Roman Getaway

One nice thing about living in Abruzzo is that it is so easy to get to big cities.  Florence, Venice, Milan, and Turin are leisurely train trips.  But Rome is a short bus ride.   We’ve even gone to Rome for the day, taking a 10:00 a.m. bus there, having a leisurely lunch, and taking a late afternoon bus back.  For this trip, we left our car in the train/bus station parking lot for the 3 days and paid a whopping 12 Euros.

Because we’ve booked a trip to Egypt in October, and the Scuderie del Quirinale museum had a special Egyptian exhibit, we decided to take off for a few days and do some Rome things that we hadn’t done before.  The museum’s exhibit was called “Treasures of the Pharaohs” and had 130 masterpieces from Egypt’s museums that had never previously left Egypt.

Not being familiar with Roman neighborhoods, I asked Claude AI for advice on where to stay and eat.  His recommendations turned out to be almost perfect.  I asked for a hotel near the museum, and for some not-well-known sites.  Once I decided on a hotel, I asked for suggestions for restaurants for dinner that were walking distance from the hotel, and that’s where Claude fell short.  But more on that later.

Our hotel, the Hotel Traiano, was a 15-minute taxi ride from the bus station.  It was a really good location for us.  The staff were very friendly and helpful, and the breakfast was really good too. 

 Wandering around the neighborhood, we found the Trevi Fountain.  While we’d been there before, it was still a site to see.  It used to be free to get up close and throw coins in the water, but not anymore.  It was okay with us to gaze at its beauty from several meters away.

On Claude’s advice, we had reserved a table for dinner at the da Valentino restaurant our first night.  It’s a very cute restaurant, and has been open since around 1896, just the kind of place we like.  However, our food was not good, and the service was less than satisfactory. 

So we had some wine and wandered back to the hotel for an early night.

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we walked over to the Scuderie del Quirinale for our 10:00 appointment to see the Treasures of the Pharaohs exhibit. 

The exhibition displays the civilization of ancient Egypt through six thematic sections, highlighting spirituality, social organization, and rituals of the afterlife. Included are royal artifacts, statuary and reliefs, everyday items, and royal jewelry.

You absolutely must click the link below to see our photos.  It was a beautifully curated exhibit, and the audio guide was very well done.

There is something special about wandering around Rome, and after spending a couple of hours at the exhibit, that’s what we did.  We found a welcoming restaurant on a side street and had a nice lunch. 

Next stop was a very pleasant surprise:  the Galleria Doria Pamphilj.  Again, you have to see the photos to even get an idea of how amazing this museum is.  And the audio guide is narrated by one of the descendents of the original owners of the palace, which was built in the middle of the 17^th century.  The gallery today is breathtaking.

We had dinner that evening at Picolo Arancio, again a short walk from our hotel.  Here, the food was good and the service was just fine. Next to the restaurant was the Skanderburg plaza and palazzo and Mike had to research the significance of the Scandinavian name. We found out that the name was not Scandinavian but rather a bastardized version of the Ottoman Turk name “Iskender Bey”. He was an Albanian nobleman who revolted against the Turks and led the fight against them for 25 years starting in 1444. When he was forced out of Albania, Rome took him in as one their own nobles.

On Wednesday we headed off to another museum, the Museo Giovanni Barracco, that Claude had billed as “a free museum with Ancient sculptures from Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome in a charming renaissance palazzo with an underground Roman domus.”  Well that is a bit of a stretch.  First, it wasn’t free.  Second, the only room that we found interesting was the library.  I think there is some history to the building and the collection that we may have missed, but I was most interested in seeing the underground Roman domus.  However, it was closed and looked to be that way for some time.  Sigh.

We walked over to the Plaza Navona and soaked up the view of the two Bernini fountains while drinking our 15-euro iced teas from a can.

We headed back towards our hotel and had a nice light lunch at a nearby café.  Our return bus wasn’t until 5:30, but we were tired and took a cab to the bus station in hopes of getting on an earlier bus.  But, alas, the 4:00 bus was full.  So we walked over to a café, had some coffee, and relaxed until our bus home arrived. 

Don't forget to see the photos! Click HERE.

Arrivederci, Roma!