Today was a welcoming day from all the tourist throngs. The last two days I spent in the more touristy areas, so with the help of my favorite guide book guy, Rick Steve's, I had downloaded his free podcasts to my iPhone and toured the much more 'off the beaten path" part of Rome. The Trastevere section is across the Tiber river from the heart of Rome and it seems like most of the people there want it that way. It feels like old time Rome many centuries ago with little shops and narrow alley ways. Not many tourist at all. One of my pictures of a cute little restaurant there with their sign out tells the story. And even the beggars are nicer! I had to take a pic and drop some money in for the guy with all the dogs. I'm a sucker for doggies. Yeah I know, the cynics in all of you are saying, he's just taking the money for himself... oh well. Rick also lead my to an awesome pizza place that was magnifico! Then I ventured back across the Tiber to the Jewish Ghetto area. This was an area of only 4 blocks that the Romans forced all the Jews to live in and they built a wall around it to keep them in. Good thing about that was, they missed the great plague that went thru Europe, so putz on you Romans! 🙂 This area too was less touristy and very quaint. Of course here Rick led me to some really good Jewish bakeries where these cute little Jewish grandma's hand made the goodies. I took a pic of the ruins of the Theater of Marcellus which sort of looks a little like a smaller version of the Colusseum but actually predates it. I then had to get my catholic genes tuned up for my visit to the Vatican tomorrow so I visited some really cool churches. First was San Clemente where I couldn't believe it until I saw it but it's a 16th century church on street level, you go downstairs and there's a 4th century church under it and you go further down and there's an old pagan village with houses and schools. It was unreal. Then I went to the church of the Scala Santa (Sacred Stairs) where the steps that Jesus climbed right before his death have been placed. Devout Christians climb the stairs on their knees to the top ( see pic). No, I didn't do it... dang that would hurt! That's all for now. I also slipped in a pic that I saw that was the closest to my last name and I got a kick out of it! Have a good one!
The Wandering Italian 