A view up the Spanish Steps.
It was my parents first full day in Rome, so we decided to keep the schedule relatively light. Our only plan for the day involved a visit to the Villa Borghese, with a detour to the Spanish Steps area. We awoke late - those blinds at the Cavilieri Hilton shut crazy tight - and then caught the shuttle to downtown. The shuttle dropped us off at the Piazza Barberini (which features one of Rome's many fountains that involve naked guys,) and we headed off with intention towards the Spanish Steps.
The top of the Spanish Steps.
The Spanish Steps region is one of Rome's most pleasant - think cobble-stone streets, extremely classy shopping emporiums, and hordes of women in lucite heels looking pissed off. The Steps themselves were built between 1723 and 1725 by one Étienne Gueffie, a French diplomat. The Steps were designed to link the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Piazza Spagna below, and incidentally came out extremely attractive indeed, especially when the sun is going down and you are not one of a million sweaty people muscling painfully up them. We were in the sweaty tourist camp. John Keats lived right next door to the steps and passed on to the eternal realm there in 1821 - presumably he was not constantly bothered by troupes of American students taking pictures of one another grinding outside his house. (Though I doubt such behavior is anything new.)
Some sort of official building near the Steps.
The first McDonalds in Italy is located near the Spanish Steps. It is notable because 1. good god it is huge, a marble lined palace to hamburgers and soggy french-fries, the bathrooms are open to the public but horrific to behold, you should go look and 2. This McDonalds provided the bug up one Carlo Petrini's ass to create Slow Food. You therefore may blame this McDonalds for the loc-avore types giving you judgemental looks when you eat a factory-farmed cheeseburger next.
According to Wikipedia:
On June 13, 2007, a 24-year-old Colombian man attempted to drive a Toyota Celica down the Spanish Steps. No one was hurt, but several of the 200-year-old steps were chipped and scuffed. The driver was arrested and a breath test showed his blood alcohol content to be twice the legal limit for driving.[8]
I cannot provide any commentary on that other then awesome.
Enoteca Antica
Via della Croce, 76
00187 Roma (Latium), Italy
+39 066 790896
For lunch, I decided to return to a place I'd been with the Tulane group. Enoteca Antica is a very pleasant wine bar and eatery on Via della Croce, close to the Spanish Steps and in a delightfully atmospheric alley. (You will hear accordians, be solicted to purchase pizza, and witness Italian women with dynamite boob jobs during your time here, consider it a culture experience.) The restaurant itself is pleasant both inside and out, and is a good place to cool off from a smack-yo-mama hot Rome afternoon.
I had a salad with the usual excellent European tuna fish, mozarella, egg, potato, and tomato. Do not know why potato is considered a bizarre and nightmarish thing to put on a salad in the USA, unless it is a warm potato salad, but that is the nature of human existence.
My dad had the eggplant parmesan, which was a nice specimen of the genre: good marinara sauce, roasted instead of deep fried, a reasonable quantity of cheese. Eggplant parmesan is usually a horror show in the USA but may be safely ordered most places in Rome.
Whacking the heads off statues: everyone's favorite free-time game.
We headed back up the Spanish Steps again: we had a reservation at the Villa Borghese gallery. The walk to the Villa Borghese was pretty pleasant, as we ambled through the large park and looked at various seen-better-days statues and dodged people riding Segways.
