Family Italian Cooking Class in Rome

On our trip to Rome, after exploring the Vatican, all eleven of us took an Italian cooking class together at Trustevertastes - a play on words of the neighborhood's name: Trastevere. The class was about two blocks from our AirBnB on the Piazza Santa Maria and was a great experience.

We had two Italian chefs showing us the ropes - Paola and Lilly. Paola is a professional chef with a cookbook coming out soon. Lilly served as the sous chef. Lilly was snarky and hilarious. At one point she called David's rambunctious Uncle Rick a "difficult man," and after seeing David E's attempt at pasta making she suggested he should just buy pasta from the store. Lilly also said the pici Paul rolled were too thin. Well, her exact phrase in Italian was "come si dici anorexia?" Needless to say, we loved Lilly's playful attitude.

Over the course of a few hours, we prepared three separate pasta dishes form scratch:

1) Lentil soup with "badly cut noodles" (maltagliati)
2) Pici noodles (a fat hand-rolled spaghetti) with an amatriciana sauce
3) Tagliatelle with a sausage, beef and veal ragu

Our favorite was the pici all'amatriciana. It's a very simple pasta (just semolina flour and water) in a delicious tomato and pork sauce. For dessert, the chefs prepared a peach gelato for us to enjoy and of course there was antipasti and plenty of wine. If you thought Italian food was heavy in general, try eating three courses of pasta with wine! We lost David E. midway through the meal (after the 2nd pasta course) because he got too sleepy. Betsy and Chad were troopers - they arrived earlier that morning but made it through the whole meal like champs.

David is ready to go!

Betsy and Chad with our first batch of pasta dough.

Paola helping Rick start the sauce.

Learning from the chefs.

Pici noodles.

Rolling out the pici by hand.

Lilly helped us with the egg noodles.

David and his Mom.

Here's a man that knows his way around a ragu!

Paul's heating up the oil for the ragu.

David's parents rolling pici.

Paul and David's Dad rolling out the tagliatelle.

Christina and David's mom getting ready to eat some pasta!

Paul and him mom making the tagliatelle.

Ragu Time with David E. & Paul.

Uncle Rick and David's Dad take this very seriously!

Sunset view from the cooking class window.

The finished product - a delicious lentil and pasta soup.

Pici all'amatriciana. Delicous!

The tagliatelle with ragu.

And dessert!

What a great evening in Rome! A cooking class is always a great way to learn more about the culture of the place you're visiting and we highly recommend this one in Rome if you have opportunity. Even David's family, who are Italian and have been making pasta for years, learned a few new tricks to improve their recipes.

Rome Part Two - Exploring the Vatican

After spending a few days exploring Rome, we left the country (well, technically) to take a tour of the Vatican. We had heard that the Vatican gets very crowded, so we pre-booked an official guided tour before arriving in Italy. We highly recommend this. We arrived at the Vatican Museum entrance at 8:45AM and the line was already hundreds of people long. Our taxi driver told us the line wasn't long yet, and it would stretch much further later in the morning. Since we pre-purchased tickets we were able to go right up to the group entrance and we were through security and met with our guide within 10 minutes.

Our guide, Maria, was very knowledgeable and also quite funny. The museum was packed with people, so she helped us to "conquer the space" and complimented us on how well we stood our ground against other tour groups. Maria was sassy and we could tell she thought some of the teachings of the church, and its past actions, were less than noble. We were all given ear pieces, so we could hear Maria clearly even with the masses of people. We hadn't seen these before, but we would see them later on the trip on tours in Florence and Pompeii. They're really a great development, as tour guides can speak in a normal voice instead of having to shout to be heard.

The Vatican Museums hold some of the great works of Western art. None of it is labeled very well, which is yet another reason to book a tour ahead of time. You could literally spend days here, so consider a tour guide if you just want the highlights. Our tour took us through the Pio Clementino Museum, the Gallery of the Candelabra, the Gallery of the Tapestries, the Gallery of the Geographical Maps and Raphael’s Rooms, before wrapping up at the Sistine Chapel. The bulk of the museum has an amazing collection of classical statues and mosaics, housed in halls rich with renaissance paintings and frescoes. We were particularly impressed by Raphael's frescoes, the 2000 year old Laocoön and his sons statue, the elaborate tapestries, and the hall of maps.

St. Peter's Square, the heart of the Vatican.

The Vatican museum entrance is on the north side of the Vatican's wall. This is only a small portion of the crowd that had gathered before 9AM.

Our guide, Maria, explaining the Sistine Chapel.

The dome of St. Peter's from inside the Vatican compound.

Closeup of the Apollo Belvedere statue.

Laocoön and his sons

An ancient Roman mosaic of David's resting bitch face...

