[title type="h6"]Good Friday, April 18, 2014.
Pax Romana.
[/title]
I had a bad night's sleep, knowing the alarm in our Brussels hotel would get us up at 4:00 a.m. We have an early flight and a rental car to unload. Being early was good. Few others were in the airport when we arrived, but long lines form soon after.
Mary Ann was disappointed to learn that our credentials were not good enough to admit us to anybody's first-class lounge in the airport. This has become a mini-obsession with her, ever since she found that having an American Express Platinum Card admits one to Delta's Sky Club and the like. Instead of that, we were forced to sit for an hour at the gate, have a little breakfast and cappuccino, and listen to a tiny carousel nearby play a brief segment of "It's A Small World, After All." It wasn't quite long enough to get stuck in our brains, for which I am thankful.
A smooth flight from Brussels to Rome, even over the Alps, which usually kick up a lot of bumpy air. By ten we were checking into the Rome Cavalieri Hotel. It's the latest in Mary Ann's growing collection of experiences in amazing, luxurious hotels. Part of the experience is spending the better part of an hour negotiating with the room clerk for amenities.
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The view of Rome from Cavalieri Hotel. St. Peter's at right.[/caption]
What she wanted most was a room on the side of the hotel with a lofty view of the city. She got it, but it cost an extra €400 for our four-night stay. We soon found out why. From the side of Monte Mario--the tallest hill in Rome--the Cavalieri has a panoramic view of the Eternal City below. On the right, St. Peter's in the Vatican, in the center, the main spread of Rome, with the showy white monument to Victor Emanuel II in front of the much larger but dun-colored Colosseum. Mountains in the distance surround everything.
The Cavalieri Hotel was built in the 1960s. It didn't feel dated to me, but Mary Ann thought otherwise. The view from our room was so superb that I don't know how she couldn't love it. I spent a lot of time in the room, alternating writing and staring out into the magnificence.
Cavalieri's main restaurant, on its top floor (and what a view that gives!) is La Pergola. It's rated by Michelin three stars and five forks. That's the highest possible rating, making this the highest-rated restaurant among Rome's thousands of eateries. Mary Ann tries to get reservations. I am not surprised that she can't. This is Holy Week, drawing hundreds of thousands to the already busy old capital. We checked back repeatedly for cancellations, but nothing turned up.
It was just as well. A cold I felt coming on a few days ago is now in the sneeziest, runniest-nose stage. I can hardly taste or smell anything. I am ready for this eventuality, though, and hit the bug hard with vitamin C, deep gargling, and the lozenges I picked up from the farmacia. The fifteen-minute walk uphill from the hotel to the druggista on this very pleasant afternoon probably helped, too.
Of all continental institutions, the farmacia is the easiest to find. Its thousands of locations are marked by green crosses in neon. That was the technology on my most recent visit to Europe in 2007, anyway. Since then, the iconic sign has moved into the LED era, and is now often animated. Inside, you can get everything from a prescription to a lip balm. The stores are minuscule compared with, say, a Rite-Aid. But they seem to have everything the bigger stores do.
I've heard that you can bring wild mushrooms to a farmacia, and they will tell you whether they're safe to eat. If so, that's a service I wish would commence on our side of the Atlantic. But I doubt it ever will be, what with liability issues being what they are.
The rest of our travelers joined us noonish. Mary Leigh and The Boy, up from a few days in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast, ran into the comical difficulties that come when trying to negotiate short travel in Italy. They wound up on a train, but could only get tickets going the right way at an inconveniently early hour. And there they were in the lobby of the Cavalieri, waiting for us when we arrived from our second honeymoon.
Mary Ann's three sisters soon also fetched up at the Cavalieri. The four women have always been very close, even though two of them live far away from New Orleans. The only way I could avoid being thoroughly outnumbered was to escape from them now and then. Playing the role of a slow person--something I can tap into when I need to, as any listener of my radio show will attest--they often just leave me behind. Indeed, Mary Ann had them running around Rome almost immediately. I broke away and took advantage of the hotel's magnificent view with a long nap, punctuated by the happy sounds of children splashing in the pool six floors down.
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Ristorante Alla Rampa, just off the Spanish Steps.[/caption]
Sixish, the whole bunch of us gathered at a restaurant recommended to us by Chef Duke Locicero. (Who, coincidentally, is sitting in for me on the radio show three of the days we're away.) Ristorante alla Rampa is around the corner from the Spanish Steps, which is to Rome what the French Market is to New Orleans, at least in its density of tourist traffic. It's a fine little dining room with a helpful staff that quickly set up our table of seven. We began with the self-service antipasto and a few platters of steamed, marinated whole artichokes. This is artichoke season, and we would devour many of these tender, fresh globes during the succeeding few days.
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The crusty Italian bread served everywhere in southern Italy.[/caption]
Then pasta, a few different kinds. The favorite was cacio e pepe--a much-loved Roman dish made by tossing pasta in a hollowed-out wheel of pecarino romano cheese with a lot of ground pepper. It would not be far from the truth to call this the mac 'n' cheese of Rome. Or perhaps Sparta. It's made of three ingredients: pasta, cheese, and pepper. The girls also liked paglia e fiend--"straw and hay," so named for the combination of white and green pasta. It came in a sauce of olive oil, wine, and a little prosciutto. Ravioli with mushrooms, spaghetti al pomodoro, and a couple more completed the assortment.
Ordinarily, you would go on to the meat or seafood at this point. But suddenly, the whole gang headed for the doors. Pope Francis himself would continue a tradition of the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum.
Every piece of data about this event points to a scary, dark gathering of thousands of people pushing inward. The sisters are frightened away from it, but the Marys and The Boy would not be so easily deterred. They stuck with it, even as the idea seems less and less advisable.
I already re-enact the Stations annually at Manresa. I stay at Ristorante alla Rampa to finished my meal. The entree was a stack of lamb chops, followed by cheese and espresso. My hope was that they would get wise and return here, but that's not Mary Ann's way. She never gives up on anything, no matter how uncomfortable she gets. She admits that this exercise was iffy. It's nearly midnight before they finally turned up at the hotel.
[title type="h5"]Ristorante Alla Rampa. Rome: Piazza di Spagna. +06-6782621. www.allarampa.it. [/title]
[title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris April 15, 2014 00:01 in
