Campo di Fiori is recommended by every tour guide as a large open-air market to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. In truth, the market caters specifically to tourists, even though it’s supposed to be “authentic.” I don’t think I saw a single Italian person shopping there!
All the vendors speak in broken English, trying to draw you to 8 euro per kg strawberries, 2 oz truffle oil for 10 euro ($5 for 8 oz at Marshalls!). I read from online bloggers that it is a tourist trap and walkable in less than 5 minutes, so I wasn’t expecting much, but I figured it was a way to past the time in Rome :T, plus it was on the way to Trastevere.
Trastevere… *sigh* what can I say about this gourmet ghetto…. Ummmmm… it actually IS a ghetto! Minus the gourmet! This gourmet ghetto does not even begin to compare to Berkeley’s Asian ghetto. It is overhyped, expensive (like everything else in Rome), and can’t even be described as ‘quaint.’ When we first crossed the bridge, we made a beeline to this “highly recommended” restaurant (again, based on tour guide books)… but it was in the corner of some alleyways and looked suspicious. Plus, the menu listed 10 items, period. None of which interested us, especially since it is known for pastas and only listed TWO pastas on their menu. So we turned around, walked down some more alleyways to find a famous bakery, Innocenti, also highly recommended. Oh my GOD the cookies looked so dry! They are famous for their biscotti, but they were incredibly tiny and unevenly formed... and my mom loves butter cookies, but even she said they didn’t look appetizing (unless you like to eat cardboard?), so we didn’t end up buying anything.
My mom had been starving by the time she woke up this morning (we told her it was a 10 minute walk to Trastevere, but it ended up being more like an hour), but she refused to buy & eat any of those cookies! We walked to Santa Maria church, which we heard is a pretty happening piazza (if there are any piazzas to choose from in Rome, go to Piazza Navona instead!).
Inside the church:
There were a few bistros lining the small piazza, the main one where all the tourists were at looked like it served only cocktails (everyone had a bloody mary at their table and no food). After walking along all the back alleyways and not finding a single appetizing bistro, we settled on a bistro next to the church, just off the piazza. Dad ordered a cappuccino, and we ordered a smoked salmon ravioli and tortellini with cream and mushroom. The server went on a whole tirade in Italian about how we only ordered 2 dishes for 4 people, didn’t order any beverages and refused the 1.5 euro bread PER PERSON (no free tap water in Rome ;( !)… the only reason I know this is because he first said it all in broken English, then went on a very impassioned Italian speech. I would have liked to not leave tip at all, but the bill was 19 euros and I only had a 20 :T… they don’t give change in Rome. You give them a 20, they take the 20… have fun waiting for the change! We ducked into a small pastry shop and bought a cream custard croissant for 1.8 euro and a nutella cookie for 7 EUROS!
I had no idea what the lady was saying (why do they bother speaking Italian when they know you’re tourists???), so I didn’t know it was 7 euros until checking out. Angel said if you really want to eat an Italian pastry, go to Safeway, buy a jar of Nutella and some donuts, and smear the Nutella on the donut and voila! You most likely have just made for yourself a better tasting Italian pastry than anything you’ll ever experience in Italy!
Dad wanted to go to the Monet exhibit next to the Roman Forum. You can either walk the whole way around the Vittorio Emmanuele monument to get to the Monet exhibit, or you can cut through by walking up a bunch of stairs:
On the cut-through, we found out that you have a great view of the Roman Forum, plus you’re so close you can almost touch the Arc! Saves on admission to the Forum! ^.^
The Arc up close… amazing details!:
It was 10 euros admission so we dropped him off there and walked to Domus Aurea, which was under construction and cordoned off ;( That was one of the main sites I wanted to see, as the Emperor Nero had built his palace on this site (it was supposedly all gold in the inside!), although his palace was destroyed by his successor and replaced with another building. Got a nice view of the Colosseum from here though, plus no tourists!
We then walked to the Santa Maria church (a lot of churches are named Santa Maria), Teatro dell Opera, and the Republica Piazza, which, on the map, looks like a historical monument, but is now converted to high-class shopping buildings. There is a gelateria called Il Gelaterium that yet again, tour books recommend (we really need to stop following their advice!). The price was decent, but the gelato was “eh.” Certainly not the knock-out flavors from yesterday. On the walk back to pick up Dad, we stopped in a grocery store Despar. The bakery section in the back looked tempting so we bought a cured beef and mozz on foccacia,
which Mom loved!
and a mini croissant with chocolate and nutella stuffed inside~ yummy!
By the time we were ready for dinner, it had started to pour. We decided to go back to Pepy’s Café since the food had been decent there the night before and it’s extremely close to the apartment. However, as we’ve learned from almost every restaurant/café/bar we’ve been to here in Italy, the service left MUCH to be desired. The waitress was so rude that we didn’t want to leave tip at the end of the meal. Our bill came to 19 euro, and can you believe that we had exactly only 18.99 euro?!?!?! So we ended up having to pay with a 20 and give a 1 euro tip. =(
From our experience in Rome, we’ve come to the conclusion that Italy is the poor man’s France. Italian monuments are grossly overpriced with their beauty/grandeur equally exaggerated. Italian food is mediocre, their cuisine being better cooked by other countries, overpriced and comes with extremely sloppy/rude/lazy service (with their slug-like waiters chatting to each other and smoking between serving dishes). And we’ve decided that for the rest of this trip we’re going to try to dump as little money as we can into their economy as possible. As a country they’ve got thousands of years of history (well, only if you spot them the years of Roman history…otherwise their little country is younger than the USA), but have light years to go to catch up to France and Spain, especially in terms of education and manners (and respecting their own monuments)! One wonders how many more years this little gag can go on before the Colosseum collapses under the weight of their collective cigarette butts. Italy preys on the religiously devout, because in what other country would you see the nuns shopping at the United Colors of Benetton? The entire country is poor but the Vatican City is teeming with riches… from the donations of the poor! Every church you go in has different alcoves and in front of each one, there are donation boxes.
No comments:
Post a Comment