A lot of the hallways are works of art themselves, but they're sometimes hard to enjoy with all of the crowds.

Just a chubby little baby with a goose!

The Popes really amassed a huge collection of classical and Renaissance art over the centuries.

The hall of tapestries, with a momentary free space before the next giant tour group.

Some of the incredible detail on the huge wall tapestries. These would take years to complete.

Julius Caesar getting his comeuppance!

David in the hall of maps.

A map of Italy painted on the wall.

Painting of Venice.

I think everyone liked the map room!

"The School of Athens," a huge wall painting by Raphael, from 1509-1511.

Raphael included his own face in the painting - the only figure looking at the viewer.

Our guide Maria left us just before entering the Sistine Chapel, as tours aren't allowed inside. The paintings on the Sistine Chapel are amazing, but it's so packed with people that you can't totally enjoy it. Occasionally the guard yells out for silence, or a recorded message plays in a few languages demanding silence, but the crowd noise persists. The feeling is that of being herded.

After leaving the Sistine Chapel, we took the shortcut into the area beside St. Peter's basilica, rather than exiting back out the Vatican museum main entrance. St. Peter's is an impressive structure, with a massive interior, every inch of which is lavishly decorated. It's a huge and breathtaking space. The construction and decoration of St. Peter's certainly had a huge contribution to art and architecture, but also a massive amount of money was spent that could have been spent on other things, especially given the supposed humanitarian mission of the Catholic church. I guess it's the same with any piece of grand religious architecture, but St. Peter's is a little more over the top than most.

We also ventured down in to the crypt, where several popes are buried. Some of them were moved from the catacombs outside the city. We also thought about climbing to the top of the dome, but there was a one hour wait to buy tickets, so we skipped it.


The line to climb the dome was over an hour long.

St. Peter's is pretty stunning! Here's a bonus video of the interior.

David's family in St. Peter's.

Paul and his Mom in St. Peter's.

The gigantic dome of St. Peter's.

Swiss Guard

The Vatican museums and St. Peter's are obviously a must visit in Rome, with their priceless collections of art and historic buildings. We actually had a discussion about how much St. Peter's is worth, and guessed it's in the trillion dollar range.

After finishing up at the Vatican, we were starving and walked to the nearby Pizzarium Bonci, which we had seen on an episode of Anthony Bourdain's The Layover. In general, we saw two main styles of pizza in Italy - Roman and Neapolitan. I guess that makes sense since we traveled mostly in Rome and Naples! The Neapolitan type is ubiquitous, and is what we got in sit-down restaurants. The crust is relatively thin, but not crispy, with thick edges, and not overloaded with sauce or toppings. You eat it with a knife and fork. The Roman style pizza we had is usually ordered at a counter and individual rectangular pieces are cut using scissors. You pay by weight, and can eat it with your hands. Pizzarium Bonci is a great example of Roman style pizza, and some of the best pizza we had on the trip thanks to the great crust and high quality toppings. We particularly enjoyed one with sautéed onions and another with pine nuts and peppers.

Pizzarium Bonci

You pick what kind you want and they cut you a slice.

David with his pizza.

Yum!

After eating, we took a taxi back to the apartment. We should mention that it's not easy to just hail a taxi from the street anywhere in Rome. We used the MyTaxi app, which was extremely useful. When we got back Paul's sister and brother-in-law, Betsy and Chad, had just arrived. After relaxing for a bit we walked around Trastevere to introduce them to the neighborhood. We came across an old lady who had gotten her car stuck on a curb, and we helped to pick up the car and put it back down on the street. I wish we had pictures! I guess it's helpful that cars in Europe are so tiny. We did note that most cars in Italy have a lot of scratches and dents. With the narrow streets and packed traffic, it's hard to keep a car in good shape. We walked back to the apartment and got ready for an Italian cooking class - but that will be the subject of another blog post. :)

Benvenuti a Roma!

A few years ago we started throwing around the idea of a family vacation to Italy. David's Dad's family has roots in Italy, so we thought it would be a great "return to the fatherland" vacation. When we saw a great deal on British Airways ($400 round trip from Atlanta!) we bought tickets and started planning our trip in late September/early October 2017.

We booked an AirBnB apartment for nine days in Rome for 11 of us (both from David's and Paul's families), with plans for six of us to stick around for another week and travel elsewhere in Italy. Rome is a city with a huge amount of history, so it will take several blog posts to cover all of the amazing museums, churches, and other attractions we saw. This post covers our first couple of days.

