Day Trip(s): Ostia Antica

One of the easiest day trips from Rome is to Ostia Antica, an archeological site that was once a harbor city for ancient Rome. The city was founded by King Ancus Marcius at the end of the 7th century BC, but the oldest structures uncovered by excavations are dated to the early 4th century BC. Maybe there are older buildings yet to be excavated, or maybe they were destroyed in various conquests, or maybe the original structures were not made out of materials that could stand the test of time. Still, 4th century ruins are probably the oldest man-made things that I've ever seen, and the site is damn impressive.

Cheerfully waving from the necropolis

It's an easy 30-minute train ride from Rome to Ostia, and then about a 10-minute walk from the train station to the site. The site is huge, and we've seen only a small part of it, despite having gone twice. It is a little kid's paradise - lots of wide open space with all these stones and half-walls and little rooms that can be climbed on, and hidden in, and played in. Indigo's a happy kid, and I've often seen her get excited by something, but I have never seen her as delighted and overjoyed as she was on our first trip to the site. I had to practically peel her away from climbing on the walls in the old necropolis (shudder) in order to go see anything else in the site. She could have happily played there for hours. Hours.

"Another rock!"

Indigo loved walking on the cobblestone street that winds through the center of the site. She painstakingly stepped from one to the next, over and over (which is why we never got very far in). We were literally surrounded by thousands, maybe even millions of stones on the ground or all around us in the ruins, and at one point, after another painstaking step, she stopped, looked at her next step, and exclaimed, "Another rock!"

Her favorite part of the site though (that we saw), were the little warehouses and shops near the Baths of Neptune. There were several little rooms that she could go in to and explore. She was beside herself - clearly this was the coolest place she'd ever seen. We had to peel her away from there, too - I had to use every distraction and bribe I could think of to get her to come away so that we could go see some other things.

Towards the warehouses

Hanging out in an ancient warehouse

I think food and milk was the bribe that ultimately worked - she had worked up an appetite from climbing around on top of 4th century BC ruins (crazy, right!?) We ended up having a picnic on a sun-warmed rock just outside the theater, and then we climbed around on rocks some more.

"Me? Up to something?"

We returned to the site when Josh's parents were in town. Indigo was less interested in climbing this time, and more interested in jumping in muddy puddles, but at least it meant that we got a little farther into the site, and saw a few new things. Raye and Candace were especially interested in seeing the theater, which was amazing.

A view of the theater from the top of the seating area

 The theater was acoustically perfect; Ray could speak in a normal tone of voice (he's in the red hat) from the ground, and Candace and I could hear him perfectly from all the way up in the back. Indigo, meanwhile, led her daddy on a merry chase back and forth through a tunnel, and managed to impress some Italians with her pronunciation of Italian words (that's my girl!)

So yes - if you are coming to Rome, definitely go for a day trip to Ostia Antica. It's really awe-some, and it's lovely, and so good to get out of the city for a bit. Here are a few more of my favorite photos from our trips:

The main road through the site

The perfect picnic spot

Even in January, it's lovely and green

Near the Baths of Neptune and the shopping district

Tunnel into the theater

Theater dramatic masks

"Ciao!"

A Week of Celebrations

As most of you know, Indigo's birthday is right between Christmas and New Years, so we pretty much spend a solid week celebrating, opening presents, eating special and delicious food, staying up late, and being merry. It's lovely, and it's...a lot. I think we've just finally begun to get back into the swing of our usual (Roman) routine, now that the excitement's died down a bit.

We had a fantastic visit with Josh's parents, who were able to spend the holidays with us here in Rome. Besides enjoying their good company, it was gratifying to watch them get to reconnect with Indigo. They hadn't seen her since last Spring, and she's changed so much since then. I think she probably astonished them. Kids - they're magical, you know?

We had a few little adventures and day trips (I'll write a post dedicated entirely to Ostia Antica later), but spent most of our time a bit closer to home, in order to show Raye and Candace the nearby areas.

