Rode the subway to Termini (after delivering the signed dollar bill to Vince -his first US dollar from his first customers.  He put it up in a prominent spot!) and caught a train to Santa Marinella.  It stopped four times before getting out of Rome…including the St Peters station near our apartment.  Who knew?  We headed towards the coast seeing lots of country side and small towns.  One town, Marina Cerveteri, is very unusual as ALL the houses are painted white and have a rather Spanish look to them rather than Italian…or Moorish as we saw in Venice.  Maybe Google will have an explanation.  When we got to Santa Marinella, we were hungry so started walking on the Main Street of town toward a restaurant I had read about…and we walked…and walked…and walked…and I kept thinking: if that restaurant Is closed, I will sit on the ground and cry!  And we walked some more.  As I was passing a big ceramic shop I saw a lady with a little dog walking toward me.  The little dog would stop and look frightened and start up, only to repeat the strange, fearful behaviour.  I realized there was a huge ceramic black dog on a pedestal, and the little dog was afraid of it.  I started saying, ‘No e vero’   to the  puppy meaning It isn’t real…and he finally decided the big old thing wasn’t going to get him…and besides, he now had a crazy American dog lover to fuss over him and get kisses and all that silly dog stuff I love.   We FINALLY found the restaurant and it WAS open and we had a wonderful meal.  On the way there, I had noticed a bus stop about a block from the restaurant and we made sure we were on it back to town.  Otherwise, I would have still been there, crawling  to the  train station.  We went to the beach…Andy walked around in the sand and I found a wet, sandy dog to love on and get more kisses from.  People seem to love having their dogs getting lots of attention.  And we love giving it.  We had a sack of stale bread we threw out for the sea gulls.  There are some beautiful huge villas along the sea wall.  Back to the train station and caught our train home…getting off at St. Peter’s station and we were home probably before the train reached Termini.  Forgot to mention…on top of all the walking in Santa Marinella, to get to our train in Termini, we had to walk to Track 28….the farthest one of all.  When we bought our ‘open’ ticket we had 10 minutes to catch the next train..and couldn’t get there in 10 minutes…missed it!  Another one came along 20 minutes later and we were on it.  Had a fun day.  I don’t want to walk much tomorrow.  OK?

thanks to Evan for getting the Venice posts posted!  I messed up something, I guess and couldn’t get them on the blog.  

Monday, we went to our wonderful market to buy fish for a dinner party on Tuesday…and the fish stalls are shut up tight.  No fish on Mondays!  So, I went  back yesterday to get mussels for my famous steamed mussels.  They were wonderful.  We had Caprese salad first, slices of tomato and slices of Buffala mozzarella and fresh basil leaves on top.  Olive oil drizzled over the top and balsamic vinegar.  Oh my!  And if you think you have eaten tomatoes, think again…nothing tastes like a fresh off the vine Italian tomato!  I like buying the mussels from a sweet little old man who has a tiny stall…a fourth to a fifth the size of the other fish stalls.  He runs it by himself.  The others have from 3 to 10 workers cutting chunks of fish, filleting, counting out and wrapping.  I told the little man, in Italian that ‘I came yesterday and all the fish stalls were closed’.  He repeated to me in Italian, ‘ You come Monday, the fish stalls are closed’!  Friends, Liz and Lauren came and a good time was had by all!

Today, we went to the Oriental Museum, but unfortunately, the Tibetan exhibit was finished and they were in the process of setting up an Iranian exhibit to start on Saturday.  There will be a special event at 11am on Saturday.  The Iranian Cultural Ambassador and his Italian counterpart will meet to sign a cultural agreement, open the exhibit and refreshments will be served.  We plan to attend.  And, the exhibit will be free that day. After we left, we went to the Rome Quilt Store.  What a delightful surprise.  Lots and lots of bolts of lovely material for quilting. I will be returning, and hope to find a group that I might quilt with while here.  On the way hope, stopped for a slice of pizza.  It was a thin crunchy crust that I love, a green called rocket and huge slices of smoked salmon.  It was wonderful and I will stop there again.  Got home and rested before dinner.  Tonight we went to a brand new restaurant near our apartment.  The chef opened this evening and Andy and I were his first customers.  We are taking him an American dollar tomorrow that we are going to sign and wish him good luck.  His name is Vince and he was a chef in NYC for many years.  He serves Caesar salads – the only person in Rome who does!  That is what we had and it was delicious!  Can’t wait to try his other salads and the soup of the day.  Very different fare from all the other places around that serve the typical pastas.  And he won our hearts by sharing a Reese’s Peanut butter Cup with us!  A taste of home!  Any of you coming to visit…please bring a package of Reese’s, Milky Ways and Almond Joy!  A special request from Vince!  We hope he is a huge success!  