Following a red-eye flight with a connection in London, we arrived early on a Saturday evening. After arriving at our AirBnB in Trastevere, our first goal was to find food. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant called Cacio e Pepe, which was a delicious introduction to Roman cuisine. Cacio e pepe (literally "cheese and pepper") is a traditional simple pasta dish made with Pecorino Romano and black pepper. After eating, we walked around a bit, crossing the Tiber on the Ponte Sisto and returning to Trastevere. While everyone else went back to the apartment to relax and sleep, we had a quick beer at Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fa, a beer bar just a few blocks away. The streets were full of jovial people on a Saturday night. Trastevere is a lively neighborhood popular with both locals and tourists. It doesn't have big hotels like the center of Rome, so at night (especially on weekends) the narrow streets are mostly full of Italians hanging out eating and drinking. We really enjoyed staying in Trastevere, and it was just a short walk from many of the attractions across the Tiber River.

Night view of Ponte Sisto and St. Peter's basilica.

A small but lively square near our apartment in Trastevere.

Our first meal in Rome!

Beer list! We drank on the street with the locals.

On Sunday we woke up early and the two of us did a walking tour of some of the sights of central Rome. We crossed the river on Pons Fabricius, the oldest remaining bridge in Rome (from 62 BCE). We happened upon the Portico Di Ottavia - walking around Rome it's not uncommon to randomly see buildings from two millennia ago. We had a quick pastry in the "Jewish Ghetto" area, and passed the Turtle Fountain, continuing on to Largo di Torre Argentina. This area of ruins was uncovered in the early 1900s and is now full of cats that are cared for by an animal shelter on the site. It was also where Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus, and the original site of Pompey's theater. It's amazing that in a matter of a few blocks we saw a gate from 27 BCE, a neighborhood from the 1500s, a Renaissance-era fountain, and the remains of 3rd century BCE temples, all incorporated into the modern city. After walking through Piazza Della Minerva (home of an elephant statue by Bernini), our next stop was one of our favorite sites in Italy - the Pantheon.

The Pantheon is a Roman temple completed by the Emperor Hadrian in the year 126. It's one of the best preserved ancient Roman buildings partially because it was converted to a Christian church.  The dome was the largest in the world for 13 centuries, until the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (which we would see later in the trip) was completed in 1436. Even though there were no lights inside the building, the oculus at top brightly lit the space. It's amazing the engineering the ancient Romans were able to devise to solve practical problems pre-electricity.

The oldest standing bridge in Rome - and you can still walk across it.

The ruins of Largo di Argentina. So many cats in there!

Some of the cats. They're well cared for.

The amazing dome of the Pantheon.

Front of the Pantheon. Quiet in the morning.

After leaving the Pantheon, we briefly stopped by the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, the national church of France in Rome. There are a LOT of churches in Rome, and we visited quite a few of them, but this was our very first one on the trip (other than the Pantheon, which is a converted church). San Luigi stood out for its paintings by Carvaggio and frescoes by Domenichino. Our next stop, just a few blocks away, was Piazza Navona. This is pretty much the main square of Rome, and has the Fountain of four rives (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi) as its centerpiece.

A sculpture on the outside of San Luigi.

Inside the church of San Luigi.

The lighting was great in the morning.

Piazza Navona. On the former site of a Roman race track (circus).

After taking an Uber to pick up Paul's Mom (who arrived a day later than the rest of us, and got a little lost coming from the airport due to a shady taxi driver), we chaperoned the group back along a similar walking route. By now it was lunch time, and everything was incredibly crowded! Rome is a tourist clusterf*ck. We can't imagine visiting this city in the highest tourist times of the year. There was a line across the piazza to visit the Pantheon (earlier we just strolled right in). It's definitely best to start early in Rome and take a siesta in the afternoons. After the Pantheon, instead of continuing on to Piazza Navona again, we walked east to the Trevi Fountain, which was swarming with people.

On the way to the Trevi Fountain.

A carefully framed picture of the top of the Trevi Fountain, to cut out the hordes of tourists.

Paul's ready to take on the shark!

Afterward, the group split up, and we went with Rick and Terri towards the Spanish steps along Via Margutta. Normally this is a bustling shopping street for art and antiques, but most of the shops were closed because it was a Sunday. It was still atmospheric. The area around the Spanish steps had a lot of high end shopping and chain retail stores. We strolled through the huge Piazza del Popolo before crossing the river along Via Cola di Rienzo to find a bar. The bar ended up being right next to where we had picked up Paul's mom earlier in the day. The waiter was very confused by Paul's Atlanta United shirt, because there's an Italian soccer team named Atalanta. After some wine and snacks we visited Castroni and Franchi Gastronomia for cheese, meats, wine and Italian dried goods to bring back to the house.

The Spanish Steps

Street scene on Via Margutta.

Obelisk in Piazza Popolo ... one of Rome's great piazzas.