This was not Raye and Candace's first trip to Rome, so they had already seen many of the major sites around the city. They had not gotten to see much of Trastevere, though, so we spent a lot of time exploring down there, since it's just down the hill from us, and is so fun to sight-see. Walks through town started Indigo's newest addiction to "pizza yanca" (pizza bianca), which is essentially pizza bread with olive oil and sometimes salt drizzled on top. She'd often devour the snacks I'd brought for her on our walks, and we'd have to buy a little something more for her, to avoid a meltdown. So now pizza bianca is a new favorite.

Christmas was so fun. While I always enjoy Christmas, it's so much more fun when you can share in a little kid's excitement. It's just so magical; we decorate a tree with toys, put up twinkling lights, eat special food, and then suddenly some old guy brings toys to the house! Amazing, right?

Indigo was a little overwhelmed, and it took a couple days to finish opening all of her presents (which is fine, except her birthday's on the 28th, and we had to start all over again). The biggest hit was definitely the play tent we got her, in the shape of a castle. She loves that thing - and now goes in every day to read books in there. Lovely.

 As I said, we took a day trip to Ostia Antica. We also went to Frascati, a small town famous for a number of villas, for its white wine, and also for its porchetta (roasted pork). The town was ok - pretty enough but since we didn't go to any of the villas, not that noteworthy - but the porchetta was amazing. It may be on my top 5 list of the best foods I've ever had. It's at least on the top 10 list. If you're in Italy, and decide you want to try it yourself, follow the instructions on this blog.

After we ate, Indigo used the leftover bread to feed the pigeons. That's Raye in the red hat and Josh sitting on the bench behind her. Doesn't she look incredibly tall in these pictures?!

And then, of course - Indigo's birthday. Who can believe she's two years old?! I can't. We had a small party with just the family and one friend - one of her teachers from school. We're going to do a bigger, many-kid party with some other birthday boys and girls in about a week.

And finally, New Years. Some people at the Academy organized gatherings throughout the week for the various holidays. We went to them all, enjoying having the chance to chat with other people in the community. After taking Indigo home to go to bed around 8, I was able to return to the party an hour later. I hadn't expected to stay that long, but it's been awhile since I've stayed up late, especially for New Years, so I thought, why not?

The party was up on the 4th floor balcony of the Academy building. There's a telescope up there, and I was able to use it to look at the moon - amazing. I don't think I've ever really looked through a telescope before. I could see craters and everything. It was incredible.

Midnight approached, and people began setting off fireworks. I think that the city launches some of its own, at the Piazza del Popolo and at the Colosseum, but fireworks are legal here, and so everyone - and I mean everyone - began shooting off their own. There's no good way to describe it, and no picture I took could possibly catch the spectacle we saw over the city. Fireworks bloomed in the sky at hundreds upon hundreds of places, all around the city. For a solid hour. Everywhere we looked (and we could see a great deal of the city from the top of our hill) we saw little starbursts exploding. It sounded, and smelled, like a warzone. It was crazy, and disorganized, and over-the-top. It was so Italian. I've never seen anything like it, and probably never will again.

 Happy New Year!

Christmas Cheer

I do have some photos of storefront windows decked out in their holiday best, but I'll add a few other merry photos as well. Enjoy!

First, food. This is the window of a Sicilian bakery that's on my walk to my Italian class (yes, I stop for cannoli from time to time - do you blame me?). The chocolate nativity scene I showed in my last post is also from here.

The next two photos are from a specialty chocolate shop in Trastevere. They are most famous for their chocolate Easter eggs (photos on the walls inside the shop showcase their various impressive creations, including one egg that was so large that a child was photographed sitting inside), which I'll definitely go back to see in the Spring. This place has decent cannoli, but not my favorite - although I do like that they make them to-order; you're not buying one that's been sitting around for god-knows-how-long. Note the chocolate creations on the top shelf.

Same shop, but I wanted to point out the "hot chocolate". Do you see it? Yeah, it's that stuff in cups that looks like pudding or mousse. The Italian version of hot chocolate is actually melted chocolate, served with homemade cream (if you like), and topped off with biscotti, a cherry, and a meringue. It's a dessert, not a drink. I did not know this when I ordered one, thinking it would be a semi-chocolately drink as a chaser for my cannoli, and man...I got about halfway through them. And then I spent the rest of the afternoon bouncing off the walls, on a sugar high.