Tomorrow we are off to the beach.  Will report on that tomorrow night.  

Once again, coffe and off to see the sights.  We caught the Vaparetto and went to the famous Rialto Bridge across the Grand Canal.  All kinds of shops on either side of this massive bridge. And jillions of tourists.  We have mostly seen Asian tourists in Venice.  We ate an American breakfast of bacon and eggs on the Grand Canal…it was a beautiful warm day to sit outside in the sun.  Went back to the convent to pick up our backpacks and then back to the train station.  We checked our bags and went out sightseeing.  There was a huge protest forming in front of the station and in a piazza nearby.  I would guess several thousand people protesting Government corruption, the Mafia, terrorism, illegal immigration…same stuff the world over.  It was very peaceful and there was a lot of police presence.  We visited two churches.  They are very plain compared to Rome’s churches, except for the Murano glass chandaliers in all of them…and one had the mummified body of St. Lucia in a glass coffin at the altar.  She is the patron saint of eyes.

Finally, it was time for our train.  We got out seats and all of a sudden, a little white fluffy dog jumped into the seat next to Andy.  Like her new best friend.  A little girl and her mother apologized profusely, but we assured her the dog had come to the right place!  I showed the little girl photos of all my doggies and kitties back home.  She was about 6 years old and spoke perfect English as her dad is American.  At one point Andy babysat the dog while they went to the food car.  We made it back to Rome, caught the Metro to our stop and walked home.  Fell into bed.  Already planning another trip to Venice later in the year to see more of the sights.

Today is now Sunday and we are just staying home and recuperating.  Andy fixed bacon and eggs for our breakfast.  We had really thick bacon cut at the market last week and it was delicious.  Not quite like bacon at home, but no complaints.  I never did make the spaghetti carbonara last week, but will get more bacon Tuesday and will see what happens.  We are having friends over Tuesday night for my famous mussels.  Our first dinner party!

That’s for today.

(Sorry all – these didn’t go out at the right time so “today” below isn’t today. We’re doing a little catch up)

Today was Friday (3/6), and we went to a fabric store near the Jewish Ghetto.  The fabric stores in Rome don’t have quilting fabric of any quality, but this store in Venice had about 50 quality bolts.  Almost double the price I would pay in the States.  We had a sandwich at a little soccer pub and it was divine.  Smoked salmon, mayo and egg.  Then we walked to the Ghetto.  The very first Ghetto in Europe was here in Venice and it was where the Foundry was.  Originally a ghetto was not as we think of it today, but just the foundry area where the Jews lived.  They were required to wear yellow scarves or hats to signify they were Jews but there was little persecution.  They were set apart because they had jobs that were forbidden to Christians such as money lending.  There are three synagogues in the Ghetto and a museum.  We met an interesting shop owner who sells his wife’s paintings.  She does paintings that are very folk-arty showing the Jews celebrating all the different holidays.  And she does cat paintings as if they were done by famous artists.  Instead of people in the paintings…there are cats.  They have a big, fat Orange cat who sleeps in a basket on the desk.  Of course, it is HIS gallery and the man and wife just work for him.  He got lots of pats, tickles and attention from us.  Then we went to a Kosher restaurant for lunch.  Wonderful place!  Called Gam Gam.  We had four appetizers and each was excellent!  One was eggplant with a tomato sauce.  One was hummus with whole chickpeas in it and ground beef.  Then had fried artichoke hearts with a sauce of sesame and parsley and then latkes…potato pancakes with fresh applesauce.  What a feast.  I think my favorite meal this whole year!  We hopped a Vaparetto right outside the restaurant back to St Mark’s and toured the Doges Palace.