The Galleria Borghese is a small gallery as these things go and requires a reservation, but it is absolutely worth it. Some backstory. The collection was begun by one Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V. Scipione was a fervent art lover and was also a stone-cold asshole: he was known for using intimidation, violence, and black mail for acquiring the art pieces he loved so well. The Galleria has a considerable collection of famous works, but Bernini, Caravaggio, and Titian are best represented, although works by Raphael and other notables are present as well. Some works that are sort of interesting:
Here's Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit. Of note is the sensual come-hither look in the boy's eyes (homosexualists, all of them) and the curious assemblage of rotting and fresh fruit in the basket. It's a gorgeous painting, full of longing and psychological and physical realism - no idealism here, nothing being brushed over or concealed. Caravaggio is also worthy of note for being such a grade-A badass: a "difficult" man, he enjoyed squandering the money he made on commissions on drinking, carousing, and getting into dashing sword fights. He killed another man in a brawl in 1606, causing him to be exiled from Rome to flee to Naples. That particular spot of trouble didn't slow him down any: he was booked for a few more fights soon after. A few attempts were made on his life, but it is presumed they never succeeded: he is thought to have died in 1610 of a considerably less romantic fever. \
This is Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, a rather scandalous-for-the-time sculpture in the Roman tradition. Completed in Rome from 1805 to `1808, it is not known whether Pauline actually sat for the nude bits of the portrait, although she said she did: when asked how she could pose while wearing such little clothing, she replied, "There was a stove in the room, it was quite warm." Her husband commissioned the portrait, the dog.
Beside the amazing artwork, the other nice aspect of the Villa is the decor and architecture. It is the equivalent of a Renaissance Graceland to me, utterly and completely over the top, it is difficult to imagine anyone tolerating living in all this junk day to day. It is tacky in a totally delightful way - what fun it must have been to be a ridiculously wealthy Cardinal with the resources and personality to scare the shit out of a healthy percentage of Europe. Of most interest is the "Egyptian" room, featuring semi hilarious presentations of what Renaissance artists thought Egyptian art must have looked like. Unfortunately, the Galleria does not possess half the delightfully over the top stuff that it should: in 1808, Napoleon forced his brother law, Prince Camillio Borghese, to sell the Borghese roman sculptures and antiquities to him. The once-beloved Borghese Gladiator is now parked in the Louvre. Love ya, Napoleon, don't ever change!
We spent the afternoon relaxing back at the hotel, which has a very nice view of the city, as you can see up here.
The hotel also has a marauding pack of lions to devour slow and weak and foolish tourists. Does the heart good.
Colline Emiliane
Via degli Avignonesi, 22
00187 Roma (Latium), Italy
+39 06 4817538
For dinner, we had reservations at Colline Emiliane, an extremely well reviewed little joint vaguely near the Trevi Fountain. The restaurant specializes in home-made pasta from Emiliana-Romagnola, and hews carefully to the traditions of the region. A tiny and no-frills place, it seems to be beloved by locals, filling up with happy eaters by 8:30 or thereabouts. Make reservations later rather then earlier to avoid looking like a total tool to the locals. The menu has an excellent assortment of pasta selections (not to be missed,) plenty of veal, and some excellent examples of Colline-Emiliane's cured meats - don't miss the culatello di Zubello.
My dad had the penne pasta with porcini mushrooms and tomato sauce. These were very nice: the earthy and delightfully complex flavor of the mushrooms melded well with the tangy and fresh tomato sauce. The pasta were, as expected, perfectly al dente and fresh.
A classic veal bolognese for my mother. My mom is a bolognese snob, and she makes an excellent version: she uses Marcella Hazan's recipe and it has never failed us. This was excellent, with fresh pasta and complex flavors. Even better for my mother's ego - it tasted just like what we make at home.
I had one of my all-time favorites: pumpkin ravioli in brown butter and sage sauce. These were really excellent, just what I'd been looking for in a dish I rarely have - the perfectly smooth and buttery filling was juxtaposed perfectly with the slightly chewy pasta. The butter sauce was also subtle and gently sage-infused: the combination was perfectly sweet and savory. I would very much recommend this.
I had veal with porcini mushrooms and tomato. I loved this: it's a dish I like to make myself, and the combination of tomato, tender meat, and funkily delightful porcinis is one of my favorites.
My dad had the roast veal, with what appears to be a little bit of sage and plenty of olive oil. This was tender, flavorful, and good, although I suspect he wished it had come bone-on. Who wouldn't?
A fried veal chop stuffed with spinach and cheese - hard to beat. This was quite tender and had a good, rich flavor. It's a good example of how hearty and earthy Italian cuisine can get. The Germans do not have the market cornered on fried veal cutlets.
We passed on dessert, being stuffed and tired - although the various fruit tarts in the window did look excellent - and headed back home.
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