I went on an expedition to take photos of toy store windows, but unfortunately went close to noon, so most of the pictures did not come out very well. You can see my reflection in the one on the left. This is a toy store on the famous Piazza Navona. The one to the right is actually a perfume store, but the display was so charming, that I had to take a picture.

I did some walking about at night, to see the lights, but again, only a few photos are public-worthy. Here's are a couple worth showing. The left one is in Trastevere and the right one is a road that leads to the Pantheon.

And here, my favorite - not a Christmas photo per se, but it's a shot of the moon over the Pantheon on Christmas Eve. 

  

How about some cheerful Christmas color?

And lastly, some shots of Indigo and I riding the carousel at the Christmas Market in Frascati.

 

Merry Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's been a month since my last post. I haven't neglected posting because I have nothing to say or share, but because life's been a little hectic around here. Indigo had a long illness (cough turning to croup turning to pneumonia and an ear infection) that led us to our second ER visit and having to keep her out of school for a couple weeks. And I was sick, and Josh was sick, and then Indigo was sick again, and Josh hurt his back. But now I think - I hope - that's all past us. So onward we go!

And while we were busy being sick, it gradually grew colder and more wintery here in Rome. Yes, Rome does get cold. Not the bone-numbing cold of New England, mind you - but the morning mile-walk to Indigo's school has gotten increasingly colder and is now, some days, done in below-freezing temperatures. It gets a little warmer throughout the day, but some days that just means that it gets up to 45 (although tomorrow it's supposed to be in the high fifties).

Personally, I welcome the cold. It's comforting. A bit of normalcy in a life that is so different from anything that I've known before. December should be cold. Christmas occurs in the winter. That's what I've known, and that's what I want.

Possibly bigger than my head?

So far, this Christmas season has been merry and a little perplexing. Of course, since the Italians don't celebrate our Thanksgiving, there is no kick-off to the Christmas season in November. In some ways, that's really pretty lovely - there's much less commercialism here, and a lot less holiday pressure (and burn-out, I suspect). The first herald of Christmas does begin to arrive in stores in November, but with little-to-no pomp and circumstance. That is Italian panettone, a kind of seasonal sweet bread that I've dubbed "the muffin as big as my head". Seriously. Look at it. Most panettone seem to have fruit and assorted craziness in them, but the one in the picture above was just chocolate chip bread. Delicious.

Our little tree

Some store fronts, especially ones that either specialize in food or are technically a corporation/chain, do decorate beginning in late November. But the vast majority do not. Some begin in early December, but the real start of the Christmas season here in Italy is on December 8th, which is the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception. All around the city, Christmas trees and Christmas lights were lit for the first time on that night. Christmas trees are really not available for sale until a few days leading up to the 8th. I tried looking for a tree the week before, and none could be found. When flower vendors did start getting some in stock, I was surprised to see that they had very few for sale, and all of them were potted. That is, you're not buying a cut tree; you're buying a live one. Maybe that's why so few are out being sold? Do people buy a tree and then tend it all year long, year after year, keeping it out on their veranda or in a courtyard to wait for the next Christmas? I've no idea. But I suppose that's what we'll do. We'll leave it on our terrace for the apartment's next occupants.

Lights just before dusk on the 8th

I'm not convinced that the majority of the city's occupants have Christmas trees, anyway (this is an ancient city, and apartments are tiny. Where would they fit them??) But I think most Italian households proudly display presepe - that is, the nativity scene. It is a Catholic city, after all. I'm told that the Vatican has a gorgeous life-sized one that they don't unveil until Christmas Eve. But presepe are all over the city - and as I understand it, in nearly every home. You can even get ones made out of chocolate, like the one in the window of the Sicilian bakery I pass on my walk to my Italian class. But isn't it sort of heretical to want to eat the baby Jesus?  I don't feel all that comfortable with the idea.

Heretical...but delicious

I plan to do a follow-up post to this one in a few days full of pictures of all the gorgeous shop windows, all decked out in their Christmas finery. Stay tuned!

