte with raspberries & chocolate fondue. Mom had a chestnut chocolate meringue and white chocolate ice cream trio. The entire meal was outstanding. We topped off the meal with espresso and just when we thought we couldn’t eat another bite the waiter brought us each a plate of 2 different panetone and it was the best panetone we have ever had it was moist and citrusy. This was clearly our most expensive meal at 125 Euro, but we enjoyed it so much and really liked the atmosphere of this restaurant it was a small dinning room (there was second dinning room downstairs), but the décor was clean lines and muted beige tones.

One thing that really impressed my mom with this place happened while I stepped away to the ladies room. The table of 4 across from us was complimenting the waiter on the starters they were having. The waiter went and brought the chef out. When the customers were finished complimenting the chef he went back into the kitchen and brought out his sous chef who had been the one who prepared what they were eating and she got to experience the praise from the customers first hand. Now, some may not thing this is a big deal, but my sister is a chef and it really made a nice impression upon my mom that the executive chef would do this small gesture. Of course all this took place in Italian and we are not fluent, but mom said it was pretty clear what was going.

After dinner we walked over to the Pantheon but it was only about 10pm. We took some pictures and ran into the couple who had been on the walking tour with us early in the day so we talked with them for about an hour. At 11pm we walked down to the area near the front doors of the Pantheon to wait with the others for mid-night mass. From reading some of the posts on Fodors about the mid-night mass here the year before I thought it would be a cast of thousands, but that was not the case, maybe a couple hundred people at the most. We waited for about an hour and at 5 minutes to mid-night they opened the doors and let people in a few at a time. Mom and I had no trouble finding seats and sat down just as mass was starting.

After mass we decided to walk back to the hotel and yes, we walked back via the Trevi Fountain again! But it was actually to our benefit because there was no on at the Trevi fountain at this time and I got some pretty nice night photos of the fountain. We got back to the hotel at around 1:30am and crawled into bed…it was a great way to spend Christmas!

Day Three, December 25th

The weather was absolutely perfect today, we could not have special ordered such a pretty day. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the temperature was in the mid-high 50’s (F). We started the day with breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica and we were just in time for the 10am Christmas day mass. Mass was being said by a Cardinal, but not speaking Italian we never did find out which Cardinal it was. We found seats without a problem, but within 15 minutes the church was just about full, with lots of people standing in the back, and believe me, this is not a small church! We stayed for the entire mass which ended at about 12 noon. As the procession left the church mom and I were standing at the end of the row on the aisle and when the Cardinal walked by he blessed us…I’ll take any blessing I can get! After mass we went outside and took lots of pictures.

After mass we walked to St. Peter in Chains church to see MichelAngelo’s Moses. Oh My Gosh…just amazing to look at! Unfortunately we had arrived just before 12:30 and the church closes at 12:30 so we were shooed out. This afternoon we were to meet the group so we took the next few hours easy and made our way back to the hotel.

At 3pm we meet the tour group and our guide for an orientation meeting. Our guide was Donato and as I briefly alluded to above he was fantastic. He spent 2 hours getting to know our group and finding out our travel experience, discussed his background, he has been doing Rick Steves tours for 15 years and for the last 9 years only tours of Italy. He is a wealth of information. He could answer questions ranging from art, history and culture to politics, religion and in our case where some good specialty food stores were! He had a terrific sense of humor and was sincere in making sure each and every tour member was enjoying their time in Rome and he would assist with any special needs tour members had. I have to say that this was my 4th Rick Steves tour and the other 3 tours I had terrific guides, all wonderful in their own way, but Donato gets the gold star of guides in my book.

I also want to mention the demographic make-up of this particular tour. The other RS tours I have been on, have been longer in duration, between 13 and 17 days and on those tours the majority of the participants were in the 50-70 age range usually making me one of the younger ones, but I also took those tours either I the spring or fall. This tour had a much more diverse age range. There was a family of 3 with a 14 year old, a mother/son pair with the son in his 20’s, a married couple in their mid-20’s and 2 solo travelers one in her mid-30’s. The remainder of the group was between 40-70.

