Hither and yon (and spaghetti)

The Pantheon dome

Tuesday saw us wandering around Rome seeing bits and pieces. Pretty good bits and pieces, but not such big things as the previous days. We found a Bernini sculpture that was smaller than we had thought it was going to be, the Spanish Steps which were very steppy but not overly amazing, and then the Trevi fountain which was a very, very good fountain. The best bit there was eating ice-cream and watching men pinch coins out of the drains. But then we made it to the Pantheon. That was impressive. Such an incredible space - they copied the dome everywhere including for St Peter's Basilica. The renaissance folks considered it to be the perfect proportions, Raphael loved it so much he had himself buried there.

 

In between all these we found a pasta place that I had read about. Each day they just sell one or maybe two pasta dishes, for 4 euros, with a cup of wine. There's only seats for about 6 people, mostly the shop is just a queue that stretches into the street. We were lucky enough to get a sort of thick pea soup sauce on thick spaghetti. It was pretty good, but not as good as we make at home, which is a bit of a problem with a number of the meals we have at restaurants. But I was happy to have it cos it was clearly very authentic, hand made pasta that was very popular with the locals. And it was cheap. And we got wine.

Basilica of St Francis (excuse the trick photography)

 

Now it's late Wednesday afternoon and we're on the train back to Rome after a day trip to Assisi. It means we get to pass through really very pretty Umbrian countryside. Lots of hill towns with buildings all crammed together to keep safe and warm, with the late afternoon sun making them glow soft and orange. Very nice indeed. As was Assisi. It's up on a hill too, overlooking plains and the new town. We got to wander through and down and along narrow medieval lanes and alleys, getting cold noses (probably due to the snow that was on the hills above us). As per usual there were beautiful churches and amazing stonework. What gets me is how did they know how to build all these things? Who was the first person to say "let's just build a massive building out of bricks, I reckon it will stay up"? Either someone very clever or someone who had no sense of "it won't work". The story of Saint Francis is pretty good - he was the son of a rich man, had lots of money and benefits, and then chucked it all in (literally, evidently, just taking all his clothes off in the middle of town and forgoing everything he had) and went and lived in a hut below town, living in poverty and chastity and generally being a bit of a hero for lots of like minded religious folk who flocked to join him. And the Franciscans as they were now known later went on to found such towns as San Francisco and Los Angeles. So that's quite well done. When Mr Francis died (not a saint yet) they started building a big church to give the pilgrims who turned up somewhere to worship and they did a super job because it is a very, very good church, with beautiful paintings by Giotto, Cimabue and others. Have a good read about it here. So all in all we have had an excellent couple of days.

The view from Assisi

Sneaky photo of Giotto's restored frescoes

 

In beer news we popped in to a home brew / micro brewery beer shop and bought a couple of proper italian beers. An American style IPA - hoppy and bitter and fruity, which was excellent, and a porter that was more like a black IPA that was also delicious. So I can now report that italian beer is very good, although I get the feeling it's still early days for the micro brewery industry.

 

And that's all I have to say.