Some Roman tourism-travels with Barbara and Shannon. August 2013

A saturday lunch at eataly. The enormous 4 story  train station was converted into an Italian food shopping and restaurant extravaganza.

visit to church and mausoleum of constantine's daughter, Costanza with 4th century Roman mosaics showing the grape/wine harvest.

mausoleum/Church of Santa costanza, daughter of Constantine, probably built by her around 337 A.D

exterior of mausoleum  on the grounds of the complex of Saint Agnes (sant'agnese)

catacombs of sant'agnese, only discovered in late 1800's. well preserved tombs, lots of them with the coverings still over the graves. a small chapel exists where they found the body of st. agnes.

barbara and shannon on the catacomb tour. was a good tour, worth seeing. no crowds like the catacombs on the appian way. 

a butcher's tomb? judging from the relief of a prosciutto

the very elaborate villa torlonia,  where mussolini lived for 20 or more years. recently restored to its splendor

casa della civetta (owl house) also on the grounds of the Torlonia park

one of the extraordinary stained glass pieces in the owl house

exterior of owl house, once home to a prince, now a museum

barbara and I front of owl house

there was a small violin exhibition with fun painted violins

Roman "ponte rotto" (or broken bridge) real name for it is Pons Aemilius. It was the first stone bridge over the Tiber (built from 179-142 BC). It has been repaired numerous times.

Dinner at "Bacco il Tevere" on the Isola Tiberina (on the island in the middle of the Tiber).  Has a great view of the Ponte Rotto which we enjoyed while dining. The island itself was settled during the beginnings of Rome. A temple of Aesculapius was built here and the island is still associated with healing as there is one of the main hospitals in Rome on the island.  The island was faced in travertine, some of which you can still see with the serpent of Aesculapius carved in relief on the stone. Aesculapius was the Greek god of medicine and healing and his snake headed rod/staff is still a symbol of medicine. As an aside one of his daughters was Hygieia,  goddess of health and cleanliness, thus today's word hygiene.

can't leave out a trip to cremolato when friends visit. despite the title there is no cream only frozen delicious fresh fruit in season, topped with thick whipped cream. will cool anyone down on a summer's night.

It was a great pleasure to have my dear high school friend Barbara and her daughter visiting Rome. Barbara and I made the best of two days seeing the Baths of Caracalla,  exploring the layers of San Clemente church, lunch and gelato on the aventine, a swim in a local pool, coffee in the Villa Borghese, peeking through the keyhole, visiting the Capitoline museum and having a great caffe shakerato on the gorgeous terrace next door to museum at the top of Victor Emmanuele monument overlooking Rome. We had a few fun dinners on our terrace, dined out on the Tevere and enjoyed pizza and a walk in Trastevere with some of my Roman friends, and hung out on the sidewalk table sampling some delicious cremolato. We went to Sunday Mass in the Baths of Diocletian having been converted to a church by Michelangelo in the 1500's.  They also went to the Galleria Borghese to see the Bernini Baroque sculptures and first rate art collection. We squeezed in as much as possible.
A good time was had by all!