Martedì a Roma - Spring-y? Smart? Smells like Rhode Island?

If it's Tuesday, it must be Tulsa - something like that

Hello, Peasants…I mean…

Boungiorno Paisanos!

Getting a very late start here - in fact, depending upon datelines, you're getting this at least one, if not two, days late. Blogger has pretty much become merda since teh  Google took it over, plus the connectivity here sux. Ah well, here is what our Tuesday morning started with, so no more complaining!:

Also of interest is that we see that our neighbors across the way...

... apparently run a professional kitchen:

We sat for a while watching others work, which I could do all day, before heading out. When we returned in the evening, we came from in from a new direction and discovered that "our neighbors" are actually a full-on hotel! Hotel Atlante Roof Garden Hence the professional kitchen, I guess:

Today we visited the Vatican Museum, including the Sistene Chapel, where Michaelangelo spent years on his back painting the ceiling. Photographs are not allowed. Of course. However, you are allowed to photograph the work of such pikers as Raphael, who painted other walls and ceilings in the public part of the papal apartments in the Palace of the Vatican. 

Here is a ceiling painting by one of Raphael's surrealist colleagues, Salvadorus Dalio, and shows a classical statue knocked backwards and shattered on the ground. In it's place is a crucifix. Some interpret this as Christianity triumphing over pagan Rome. 

Alternatively, religious superstition triumphing over reason? Seems like an odd piece of art for the optimistic, almost-pagan spirit of the Renaissance. I guess it made the Popes feel better about their lifestyles, though. 

Beginning of the end, if you ask me...

The crowds were truly impressive and oppressive. Bah!

We found out later that Rome has eclipsed most of the rest of Europe in terms of tourism. Many claim that the popularity of Pope Francis I is adding to this. There sure were LOTS of people, including thousands and thousands and thousands of school kids -  and it's not even Easter break yet - I checked!

Photography is allowed outside of the museum. Here is a detail from one of the wings of the museum that I thought was pretty neat. This sort of artistic attention to detail is everywhere:

Close-up:

Elsewhere in Vatican City, the Popes and Cardinals not only have great buildings and art inside and out, they have nice gardens and grounds:

I may be burned out on churches, museums, and old-world art...

April in Rome: much more Spring-y than April in Paris

There's honeysuckle scent in the air and everything is flowering in Rome! We saw these trees on every street. Claudia thinks they are cherry (cherry blossoms), but I'm not so sure.

People grow their window plants from the insides of their apartments outside onto and spilling over the windowsills:

And lilacs (I think that's what they are) are EVERYWHERE!

And there are lots of dogs having fun!

And where there are dogs, there is...

How Smart have we really become?

Walking from mid-morning snack to lunch to dinner, we've seen that that the "Smart Car" and its many copycats rule in Rome these days. It seems that they could not be smaller and still haul two people. They zip around larger vehicles (a VW Golf is "larger" over here), and can park perpendicular to the curb, being barely longer than a motorcycle. Here is a pair illustrating just this:

Pair of SmartCars taking up very little space.

And so stylish! Even Fiat has gotten into the market with an updated version of their venerable 500:

The new Fiat 500

The new 500 is everywhere! Though Fiat started making them several years after Daimler brought the Smart to market, the Romans seem to have embraced their automotive heritage and are snapping these things up. They are even cuter than a Smart or the many copycats, and they are Italian with a twist - FIAT no longer stands for "Fix It Again, Tony." The new 500 is supposedly reliable! What could be better? Italian and so stylish - might we even say…smart?

But just how smart have we become? Are these new generation cars so handy? So cute? Here in one photograph is a counterpoint: 

Original FIAT 500

HA! Yes, that's right, the original FIAT 500! Look how tiny it is! And notice that, no matter which way it's parked, it takes much less space than it's modern replacements, which suddenly don't seem so small and smart:

I don't think I could've staged  these photos better! BTW, the original 500 sat four (4). Of course, those four had to be pretty chummy. Here are some more photos of original 500s that we saw while walking around on Tuesday. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and though I like the looks of the new 500 more than the Smart, I like the looks of the old 500 even more.

Hey, how did that Caterham get in here?!

There is a reason driving down the size of cars (pun intended). Parking is TIGHT in Rome! 

This is the front of the car:

This is the rear of the same car:

There are actually parking police. I have no idea what they are policing, given what we saw passed for (apparently) legal parking, but they drive cars that are even smaller than the original FIAT 500s!

Smells like Rhode Island!

Food! Food! Food! Isn't this a blog from Claudia and Jeffrey? Well then, where's the food?

OK, OK. For lunch we dined at the best sandwich shop in Rome. These really were very good sandwiches. The bread is baked on-site at 200 degrees Centigrade (which somehow makes it better), hence the name Duecentogradi. The beer is Bloemenbier, a Belgian Strong Ale that tasted more like a wheat beer, but washed the sandwiches down well.

After lunch we went to the best (well, largest anyway) wine shop in Rome, Enoteca Constantini. The street-level rooms make it appear quite modest, but the basement turns out to cover blocks and blocks! I thought this bit of language was funny:

Then on to dinner. We tried to get into Romeo's, a hot new restaurant housed in a building that used to be the spare parts manufacturing facility for Alfa-Romeo cars (hence the name). No luck - all full at the inn. So, we went next door to Ragno d'Oro. This is a "traditional" Italian restaurant not in any of the guidebooks. It very clearly caters to tourists, but mainly French! Our waiter was an over-the-top, unrepentant salesman. Pure fun, he spoke French, English, Spanish, and of course, Italian -  plus he looked like Tony Bourdain's younger cousin. 

My primi dish was a seafood linguine, and when it arrived, it was so fragrant I blurted out "Smells like Rhode Island! And it did.

The other plates were good, but that seafood linguini was about the best I've had anywhere. We finished up with pistachio ice-cream, which was also outstanding. Not too bad for second-choice eatery!

WHEW! I'm tired! See you tomorrow!