The Doges were the Dukes who governed Venice for hundreds of years.  You have no conception of the size or grandeur of this place from the outside.  It goes on and on.  On one side are rooms that house the original colums that were part of the facade of the building.  One dates back to the 1420’s.  Across a massive courtyard attached to the Basillica on one end, you enter room after room, and floor after floor of magnificent rooms.  The staircase ceilings and walls are carved and guilded and painted.  Each room has beautiful ceilings and walls covered with art.  One wing houses ancient arms, crossbows and arrows, armor for men, boys and horses, some kind of bow that had two handles that you rotated to fire the bows.  Guns and something that might have been an early Gatling gun…it had about 10-12 barrels.  Then we got to the prisons…oh brother.  A wooden door about 3 feet high admitted you into a cell with stone beds…some had no beds.  No light, facilities, just a hole cut into the stone so the guards could look in.  A docent said they crammed them full.  We got to cross the famous Bridge of Sighs.  From the inside.  It is said you could hear the sighs of the prisoners as they crossed from the court that had convicted them to the prison as they saw the Grand Canal and Freedon for the last time.  After that tour, we were exhausted again and went to dinner and back to the convent for bed.  And the full moon to shine in our window.

once again….we were NOT kidnapped by handsome Italian counts…or no-counts, for that matter.  We went to Venice for a few days and had poor or no wifi reception.  Even in restaurants that boasted Free WiFi…it wouldn’t work.

We had so much fun.  Took a ‘Fast Train’ from Rome and it only make a few stops…Florence, Bologna, Padova, Venice (mainland) and Venice (island).  We bought our 3 day vaparetto ticket and took off for St. Mark’s Square.  The Vaparetto is like the city bus.  A medium to large boat, I guess depending on time of day and normal rider use.  It goes down the Grand Canal moving from side to side to the Vaparetto stops to let people off and on.  Before going to Venice, I couldn’t get the waterways in my head… how they worked.  Picture the Grand Canal as a big, wide freeway that cuts through the center of the town.  You can take a bus…the Vaparetto, a Taxi…water taxi, or private car…Gondola.  Priced accordingly.  When you get to your Vaparetto stop or taxi stop, you disembark and walk.  There are small canals shooting off the Grand Canal and other canals shooting off the main canals…just like streets at home.  The streets are just made of water, and cars become boats.  You can catch transportation to other islands.  Lots of small bridges in Venice…but only a very few over the Grand Canal.

We found our convent hotel and checked in.  A lovely old building that the nuns have inhabited since 1932.  Only 4 nuns live there now, the others live on the other sideman the Grand Canal.  The building has a small reception area.  To the right are stairs that go to the nun’s offices and a big sitting room where we would have coffee.  From there on the second floor are classrooms and the chapel where the nuns attend Mass at 6:45 every morning.  It is small and fairly simple.    From the reception area you can go into a large courtyard that leads into a big hallway with classrooms off of it.  The convent is a school for children ages 3-11.  They all wear smocks to cover their clothes…white for the littlest ones and navy blue for the older ones.  Passing thru the great hall, there is a tiny courtyard that leads into the area for the rooms on 4 floors.  There are 14 guest rooms with private baths.  Simple, clean and comfortable.  All accessible by stairs and elevator.  Our room had floor to ceiling doors that opened to a tiny balcony.

We left the convent to explore and went to St. Marks Basilica.  And got right in…no lines!  You can read up on the Basilica on Google.  The mosaics are beyond description.  Just stunningly beautiful with gold and brilliants colors.  The floors are all quilt patterns!  Done in marble and stone..all beautiful colors.  After the Basilica, we hit the shops to,see the beautiful Murano Glass…jewelry, vases, glassware, figurines from huge to teensy.  Most made in Murano and some made in China.  Chinese goods being passed off as authentic are a growing problem in Italy.  And didnI mention chandeliers?  Absolutely breathtaking!  I forgot to mention the Murano glass chandeliers hanging in every room of the convent.

