[title type="h5"]Monday, April 21, 2014.
Alfredo's Lives Up To Its Rep.[/title]
Our last full day in Rome, and our next-to-last breakfast buffet. MA has somehow made a deal to get the infamous €37 buffet for a mere €10. I find cappuccino of good quality for the asking. But the coffee here isn't as good as I remember from past visits to Italy, which for now I will continue to say is the world's best cup of coffee.
Mary Leigh and The Boy check out and head for home. The Boy's final exams (really final, since he graduates from Loyola afterwards) begin in a couple of days. I hope he shakes off the jet lag enough to function.
Today is the 2762nd birthday of Rome. The anniversary triggers a big celebration at the ruins of Circus Maximus. The place is swarming with people dressed like centurions, emperors, vestal virgins, and gods, with music in a style supposed to be that of ancient Rome. Of course, Mary Ann and sisters are there, with yet another enormous crowd. Is there anything they can do in semi-privacy? At least MA and I will have the hotel room to ourselves tonight.
Mary Ann's hyperactive schedule also takes her to Trastevere and the Jewish Quarter, checking off the failed attempt of a few days ago, when she couldn't find the place. This time, headed somewhere else, she found herself in the midst of more synagogues than churches--a dead giveaway.
On her way back to the hotel, she happened upon a market where cheeses, salumi, vegetables and many other appealing edibles. She brought a load of it back, raving about it all. I see the signs. She will want all of us to walk down the hill to this market and get hip to it, And until we do, we will hear about it. But we are leaving Rome tomorrow, so what could happen?
[caption id="attachment_42196" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Alfredo's Ostaria room, with the four sisters.[/caption]
Dinner at one of Italy's most famous restaurants: Alfredo's, the creator of fettuccine Alfredo. Apparently, other establishments lay claim to the Alfredo lineage, so this place calls itself "Il Vero Alfredo"--the real Alfredo. What I've long heard about Alfredo's is that it's touristy and just okay, and that the fettuccine isn't any better than anyone else's, if that good. But every time we visited Rome (this is our fourth time) we seem to wander past it. It's next to the square-block-size mausoleum of Emperor Augustus, a hard place to miss.
This was the time to try it out. No reservations, they said. We go anyway. The maitre 'd couldn't seat us in the restaurant proper, but we could dine in the Osteria. Although I've seen many examples of both, I fail to detect a powerful difference between a ristorante and an osteria. Adding to the puzzle, the ristorante is about eighty percent available. (It's only the usual eight o'clock opening time.) The menus are the same no matter where you are.
[caption id="attachment_42197" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Artichokes with four marinades at Alfredo's.[/caption]
All this vanished with the first courses, consisting of tender baby artichoke hearts (this is the season) marinated in four different concoctions, followed by the same vegetable fried to crunchy.
[caption id="attachment_42198" align="alignnone" width="382"]
Il vero fettuccine Alfredo![/caption]Then the pasta. Alfredo's version of its namesake dish easily lives up to its reputation. It's certainly simple enough: pasta, butter, parmesan cheese. The noodles are paper-thin, which I say is the secret of the dish. The sauce is rich, rich, rich. Half an order (€19) is as much as I could handle, enjoying every bite.
Also on the table: more of the cacio alla pepe, served with the waiter's pleasure we found every time we asked for it. We also enjoyed a risotto of artichokes, pancetta, and peppers.
[caption id="attachment_42200" align="alignnone" width="480"]
More artichokes (in season!) in a risotto at Alfredo's.[/caption]
A duo of musicians playing the guitar and the accordion show up, serenading the ristorante. Aha. That explains it. But they came to our table deep in the osteria, and kept on playing, enough that the guitarist came forward with his CD for me to buy. How could I not?
[caption id="attachment_42199" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Panna cotta at Alfredo's.[/caption]
I didn't expect this to be the best meal we'd have in Italy, but so far I'd say Alfredo's had indeed achieved that. And we didn't really get all that far into the menu. As for its tourist orientation, the people in the main room showed all the characteristics of seasoned locals. What are they doing here? Same thing we are.
[title type="h5"]Il Vero Alfredo. Piazza Augusto Imperator. www.ilveroalfredo.il/[/title]
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[title type="h5"]Tuesday, April 22, 2014. To The Sea In A Ship.
