I Should be Sleeping Like a Log

From the Forum, we passed by the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione. I have no idea if it's notable or not (but any church in Rome may be more notable than the most notable church where you live; this is certainly true for me). But what was interesting was that the altar piece had been left open to an outside window, so you could actually see it from the rear of the church. We were being extremely respectful of church buildings and didn't even take a non-flash photo inside (even though there was no one there and the church door was open), but from the outside, anything is fair game.


We passed all kinds of things on the way to our next goal. We saw a weird protest. No idea what they were protesting, but a narrow Roman sidewalk is hard enough to pass on without a bunch of picketers.


We saw posters for "A Hard Day's Night." We were having one.


Tomaso had told us about bus tickets, and seeing a tobacconist without a line, Marjorie went in to score some.


The we reached our goal, Rome's synagogue.




Lots of security, but a line for ma'ariv. Closed for tourists on Shabbat, natch.


We crossed the Tiber at Isla Tevere, and the scene was so beautiful.


We then wandered around the Testavere neighborhood, quite trendy, and got some homemade gelato. I think we liked it.



We wandered around as it got dark, waiting for a pizzeria Tomaso had recommended to open. When it hadn't opened by 5:30, we decided to return to the room and eat at a place near us he had also mentioned. We were supposed to take Bus H. We saw one heading the other way. We found the rigt stop, but no Bus H came for forty minutes.

Eventually, I figured out that a Bus 3 would take us to the Colosso stop, from which a subway would return us to the hotel.

Many Bus 3s had come by, so that made sense. Indeed, a Bus 3 came again soon after and we hopped on. Only at the next stop, a huge crowd overwhelmed the bus's tiny capacity (18 seats) and we were shived in like sardines. Italian male sardines seem to think they are entitled to lots of room, a position they enforce by moving their butts into, say, the butt of a random American tourist. Plus, they seem to think never washing will help them get more space. In this case they were right, because I decided we'd get off at the next stop, no matter where.

Where turned out to be Pyramide. Which has a Met.Ro. stop connecting to Termini. (Metropoliana Romana, get it, Met.Ro.)

The subways smell of urine and are covered with graffiti. We got out at Cavour and got immediately lost. We were completely turned around. But we eventually reached the hotel, not realizing we had been five feet from the restaurant.


After a rest, we returned to the restaurant Tomaso had recommended. The food was unbelievable. We had a soup of lentils and chickpeas, which we'd asked to share. This seemed to affect the service, because we seemed invisible the rest of the night. The food--risotto for Marjorie and asparagus with pasta for me--was wonderful. But we wanted to order some of the patates al forno the guy next to us had because they looked heavenly, but couldn't get a waiter's attention. It took ten minutes to get to order dessert. Dessert, a ricotta concoction for Marjorie and a chocolate tartuffe for me, was out of this world.

We also didn't know what, if any, to tip. And when a man offered items on a tray, toys, didn't know if he was selling or giving, or if turning him down was smart or an insult to him and the restaurant. Where was Tomaso, when we needed him? Where was Mike, our guide in Israel?

We got back to the hotel and Marjorie crashed while I blogged.

It had truly been a hard day's night.