Shortly after 5pm (yes, it was a 2 hour orientation meeting), the group set out on a walking tour and covered basics in the neighborhood around the hotel and then we went into the Centro Storico. We passed the Pantheon and it was much more crowded then the night before. We made our way to the Piazza Navona which was an absolute mad house packed with people out for the evening. We made our way through the throng of people to the restaurant we were having our first group meal at. The restaurant, Trattoria der Pallaro was located a block south of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, down Largo del Chiavari to Largo del Pallaro. The meal started with an antipasto of prosciutto, olives, lentils, salami, fenel salad, and rice balls…it couldn’t have been better, I would have been happy with just the lentils! House wine and water were always on the table (the group had a wine kitty…each person put in 10 Euro…so Donato always made sure we had house wine on the table at every group meal). The first course was a pasta carbonara, again delicious and I mean REALLY GOOD! The second course was veal saltimbocca, which was a little dry; the pasta and antipasto dishes were really the highlight of this meal. I really enjoyed this laid-back restaurant and thought it was a great start to the tour.

After dinner the group took the #40 bus up Via Nationale to the hotel and we poured ourselves into bed for an 8am start the next day.

Day Four, December 26th

We were ready to go at 8am this morning and the group walked from the hotel to St. Peter in Chains church. I was happy that we got to go back to the church and take our time and really get to see the Moses sculpture.

We then had a short walk to the Colosseum to meet Francesca our local guide. As I said before she was absolutely fantastic! She had such an infectious joy for Rome, the history, the culture and wanting to make all of us fall in love with the city seemed to be her goal, which she accomplished without any difficulty. She made ancient Rome come alive in my mind.

As we made our way through the Colosseum the grey threatening sky won out and it began to rain. It continued to rain as we went through the Roman Forum and the Pantheon.

After spending 3 and a half hours with Francesca we had the rest of the day free. Mom and I went over to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva church to take look at the frescoes, but it was closed. Since it was cold out and we had been walking outside for hours we decided to try and find one of the famous coffee bars near the Pantheon. The first one we found was Sant’ Eustachio. We went in, paid for 2 cappuccino and went to the bar to order our cappuccino. They were delicious, the BEST I have ever had! As we stood at the bar the place was packed, we finished our coffees and decided to walk over to Campo de Fiori. Being the day after Christmas most shops were closed but we had fun window shopping.

We continued on to Largo Argentina and caught the bus back to the hotel. One of the great things about the RS tour is that when moving around on public transport with the group, the bus or metro tickets have been paid for. But it was really simple and easy to buy the tickets at a Tabacchi or from a ticket vending machine at metro stops. And remember to validate the ticket in the machine on the bus!

When we got off the bus we decided to check out the Ristorante Target around the corner from the hotel and choose to have dinner there. We were going to go to Trattoria Monti near Santa Maria Maggiore, but since it was cold and gray-ish outside we voted to stay close to the hotel.

We went to dinner at 7pm and Ristorante Target was a huge hit! The restaurant is located at Via Torino, 33 (http://www.targetandcompany.it/). This place was really a delightful surprise. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect form the name, but the menu outside looked good and Donato had given it a pretty good recommendation.

This was definitely another splurge meal, but since we had only had breakfast and a cappuccino this afternoon we didn’t mind! We had bruschetta pomodoro and basil, a total of 3 glasses of wine (yes, we probably should have just gotten a bottle!), bread, I had pasta e fagioli (sorry for any misspellings), mom had pearlized barley soup, both were excellent and warm on this chilly evening! For second course I had roasted turbo with roasted rosemary potatoes and tomatoes and mom had fillet of beef with green pepper sauce. We couldn’t have enjoyed it more. We also had an order of grilled vegetables which included the much anticipated grilled raddicho, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes…again all delicious. Just when we thought we couldn’t eat another thing my sweet tooth called to me and I had the most delectable chocolate cake that was presented beautifully with chocolate and lemon sauces and we each had an espresso. The espresso was the only disappointment for me with this meal.

This was clearly, for us, another great meal and it wasn’t even a restaurant I had previously researched. I will say I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this restaurant too, kind of modern-ish, but very comfortable, we sat for 2+ hours and felt right at home. The menu was fairly extensive with lots of salads, pizzas and pasta dishes as well as the second courses. I know some people would think the prices for the meals are a bit extraordinary, but we had such a good time at every meal that it was a pleasure, and neither my mom nor I purchased any big souvenir items…the meals were our souvenir memories!

After dinner we walked back to the hotel 2 very happy ladies and climbed into bed very satisfied and delighted with our Roman holiday!