But of course, one more quick thing - the most fun part of this Christmas season, so far, is Indigo's wonder and excitement at the lights, and the idea of "Father Christmas" bringing her a present on Christmas day. She refers to Santa as Father Christmas because that's what UK-created Peppa Pig does - and god, it's super cute and charming to have your not-quite-2-year-old use that quaint old-world name. And all the glitter and dazzle of Christmas decorations are magical when seen through the eyes of a child, and I've found that I'm enjoying this lead-up to the holiday immensely, more than I ever thought that I would. It's lovely.

Things

In my Halloween post, I mentioned that it was not easy to Buy Things in Italy. Let me elaborate.

We take for granted the conveniences we enjoy in the US. There are so many more things in the US - I mean material things. But it is so easy to buy things. All sorts of things. Things you don't even think of as essential things, because it's so easy to obtain them. Here? There's no Target, or similar place where you can go and buy all the various things you need. Instead you must shop in 15 different tiny little shops, and try to talk to the shopkeeps about what you need (because shops are so small, merchandise is stacked up or shoved under tables or in secret drawers or hanging from the ceiling). It is hard to explain what you need when you speak baby-talk Italian. Miming can be helpful, albeit embarrassing.

There's this hardware store near Indigo's school, where I went to look for a fan in September. It's actually two stores, but the store with all the things is locked. And packed, from floor to ceiling, with an endless assortment of things in no order whatsoever. To get something from that store, I had to go next door to an entirely separate space (which is taken up by a huge counter and lots of counter-to-ceiling drawers presumably filled with yet more things), explained to the man behind the counter what I was looking for, then I followed him over to the locked store, which he opened. I followed him through a tiny little path winding through the mounds of things, and he kind of dove into the morass, pulling out a fan, then another. There was no fan "section". He literally reached into a pile in one area, waded deeper into the store, and pulled out another. I chose one, then followed him back to the other store to purchase it.

Not only are things harder to obtain, there's less choice. I think it was Lo who said, when visiting, that product choice was really what the US is famous for the world over: you can basically name your price, and buy nearly anything at the the price point you want. There's less choice here. It often seems like there's a Walmart-quality version, or a designer-version of any given thing, and very little in-between.

 

But it is immensely enjoyable shopping in the outdoor markets. I do shop at the local grocery store for many items, but I get all my fruits and veggies (and sometimes cheese and bread) at the markets. And the flip side to not having convenience here, is that Italy boasts so many gorgeous artisan boutiques - the like of which you'd rarely see in the US. Like this glass lamp shop in the heart of Rome:

Not only does it have a spectacular storefront, it has this huge basement filled with glass wares. It's really like a huge, magical, hidden-treasure grotto down there. I've taken to referring to it as the glass grotto.

Then of course, there are lovely little shops down gorgeous, winding roads that have made-in-Rome wares that you won't find anywhere else. I found a little kids' clothes shop - the woman tailor was inside, sewing away as I entered. Turns out she's Swedish, but has lived and worked in Rome for the last 30 years. Her clothes are bright, cheerful, and utterly adorable.

The paper stores in Florence are exquisite. Here's a tiny sample of what you might see:

Don't they look like textiles?  Amazing.

I've got to get more pictures of the toy shops soon (Christmas is coming, so I'm sure I'll have the opportunity soon). I did go into this one shop in Orvieto that had this wonderful little - mobiles? Models? I'm not really sure what they were. But I want to cover a ceiling of my home in tiny little hot-air balloons, now.

And here, of course, is one of the open-air markets, at Campo de' Fiori:

A Day in the Country, Part 2: Olive Picking

This past weekend we had the opportunity to see some more of the Italian countryside. A friend here at the Academy owns a house in Giove, Umbria, which has roughly 40 olive trees on the land (also a number of grapevines). It's olive harvest time, and so she invited the community up to her house for olive picking, a chance to see the olives pressed, and general food and merriment.

It's an easy trip by train - about an hour. I was pleased to see that about 25 people came, some of whom I don't see that often, outside of mealtimes. A number of children came as well, so I knew that Indigo would have plenty to entertain her if she tired of picking olives.

