There’s Mike and Dani at the end

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Panorama of the Colosseum

As I said yesterday, we didn’t have a single bad food experience the entire time we were in Italy, but this beautiful little restaurant that we found near the Colosseum was by far the best! Found at 195 Via Cavour, L’Archetto is charming, and the food is amazing. Look for it if you’re ever in Rome…you will not be sorry!

Our server, Marco, suggested that we try the bruschetta, and we were not hard to convince. I’m so glad we did, too…it was absolutely delicious, everything that bruschetta should be, topped with fresh fresh fresh tomatoes, olive oil, basil, and just enough salt.

Here’s a selection of the amazing dishes that we had over the course of our long relaxing mid-day dinner:

Roasted potatoes

Pasta

Risotto

Mussels

The decor and ambiance were as enchanting as the food. Our server had a great sense of humor, and patiently waited while we struggled along with our very poor Italian, helping us out when we got stuck. He introduced us to his wife, who was working there that day as well:

To the left was the shelf with the really fine wines. I regret that it was so hot that day that we passed on the wine…we all knew that it would put us to sleep immediately since we are just not used to drinking it during the mid-day heat. Still, the selection was impressive!

The meal was so delicious and so satisfying, that I have to admit we ended up sleepy afterwards anyway! Maybe we should have just gone ahead and had the wine

Thank you for a lovely meal, Marco!

Mike, full and happy

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The best food in Rome!

Some of the appetizer and dessert dishes we had were so pretty:

Cheese plate

Fruit plate

Many of the main dishes were items that we’ve had at restaurants here in the States, but somehow they just seemed so much better there. Was it because of the atmosphere? The fresh handmade pasta? The fresher ingredients? The wine? Probably all of the above!

Sedanini alla Norcina

Cannelloni di Ricotta e Spinici

Gnocchi al Ragu di Carne

I know I already told you about going to the Hard Rock Cafe. Sorry! We just had to do it. It’s traditional for us. After four months of fabulous pasta and fresh produce, Dani wanted a hamburger so badly that she was ready to cry!

Tomorrow, I’m going to tell you about my very favorite place of all…a restaurant that I totally suggest you visit if you’re ever in Rome!

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The food in Rome

No pictures can be taken, but they had an excellent selection of postcards and books. There were none that showed the tunnels with all the niches dug out of the rock for burial platforms, but many good ones of the frescoes which have been uncovered in some of the larger chambers.

This one is the three young Hebrew men that were thrown into the furnace in the book of Daniel. They emerged unscathed, and the King saw the figure of God walking around with them:

This fresco has the oldest known image of the Virgin with her child. She is sideways on the righthand side:

This is the fresco from the burial chamber of a very important woman in the community, who had lived a holy life of service. The peacock stands for immortality, or eternal life:

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More Rome…the Catacombs at Priscilla

And Palatine Hill is well-worth the visit anyway! It’s gorgeous. You can see the ruins of all the Caesar’s houses, and there are some rooms that have just opened up for public viewing recently with frescoes on the walls. Amazing! You can’t take pictures of the rooms, but the outside area is all fair game, and very picturesque. Mike and Dani pose so you can see the scale:

From one of the walls of the hill, you can look down into the Forum. We didn’t go down that day because Rome was having a heatwave, and the temperature had soared over 100F by 10am. Here’s the Forum with all the “modern” buildings in the background:

In one of the corners as we went to leave Palatine Hill, we came across this many-breasted sphinx:

The Arch of Titus is one of the large show-off pieces that were built by different rulers. I thought this one was moving, because it shows the sacking of Jerusalem and the Romans making off with the Temple items. However, they didn’t seem to know how many arms the candlestick should have…

Finally we made it to the Colosseum. I am so annoyed with myself, because I took a sweeping panoramic video of the entire structure inside, but I did it in vertical format, so it doesn’t load to YouTube properly!! Oh well, I’ll just have to go back and try again

Here’s another shot of the Colosseum for you!!