Day Five, December 27th

It was another 8am start today and the sun was shining and it stayed that way all day! We took the metro as a group to the Ottaviano stop which is just a few blocks from The Vatican. We met our local guide, Judy, at The Vatican Museum and did not have to wait in the enormous line that was down the block and around the corner and it wasn’t even 9am yet. I had heard horror stories of the line for the museum and was grateful we did not have to wait in it.

After we donned our audio system we started the tour of the museum. It was unbelievable to see so much art in one place but my favorite was the map room. We made our way to the Sistine Chapel. Let’s just say…WOW! When I was there in 1984 it was before the restoration and I remember the Sistine Chapel to be dark. Well, it was nothing like that now. The colors are vibrant and it feels like the paintings are coming to life. We were very fortunate that although it was crowded it was not shoulder to shoulder jammed with people and we were able to spend about 20 minutes in the chapel. The guards were not even pushing us through, which I also heard happens often when there are big crowds.

Once finished in the museum we went through the crypt and then to the front of St. Peter’s Basilica. We said our good-byes to our local guide Judy there and Donato took over and guided us through the Basilica. Here is one example where I think Donato went above and beyond for us…I thought when we finished with Judy Donato would give us brief directions and “set us free”, however this was not the case. He brought us into the basilica and spent well over an hour taking us around and pointing out various things that I would never have noticed had he not taken the time to show us around.

We finished in the basilica around 1pm and then mom and I got on the line to go up to the cupola. We took the elevator to the roof level and got to walk around the interior of the dome. Mom was thrilled with herself for being able to do this, she wasn’t quite sure how she would handle being that high up in the interior of the dome but she did a great job and we have a celebratory photo of her in the dome! At this point I left mom for a little while on the roof level and I walked the 320 winding steps up to the top of the cupola for an amazing view. It was the perfect weather for this…sunny and clear blue sky! It was also very crowded, so I took several pictures and headed back down to meet up with mom. We did wait about 1 hour in the line to get to the elevator to go to the top and the price was 7 Euro per person. If you wanted to walk the whole way (not taking the elevator to the roof level) the price was 5 Euro per person.

When we came down and left the basilica we stopped at The Vatican post office to buy stamps and mail our postcards.

Then we headed off in search of a bar for cappuccino and somewhere to sit. We found a place on Via Borgo Pio called Bar Latteria Giuliani and ordered our cappuccinos and sat for about an hour. I have to give this place the award for most interesting cappuccino we had one with a heart shaped smiley face and the other with a devil face.

After having our little break we did some window shopping in the area and met for another group dinner at 6:30pm. This dinner was at Hostaria Dei Bastioni located on Via Leone IV, 29. I have to say that this place was really nothing special and our least favorite of the whole trip. We had antipasto which included fried zucchini blossom, bruschetta and fried olives stuffed with meat. The pasta dish was farfele with curry shrimp and the second course was roasted chicken with rosemary potatoes. We ended the meal with fruit and lemoncello, which was the highlight of the meal!

We ended the evening taking the metro back to the hotel and feeling that we had another great day in Rome!

Day Six, December 28th

Mom and I started out early this morning it was our Scavi tour day!

This was not part of the RS tour group. While planning for this trip I came across a lot of posts on Fodors about the Scavi tour and how great it was, so last February I sent off an email to the Scavi office in September I got the email notification that I had 2 places for December 28th at 9:15am, I promptly sent in my payment, it was 10 Euros each and we were scheduled!

We were on the metro by 7:45am, not know how quickly we could get to The Vatican during that time in the morning, we left early. We got to the train platform and in mere seconds a train was there. We arrived at St. Peter’s Square just after 8am. We took advantage of the almost empty square and took lots of pictures. We then went into the basilica for another look around.

At about 9am we went to the Swiss Guard with our Scavi reservation email and were allowed in and directed to the Scavi office. We were a few minutes early and told to come back in 10 minutes, so we stepped outside the office and waited. We got our tickets 10 minutes later and a few minutes later the tour began.

Our guide was Katerina and she was a wealth of knowledge. It was truly amazing to be able to walk along the ancient streets and see the mausoleums with the mosaic floors and colorful walls. But the most interesting part was seeing the box the bones of St. Peter are in. There were only 11 people on our tour and the whole tour took about one hour.

Once we finished the tour we made our way to the #40 bus and took it to Largo Argentina from there we popped over to a shoe store I had spied during the Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere walking tour on Christmas Eve. The shop was now open and I wanted to try on a pair of shoes. But the shoes gods were not in my favor because they didn’t have my size in the color I wanted; well at least I saved 150 Euro!