[/title]
Trying to round up four women is neither easy nor fun. I was nearly packed when a call from the hotel doorman said I a car was waiting to pick us up. A big car, too, because the five of us need a ride from Rome to Civitavecchia, the Eternal City's port and the place where our cruise ship awaited.
Mary Ann arranged this transport to avoid paying the cruise line's prices for transfers, but she didn't tell us when the car would appear. The driver, who had other commitments when he finished with us, became more agitated by the minute. So did I, when I found MA down the hill at the little market she found yesterday. We're going to a cruise ship and she's buying food?
Luck was on our side. The notably snarled Rome traffic flowed well, as did the Autostrada. A heavy tip calmed the driver down.
Boarding the ship was easier than last time, as it always seems to be. I can remember when it took an hour of standing in line. This time, with all the information needed by the ship already entered by computer weeks ago, it took maybe three minutes.
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Holland America's ship Eurodam.[/caption]
This is our first cruise on Holland America. Friends and fellow travelers on past cruises unanimously agree that as the big ships go, Holland America is the best. Old school, they say. I'm ready for that.
But this is an offbeat itinerary, one traveled by the Eurodam only once a year. We're aboard for six days, but there's only one day at sea. All the port days start early and end late. We will be running. This is right up Mary Ann's alley. She hates sea days, for the reason that she doesn't much like ships.
And we have a very exotic port: Tunis, on the north coast of Africa, but not far from Sicily. Not many cruise ships go there. Because of all that, the demographic mix of the passengers is much younger than typical for Holland America.
Every cruise ship in my experience does some things very well, and other things very badly. This ship's strength is immediately apparent. They empower their employees more broadly than most ships do. The first of several stories illustrating this:
"Does the Eurodam have a special deal on laundry at the beginning the the cruise like many cruises do?" I asked the room attendant. He didn't know, but he ran down to ask the laundry manager. Who said that while they had nothing official, he would make something up, because the laundry wasn't busy. I stuffed a bag (with almost everything I had; I travel light) and sent it and a suit for dry-cleaning. "How much?" I asked.
"He says free," said the attendant. That's impossible, I told him. Laundry on a ship is not outrageous, but it's not cheap either. But when the clothes reappear tomorrow--all ironed and on hangers, and a day early--the total on the invoice will show zero. Well! I would see other examples of this sort of thing as the cruise went on.
The lifeboat drill and sailaway excitement play out. Then the ship's passengers divide into two groups: those who will have dinner from the buffet as soon as possible, and those who will wait until eight o'clock for the main seating in the dining room. In between the two, the Eat Club holds its nightly meeting, a.k.a. Tom's Martini Club. We have eighty-two people in our group, and at least fifty of them show up for drinks. It's my tradition to buy the first drink for everybody, and we set a new record of $741 for that exercise. Nice to be back paying dollars again. Euros run through so much more money so much faster.
My strategy is not just to be a good host. I find that after buying everybody a drink, I never have to pay for another one for the duration of the cruise. I still come out deep in the red, but it establishes camaraderie.
But this cruise is different. In the early days of the booking, the cruise line made an offer you could hardly refuse: free drinks, up to $7 each, fifteen a day. Who can go through fifteen drinks a day? Even when these may be Cokes, cappuccinos, beers and cocktails? I was waiting for a catch to show up, but even a Negroni--my standard cruise drink, including in its formula three alcoholic beverages, two of which are call brands--fly under this generous radar. Nobody bought me a drink the whole cruise. I got them all free.
Dinner on the first night of a cruise is rarely anything special. All I remember of tonight's menu is mulligatawny soup. This ought to be great, because most of the chefs are Indian. But it was odd and uninteresting. I don't remember anything else in the meal, something that can't be blamed on my single Negroni beforehand. Hmm.
After dinner I go around looking for music, but nothing interesting was playing. There are karaoke sessions, but all of them were scheduled at our dinner hour, when I must be at the table. I find a piano bar, but it's full, and none of the people are part of our group.
So, to bed, where MA is in the second hour of her slumber. The Eurodam made its way across slight seas en route to Livorno.
[title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris May 12, 2014 12:01 in