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More Rome…Palatine Hill, the Forum, and the Colosseum

In the picture below, which I took from the floor, I’ve marked two little orange dots that you might be able to just barely make out. They are near the bottom of the shot, above the “O” in the lettering. Those dots are on top of the heads of two people who are looking out over the railing…that’s how high the thing is! There are people all the way around the dome, but you can’t see them in my photo. Dani tells me that the “O” is wider and taller than a person!

I was heartbroken that my very favorite statue in the entire world now has to be kept behind bullet-proof glass, quite far from where you stand to see it. La Pieta, by Michelangelo. Some idiot took a hammer to it a number of years ago, so now it is kept protected. Even from a distance it is very moving.

Also very moving is the statue of St Veronica. She was supposed to have taken a cloth and wiped the blood from Jesus’s face as he made his way to be crucified. She is holding the cloth in this statue, and a blurred image of Christ’s face, which you really can’t see in this photo.

By far the most moving sight I saw, though, was the tomb of Pope John Paul II. You’re going down long hallways filled with the tombs of popes past. Most are ornate, and beautiful, to the point of being overwhelming. Then you turn the corner, and there is a plain white marble slab with his name. That’s it. No other decoration. I cried, and I’m not even Catholic! He tombstone said it all…what a man of the people.

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More Rome…St Peter’s Basilica

Or Laocoon and his sons after they ran afoul of Poseidon:

And this one, the god of the Nile, which is enormous!

Mosaics and inlaid work that defies description:

And the huge sphere within a sphere which dominates the courtyard. It moves, by the way!

I believe this last lady is a muse of some sort. Even though her thread has long since disappeared, she is binding a book! How cool is that?

One of the best parts of the Vatican has to be the Sistine Chapel. It is just breathtaking. No photos are allowed, but you can click on the link to see some of the familiar works on the ceiling. Michelangelo painted the entire thing in only 4 years, while the Pope complained that it was taking too long! What an experience it is to see it in person

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More Rome…well, the Vatican!

Our first stop was the Borghese Museum. Since you have to make reservations (or take your chances, which I don’t recommend), we had a set time to show up, and only two hours to enjoy it. NO PHOTOGRAPHS, thank you very much! Suffice it to say that it is well worth the visit. Click on the link above, and you can see the official photos of some of the works we saw! Here are the only shots I took, of the outside:

After lunch, we headed to the National Museum of Rome, housing an amazing collection of mosaics, inlaid stonework, and other treasures. You might think we’d be museumed out after that, but not when every corner you turn takes your breath away, no.

I got the biggest kick out of this scene! People don’t worry too much about the car traffic in some areas This street is not closed to cars, despite what it looks like:

After dinner one of the evenings (I can’t remember which one!), we took a bus ride over to the Trastevere district on the east side of the river. It’s where many large residences, nice apartments, and fine dining can be found. It has a different look and feel from the busy Termini district where we were staying.

Another evening (or maybe it was even the same evening…it stays light so long!), we went to see Trevi Fountain. You couldn’t get anywhere near it because of the throngs of people doing exactly what we were doing! It’s pretty impressive though. Click the link above to see some better images.

As long as I’m sharing some miscellaneous stuff with you, I’ll throw in this striking image from the church known as St Peter in Chains. It’s an amazing church, full of wonderful artwork, but we couldn’t see most of it because there was a wedding going on at the time! Sometimes we forget that many of these wonderful places we visited are operating churches!

Typical tourists that we are, we always visit any Hard Rock Cafe in the cities that we vacation in Rome’s Hard Rock is great!

Dani and Mike with Jimi Hendrix’s
patchwork outfit in the back

Well, there you have some initial first impressions of Rome. I’m going to cover our trip to the Vatican, St Peter’s Basilica, the Catacombs, and the Colosseum in separate posts. So much to see, so little time!

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Our trip to Italy…part three, Rome!