We then walked over to the group meeting place near the Capitalini Museum to depart for the group cooking demonstration. I have to say the day before we were going to pass on attending this demonstration and do something else, but we hadn’t decided what that something else would be (expect finding the shoe store!) and Donato really encouraged us to go to the cooking demonstration…we are VERY glad we went!

We took the public bus to the restaurant. It was Ristorante Lumie di Sicilia located at Via Fratelli Bonnet, 14. I believe this area of Rome is called Gianicolo, but I’m not positive about that. This restaurant specializes in Sicilian cuisine and it was Excellent! It clearly made up for the mediocre meal the night before. The cooking demonstration was fun, we just got to stand in the kitchen while the chef and owner explained how each course we would be having was made. We started with a salad with proscuitto and parmesan cheese, then 2 pasta dishes…one pistachio pasta the other pasta alla norma (with eggplant) they were both TOO DIE FOR!! The second course was a pork cutlet rolled and stuffed with cheese and breadcrumbs served over eggplant. The finishing touch was canola and espresso which were both out of this world good! I had originally declined having the coffee, but after one sip my mom said, “You have to have one”. Donato was sitting with us and offered me his…see, a great guide…but he did go back into the kitchen to get himself one too!

I am so glad we went to this group activity. The restaurant was terrific; typically a regular meal there would cost about 50 Euro per person.

Lunch ended at about 3:30pm and we took the bus back to Piazza Venezia. From there we went up to the Victor Emmanuel monument and took some pictures. We did not take the elevator to the very top, but just walked up to the middle level and still had a good view! From there mom went back to the hotel on the “packed like sardines’ #40 bus and I spent some time wandering around the Piazza Navona area and did find the Santa Maria Novella shop. I had read about this shop on Fodors and wanted to go in and check out the soaps, and creams, and lotions. I did purchase some wonderful foot cream and cuticle cream…my big purchases for this trip! I decided to walk back to the hotel instead of taking the bus and had a great stroll through the Centro Storico…lots of people were out and about.

Because we had such a big lunch, we decided to skip dinner and get a good night’s sleep for the next day’s trip to Ostia Antica!

Day Seven, December 29th

Today was another great weather day. Sunny skies and about 57 (F). We left the hotel at 8am and took a motor coach to Ostia Antica. This was ancient Rome’s seaport. There were remains of warehouses, apartments, shops, baths, and a theater. I was amazed to see how big this place is and much is still intact. We arrived just around 9am and there were hardly any other people there…we almost had the whole place to ourselves…I had prime picture taking opportunities!

Donato walked with us for about one hour pointing out significant areas and then we had about an hour to just wander around on our own. Because we had such great weather I took over 100 pictures!

Lunch was on our own, but since there is only the cafeteria near the museum, we were a captive food audience. Mom and I decided to have lunch and the food was excellent there. We had quiche and a sausage and peas with ham dish that were both very good. We split each item in half so we could both taste each one. And we capped it off with 2 cappuccinos.

We left Ostia Antica at about 1pm and went to the Catacombs of San Callisto. It was a pretty large complex and we participated in one of the English speaking tours. It was fairly interesting, but it couldn’t beat the Scavi tour at The Vatican. The tour of the catacombs lasted about 40 minutes.

We were back on the bus and returned to the hotel at about 4:30pm. At 5:30pm we decided to walk down to the Centro Storico to do a little shopping. It was another crowded evening on the streets of Rome. The plan was to have dinner at a restaurant I knew about via Fodors called Amando Al Pantheon, but they were closed…on a Saturday night! My back-up place was also near the Pantheon called Ristorante Pigna but they were closed until after January 1 for the holiday. Thank God I remembered a Fodorite (Ekscrunchy) recommending a place called Ristorante Archimede Sant Eustachio located at Piazza die Caprettari, 63 (http://www.archimedesanteustachio.it/), near the Sant’ Eustachio café where we had cappuccino earlier in the week! We found the restaurant, but it didn’t open until 8pm. So we had about 50 minutes to kill.

We went over to the Piazza Rotundo where the Pantheon is located and had a drink in an outdoor café equipped with outdoor heaters. Before we sat down I warned my mom, these will probably be the most expensive glasses of wine will have. Her reply was how much could they be? I said probably around 25 Euro…guess who was right? Yup, looking at the menu one glass of one was about 10 Euro. However, I decided I wanted a glass of prosecco and mom ordered what we thought would be one glass of wine, instead she got a half liter bottle that on the menu said 10 Euro. If I knew it was going to be a half liter bottle we could have ordered one with 2 glasses, but in the end it was only 15 Euro, so not as costly as I thought it would be.