We had dinner in a cute restaurant.  Andy had the best spaghetti with seafood she has ever had and I had mussels…again.  We collapsed after dinner and slept with the almost full moon shining in our windows.  Slept like babies!

Standby Folks….
Having trouble getting our 4 posts from the Venice trip to be posted on the blog. Son, Evan is working on it. When 

Today, we had coffee and went for breakfast in a little bar…cappuccino and rice ball with cheese.  Not wild about them, but needed to try it.  Oh, speaking of food, I didn’t have mussels last night, I had a typical Venetian dish of sardines and onions, some type of vinegar and whole peppercorns.  Very good.  We went to the Vaparetto stop to get a boat to Murano.  We were approached by a man who gave us tickets for a free boat ride to Murano and told us he worked for one of the glassblowing factories.  About that time, a man came up and shook hands with first man and offered us a free water taxi ride to Murano.  He is the manager of the glass factory.  This ride would have cost us $100 euros on our own…he said.  When we got to the factory, we saw a demonstration of three men making a glass horse for some Russians.  Two men would get the molten glass from the furnace and roll it on a metal table to get it a bit cooled and the size  needed.  They would take it to the Master glass blower who would add the piece to the horse and shape it.  If it cooled too much he would zap it with a blowtorch to make it more pliable.  There are 25 Master glass workers on the island and the craft is kept in the family.  No outsiders are ever allowed in.  Glass works in Murano are a strongly guarded secret.  An interesting book to read is called The Glassblower of Venice.  How centuries ago, the glass blowers were virtual prisoners on the island, and if they ‘escaped’ their families would suffer.  We then toured the gallery with pieces made by the Masters.  Very beautiful and prices to match.  Obviously, the best of the best.  Went to the church where all the chandeliers are Murano glass and two three-tiered chandeliers flank the sides of the altar.

After Murano, we took a Vaparetto to Burano…the lace making island.  The houses are all painted every color of the rainbow.  We ate lunch…here I had the mussels and then went shopping.  We saw the church with beautiful lace edged altar cloths and then did the Lace Museum tour.  All kinds of ancient handmade laces…on up to modern work.  After the museum, we stopped in a shop that had their own museum…even better than the official museum.  Their collection dated back to the 1300’s.  In many of the shops, there was an older woman making the lace.  Using a hard round pillow on her lap as a table, she has a pattern drawn off and uses a needle and thread to make the lace.  I have seen bobbin lace makers, but these women don’t use bobbins.  We were told that a piece the size of a salad plate would take 7 women a month to make.  Each woman has her speciality…lattice work, loops, flowers, edging etc.  I looked at a pair of booties for 450 euros.  Heirloom, christening type booties!  Just exquisite!  It is a dying art, unfortunately.

After Burano, we went back to Venice.  Dinner and more shopping around…mostly looking. And off to bed.  We asked about Carnivale this year and were told less and less people come every year.  They don’t know if it from lack of money, threats of terrorism or what, but participation is down.  The masks in Venice are works of art..and of course, just some that are junky.  Every animal, real or imagined, classical Carnivale masks and beautiful masks with feathers, lace and jewels.  That was day 2 in Venice.

A lazy Sunday.  We went for Indian food, then took a walk on a beautiful day.  Saw a lovely fountain with four nude women holding up the top bowl that spills into a second bowl that spills into the bottom.  Went to a church..and caught the tail end of Mass.  It was a very interesting church as each of the side chapels was dedicated to a different country.  You could go into the chapel for the United States rather than just stand outside the others.

We stopped by a Coin store, like a small Macy’s…but a bit higher end.  Some clothes were very reasonable, but saw a piece of fluff dress that was 650€.  Maybe 10€ worth of fabric for the whole thing.  They even have a Tiffany’s store within the store.

Back home and we had leftover mussels like I’ve fixed before and grilled salmon.  What a feast!

