Our next destination was the Bocca Della Verita (Mouth of Truth), another Audrey Hepburn highlight. Typically I am rather anti-tourist, but any time I am able to occupy the same space as the second most perfect woman of all time I am going to do it. Legend has it that if you put your hand in the face's mouth and you are a liar, the mouth will eat your hand. Given that literally not a single hand was eaten during the 20 minutes we were standing in line, the most reasonable conclusion seems to be that the legend isn't true. One thing is for certain -- I definitely am looking forward to watching Roman Holiday for the fourth or fifth time after we get home.
Right around the corner from the BDV is the site of the Circus Maximus, which is where the Romans had their biggest and best chariot races (think Ben Hur). According to Pliny -- and really, are you going to argue with Pliny? -- the stadium surrounding the track held 250,000 people. I will let that sink in for a while. That's 50,000 more people than would fit in the Alabama and Texas A&M football stadiums combined. Can you imagine Game Day parking? And don't even try to get your brain around the Porta-Potty situation. Whatever the case, now it's just a gigantic oval / rectangular grass-and-weed-filled depression with roads going around all sides. Again, tourism-by-imagination.
We spent the remainder of Day 5 exploring what used to be the Jewish Ghetto and just wandering around and people-watching. The JG area of the city is my favorite. I had a great kosher burger and some terrific dessert pieces from two bakeries on the corner. If you're there, you can't miss them. The JG is tiny, but has some interesting small shops as well as great views of the predecessor to the Colosseum, which now has apartments built directly on top of it. Don't believe me? This picture is a very good synopsis of Rome in general: covering old stuff with new stuff.
To cap off Day 5, we had Mexican food. There are basically no Mexican restaurants in Rome (seems like a decent market opportunity), but I found one that looked like it probably would be good. The owner has been in Rome for 30+ years, is from Mexico originally, has cooked for various Vatican-sponsored events, and even has written a book featuring 100 Mexican recipes based on ingredients that are found easily in Italy. Plus, the name of the restaurant is La Cucaracha. So I figured we couldn't go wrong. At worst, the food would be terrible but we could say that we ate at a Mexican restaurant with the cockroach as its namesake. Anyway, the food was extremely good and it was nice hearing a bunch of people speaking a language we could halfway understand.
On Day 6, we took a 90-minute train ride north to spend 24 hours in Florence. I presented a paper in Florence in 2016 and spent 5 days there alone. It's my favorite European city, and I was really happy to have an opportunity to give Paige a whirlwind tour. Having seen most of the important stuff on my previous journey, I was able to play Ultrafast Tour Guide through the Duomo Museum (which houses Donatello's wood carving of Mary Magdalene, below, my favorite work of art in any medium), the Bargello, the Baptistery, the Accademia (where Michelangelo's David lives), Santa Croce, and the Santa Croce leather school (new purse? check) all in one afternoon. We also found a restaurant that I had visited before and really liked as well as the worst Asian food restaurant on earth. If you want flavorless beef in cayenne pepper -- I know, I know ... how is that even possible?? -- and chicken curry that tastes exactly like Campbell's chicken noodle soup, look no further than the highly recommended (how???) Alfani 149.
In early afternoon, we boarded the train back to Rome, packed, had dinner, walked around a bit more in the JG, and -- you guessed it -- got gelato. We also came back and took the last load of clothes out of our all-in-one-washer-and-dryer (aka The Wrinkler). If you've not had the privilege of using one of these European wonders before, you are missing out. You put in three or four pieces of clothing (because really, who would ever need to wash more than that?) and then turn on the machine to let it run through 2 hours of wash and 2 hours of dry. When you hear the machine stop, you then pull out the damp, not very clean clothes and hang them over chairs to dry for real ... and you end up with a finished product like this. Perfetto!
We head back to Kansas tomorrow morning. In the last seven days, we've had a nice break from reality, seen a lot of cool stuff, and eaten a lot of good food. Despite the fact that my Fitbit tells me I've logged 167,000+ steps (which translates into roughly 76 miles), I plan to stay away from the scales for at least a week. Rome definitely is a worthy travel destination. That being said, I would put it in the bottom half of the European cities that I have visited. Don't get me wrong -- there's nowhere else I would've rather gone this summer and it certainly is a place that people considering travel abroad should keep in mind. It just doesn't have quite the character / appeal (to me) that, for example, Florence, Istanbul, Edinburgh, Paris, and Prague have. Not sure what might be next ... maybe Spain with Hollis, to let him test his pseudo-fluency in a big way? We shall see.
Thanks for checking in and have a good summer.
Mike
They use those washer/dryers in China, too!
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