Shortly after 8pm we headed over to the restaurant. I was a bit apprehensive because we didn’t have a reservation, but we were warmly greeted when we entered and we were seated with no trouble. The waiter was very friendly and helped me stumble through my very limited Italian, I’m sure he could speak English, but he helped me along when I tried to pronounce the items we wanted to order…it was lots of fun!

We had a bottle of wine, and started with the fried artichokes which after sitting down and reading the menu I started to remember one of the comments I had read about this place and recalled that it was known for the fried artichokes and it was good move to order them, they were delicious!

Mom had spaghetti carbonara, and I had the bucatini alla amatriciana, both were terrific. We split the second course of eggplant parmigiana which melted in the mouth. We ended the meal with biscotti and espresso. The bill for this meal was 80 Euro and this was another meal we thoroughly enjoyed!

This was another great day capped off by a wonderful meal.

Day Eight, December 30th

The day began with a walk to the Borghese Gallery under sunny blue skies, another great weather day!

It took about 30 minutes by foot to get to the Borghese from the hotel. We met Francesca at about 8:40am and got set-up with the whisper audio system. We had a 9am reservation and went right in. Francesca took us through and pointed out the major works by Caravaggio and Bernini, they were absolutely amazing. And Francesca really helped me understand what these sculptures and paintings tell us. Instead of just looking at them, Francesca pointed out what the artist’s wanted us to see. She was a GREAT guide.

After the Borghese we walked through the park and it is probably beautiful in warmer weather. We then walked down the Via Venato and made our way to the Spanish Steps which was a sea of people. After a brief history of the steps and a general orientation of the area Donato let us lose for our last final day in Rome. Mom and I started down Via Condotti an stopped in Café Grecco, a famous haunt of Keats and Shelley. We each had a cappuccino freddo and they served it with little butter cookies. The café has been there since the 1700’s.

After our coffee break, we hopped on the metro and came back to the Repubblica stop. We found a specialty food shop and got some porcini mushrooms in oil, artichoke cream, red pepper and pistachios to bring back home. Then we came back to the hotel to start getting ready for our departure tomorrow!

At 6:45pm we met the group for our final group dinner. We walked to the restaurant in the Centro Storico. The name of the restaurant was The Sacred and Profound. And I forgot to take a business card, so I don’t have the address. The building used to be a church and the owners have had frescoes painted on the walls and ceiling. The cuisine was Calabrian. We started with a huge selection of antipasto, which included bread, spicy fish paste, swordfish, potatoes & yellow & orange peppers, and eggplant parmigiana (my favorite). The second course was veal saltimbocca, which was very good. For dessert we had tiramisu…it was another good meal.

At the final meal Donato passed out the recipes from the cooking demonstration. After dinner we all strolled over to the Trevi Fountain to throw our coins in. While at the fountain it started to rain. Rather appropriate since when we arrived in Rome it was also raining…we had come full circle!

We all went back to the hotel and said our goodbyes. Mom and I wouldn’t be seeing anyone at breakfast the next morning because are taxi was picking us up at 7am.

Day Nine, December 31st

We were up early and our taxi was at the hotel right at 7am on the button. We booked our return to the airport with Rome Cabs and had a different driver this time. Unfortunately I didn’t get her name, but she was just as good as Luca who drove us on our arrival. We rode to the airport in a Mercedes sedan, we were making such great time the driver even asked if we wanted to stop for a cappuccino, but we declined and were at the airport by 7:30am.

There was no line at the check-in counter and we had our boarding passes and were through security by 7:45am. We stopped to get our last cappuccino and cornetti and even at the airport they were good! We had about an hour to wait at the gate and then it was smooth boarding and we took off on time!

The flights home were pleasant, well, except for the annoying boy across the aisle from us, but I mentioned that at the start of this report. We arrived at home just in time to ring in the New Year, but neither of us was able to keep our eyes open until midnight!

Mom and I had some really great experiences on this trip and some really great meals! I enjoyed being in Rome for Christmas and would do it again in a minute…hmmmm maybe next year??

Mom and I are now planning for a 3 week trip to France in September/October 2008!