There is so much art on the streets in Rome it's amazing!

Later that evening, a small group of us went to Mama Pasta for dinner. It was right next to our airbnb and the guy running the place was super nice. Sticking with the theme, we had some more cacio e pepe. Afterwards, we got limoncello (a staple beverage of this trip) shots at a nearby bar before turning in for the evening. What a jam-packed first full day in Rome!

Paul and Maggie enjoying a taster of limoncello.

For our second full day in Rome, we kept busy and visited another half dozen sights. We started with a morning visit to basilica Santa Maria in Trastevere, just a couple of block from our apartment. Next we walked to another church nearby, Santa Cecilia. We didn't go inside because it wasn't open yet, but we admired the facade before crossing the Tiber on Ponte Sublicio to the Pyramid of Cestius. Most people wouldn't expect a pyramid in Rome, but Romans were obsessed with Egyptian culture around the turn of the millennium. You'll see plenty of Obelisks around town - some moved from Egypt and some constructed in Rome. There were probably other pyramids as well, but only one remains. It was protected because it was incorporated into Rome's city wall. This one was built as a tomb for a wealthy magistrate in 12 BCE, and unfortunately now stands in a traffic-choked area.

From there we walked up the Aventine Hill, one of the fabled seven hills of Rome, to take in the vista and look at St Peters through the keyhole of the headquarters of the Knights of Malta. Lots of people were waiting for a turn to look through the keyhole, which frames the dome of St Peters beautifully. We also ducked into the Basilica di Santa Sabina. On the way back to the apartment, we passed by the Foro Boario, one of ancient Rome's many forums.

Morning view of the courtyard from our AirBnB apartment.

First stop, the church right around the corner from us.

It had some beautiful mosaics.

The bell tower. Unfortunately the rest of the facade was under scaffolding for restoration.

Lots of cute street scenes in Trastevere.

We also saw quite a few pet dogs around the neighborhood.

Church of Saint Cecilia, from the 5th century.

The pyramid of Cestius. You can see how it's built into the old Roman wall.

David staring through the keyhole.

The keyhole perfectly frames St. Peter's in the Vatican City down a row of bushes.

The views from the Aventine Hill are splendid!

Santa Sabina, the oldest basilica in Rome that retains its original form. It was completed in 432.

Hehe.

Ruins of the Foro Boario.

Ruins of the oldest bridge over the Tiber.

After coming down the Aventine Hill, we met up with our parents and got lunch at Tonnarello by Santa Maria. After lunch we all took an uber to the Via Appia (Appian Way), hoping to stroll along this old historic road. Unfortunately, the part of the Appian Way closest to the center of Rome is narrow and full of cars, and not pleasant for walking or biking. So we visited the nearby catacombs of San Callisto instead.

The catacombs date back to 3rd century. At its peak, the catacombs stretched for multiple kilometers and held the corpses of 16 Popes and 50 martyrs. Despite urban legend, Christians did not hide here fleeing persecution and the Romans did not desecrate their graves. The catacombs fell into disrepair by the 9th century, after it became unsafe to travel outside the city walls of Rome. The Pope had all the important tombs exhumed and relocated into central Rome (many eventually ended up in St.Peter's basilica). Grave robbers over the next few centuries took care of the rest, so now very little remains in the catacombs. No pictures are allowed in the catacombs - so you'll have to use your imagination!

Bruschetta mista at lunch.

Pesto pasta!

Not pasta!

David's parents never travel, great to see them smiling!

Christina and David E. in the piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Paul and his mom enjoying a beautiful day in Rome

The area above the catacombs has been protected from development.

We wanted to take an Appian Way bike tour...but didn't have the time to go far enough out of town where it's more bike friendly.

Later that evening, the two of us walked up the Janiculum Hill to the Taraza del Gianicolo, another viewpoint overlooking all of Rome in Trastevere. The view here is amazing and we highly recommend a visit if you're in Rome. As the sun set, we came back down through the Piazza di San Cosimato (lively and full of local children playing) and then went out to dinner in Trastevere at Bir and Fud with the entire gang. Finally, we took a nighttime stroll through central Rome with David's parents to view the lit-up monuments and piazzas. Rome is such a lively and wonderful city at night!

Rome from the Taraza del Gianicolo.

St Peter's from the Taraza del Gianicolo.

Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, near the top of the hill.

Bir and Fud...probably the only place in Italy that doesn't serve wine!

Great pizza though!

In Piazza Navona at night.

Not the first, nor the last gelato of this trip!

Pantheon at night

Whew, thanks for sticking with us through the marathon of our first two days in Rome. We spent a lot more time in Rome on this vacation, so stay tuned for a few more posts before we move along to Naples and the Amalfi Coast.