Today, we went to Trastevere which means Across the River. Except we didn’t cross the river because Trastevere is on the same side of the river we are on. The Tiber to us…Tevere to the locals. Same side of the river the Vatican is on. Now in all my years of coming to Rome, I had NEVER been to Trastevere. It is a very old part of Rome. Winding streets and alley ways. We went to three churches. One is Santa Maria in Trastevere and it is a Basilica. Very beautiful church with a fabulous nave? Apse? …well, behind the altar as part of the curved dome is a fabulous mosaic in beautiful colors and lots of gold. It is banded by a row of sheep…with the center being ‘The Lamb of God.’ While we were there, someone was singing Gregorian chants to music. Very lovely. Then we went to another church….it is the national Lithuanian church in Rome. Small and very sweet. Then we went to church number three: Santa Maria Della Scala. That means Stair. It has a lovely Baroque altar. After all this church going, we met my friend Liz – she has a wonderful blog called Rome if you Want To. We had dinner at a wonderful Pizza place called Dar Poeta. I highly recommend it. Those of you who know me know I really don’t like thick crust Pizza…but LOVE thin crust and this was a cross between thick and thin…leaning towards thin. I had one with Buffalo mozzarella, artichokes, artichoke cream and olives. Andy had one with capers, anchovies and mozzarella. That would have been my second choice.
Oh my…was it good! We will go back. We walked across the bridge and caught a bus to take us home and Liz walked back to her home in the Ghetto.
I ‘met’ Liz a couple of years ago after reading a big article about her in the Dallas News Sunday travel section. She went to SMU and majored in Italian and moved to Italy after graduation. Stayed several years, then came back to Dallas to get her Law degree. Then back to Rome where she was living in an apartment that backed up to the Vatican wall. She sounded so neat…and I wrote to her after reading her blog, told her I wanted to move to Rome. She was kind enough to write back and we started corresponding and I met her when I came to Rome a couple of years ago. She is a treasure!
Hit the bed…very late night for us…almost 10pm.
More tomorrow….