So, the house. Well. The view was okay. ;)

 Yeah, yeah - I was utterly entranced. Of course. And the smell - the air was both fresh and clean, yet also smelled rich - of earth and heat and olives. Lovely.

I thought that olive picking would be about the same as apple picking, but there are a few differences. For one, olives are a lot smaller, so there's some fear that any that fall from the trees could easily be squashed (and potentially ruined) underfoot. Or lost. So they spread large nets under the trees, then gently use small mini-rakes to comb through the branches, or even a sort of electric rake that agitates the branches. People may also climb the trees to get the olives higher-up. Basically the idea is to unload all the olives into the waiting net below, then gently move/pour the olives from the net into the baskets/crates. The children were especially good at this final task.

Indigo is at that age where she loves to put little things into bigger containers, so she actually really loved finding the olives that had dropped into the nets, and transferring them into the crates. Of course, she loved sitting on mommy and daddy's shoulders and picking olives straight from the trees, too.

After we were done picking olives, we had a lovely lunch together on the porch, overlooking what seemed to be all of Umbria. Some of our company had stopped picking olives earlier and had made some pasta and this wonderful cheese-sauce that was amazing slathered on bread...mmm. The children played, and we all relaxed, and then a number of people went to watch the olives get pressed. Josh and I decided to take Indigo home, as it was growing late, and I had the rare pleasure of holding my sleeping child for the duration of the train ride home. It used to be that I held her every day as she napped, but now that she's so big, it doesn't happen all that often. It was the perfect end to a really amazingly lovely day.

A Day in the Country, Part 1: Orvieto

Last week three dear friends from college came to town, and we were fortunate to spend several days in their company. We've been friends with Iggy, Maggie and Anandamayi for years, but haven't seen them since 2009, or as it's affectionately called in our circle, The Year of Many Weddings (including our own). We met them for dinner a couple nights while they were in town, and we went on a day trip together to Orvieto last weekend.

I didn't really know anything about Orvieto when we set out, except that it's in Umbria, and reportedly beautiful. It's an easy trip from Rome by train - about an hour and ten minutes. It was also Indigo's first train ride, and she was excited to be on a "choo-choo". We ate bread and excellent cheese and salami on the ride, and very soon we were there.

At first I was confused - where was the town? And then my friends told me that we had to take a funicular up the mountainside, because Orvieto was essentially about 52 stories up. I'd never been on a funicular before (it's essentially a tram with two cars that counterbalance one another; while one goes up, the other comes down), and was a little worried about how Indigo would react to the ride, but she was fine.

And then - we were in the town. We decided to first explore the Etruscan ruins. Indigo had a blast running around, and managed to find the one muddy puddle in the whole city - and jumped in. Of course. The view of the countryside from the ruins was breathtaking.

We then walked down the street into the city proper, and it was just gorgeous. I fell in love immediately. It really reminded me of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, in feel. It was yet another isolated city/fortress built atop a bunch of rocks - Orvieto isn't an island, of course, but it is on top of a mountain, so the feel is very similar. And it has similar narrow, curving streets and tiny shops filled with both artisanal wares and tourist kitsch.

We walked through the town, meandering slowly towards the Duomo, which was "striped" with different colors of stone (I'm told this style is famous in Siena, but there's also a church in Florence that uses the same technique). On the steps of the cathedral, Indigo befriended a small Italian boy, and the two of them ran around together for a while, until I finally coaxed her away with the promise of gelato. Which was quite tasty.

The piazza that surrounds the cathedral is quite large, and happily (mostly) car-free, so Indigo was free to run around quite a bit. Most of the small, winding roads were car-free, actually, so it's a great town for little kids. I could let her run without worrying too much, except when she spied a ceramics store (of which there were many), and then we were in trouble! She kept saying that she wanted "a teapot", and would head into the store to try to grab the first pitcher or bowl that she saw. She gave us a few heart attacks.

After a quick dinner it was sadly, time to leave. I am actually happy that we didn't see everything that we had wanted to, because it means that we have a good excuse to take a trip back to the town some time.  Maybe around Christmastime, or in the Spring.