March 2nd….today we walked over to the police station to see if our papers have arrived.  We have been waiting on a letter…but foundout no letter will be sent.  we go to the police station every week to see if our name is on the list.  If so, they have our papers…if not, they don’t.  We will check again next week.  Had lunch out and came back home.  Bit chilly today.  Oh, we did walk over to the Vatican to get some stamps to mail letters from there.  Since the Vatican is its own country, they have their own stamps and mail boxes.

Tonight, Im trying my hand at Spaghetti Carbonara – I’ve read several recipes on Google and will let you know.

cleaned house today and the postman delivered Andy’s bank card PIN number, so she could go and get her ATM card!  Another hurdle passed.  We took the bus to the Vittorio Emanuele building where the Nazi death camps liberation exhibit was.  It was excellent.  Told about each concentration camp, where it was, who ran it, what it was used for, how many different groups of people were brought there, how,they were killed and the number of Italians incarcerated at Liberation and how many made it home.  So many died at Liberation or shortly thereafter.  Many pictures from each camp.  Many movies.  One was of little children…looking to be younger than 5 showing their numbers tattooed on their arms. Pictures of the piles of emancipated corpses.  To me the most moving was a movie made by the Allies of making the guards haul bodies and putting them in mass graves to be buried.  The guards were men and women.  Then making townspeople file by the graves to see what had been done under their noses.  One soldier, probably a rabbi, standing over a huge pit filled with bodies saying the Jewish prayers for the dead.  It was a very sobering and sad reminded of what took place.  After we left there, we walked over to catch a bus to go to another museum.  In front of the Vittorio Emannuele building, there were hundreds of police in riot gear surrounding a group of protestors.  We went on to the bus stop but it never came because traffic had been diverted due to the protestors.  Think it was a political protest.  No one seemed to know.  While we were waiting on the bus, a huge bus.oad of military men came by this a smaller bus full and a jeep.  They circled around and saw that the riot police were just standing alert and they drove off.  We got a bus headed for home.

Later we went for dinner one street over.  For the last couple of days, and last night in particular, there has been a lot of activity on our street and the one just south of us.  Lots of men and cameras and booms and lots of noise.  Turns out, they are shooting the new James Bond movie on our very street.  We heard today that Daniel Craig was injured when his car hit a pothole and he hit his head and is back in London.  We spoke to some of the cameramen tonight and showed them Andy’s windows and asked them to be very quiet!  This is going on all night and all day for 5-6 more days.  We are not impressed…we are Sean Connery James Bond Girls.  We had heard that the city was to be cleaned for the movie…no,evidence of that around here.

We were going to try for the museum tomorrow, but hear the REAL protest is tomorrow so we are going to the market in the opposite direction and will just stay on this side of town,til the protestors and swat teams all finish up.  Then we will resume our cultural experiences.  Off to bed.

today we took the bus to Termini and walked to St Paul Within the Walls.  This is an Episcopal church, but it wasn’t open when we got there.  Will try again another day.  From there, we walked to the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore.  It was built on one of the 7 hills of Rome.  We decided on a guided tour.  There were thre different tours.  The first took us under the church to a 14 room home from the Pagan Rome era BC.  This was discovered when they were doing repairs under the side aisles.  The house lasted about 400 years and then fell into ruin as the church was built over it. There were some lovely frescoes and beautiful mosaic floors.  They found the tiles from the roof and they are stamped with the maker’s names so they could date many of them.  Some almost 1500 years old!

After this tour, we went to a big balcony and saw beautiful mosaics on the wall.The top ones were made in the Byzantine era and they used a lot of gold.  Later ones were added to tell the story of a Pope and a rich patrician who had the same dream on the same night that the Virgin Mary came to them and told them to build a church in her name.  Prior to this church, none had been named for Mary.  At each end of the balcony are two Huge angel stsues that were supposed to be on either side of the altar inside the church, but were too heavy. This balcony used to be one where the Popes would come out on to bestow their blessings to the crowd below.  Then we went into a room that had Pope paintings on all four walls as well as a painting of Isabella and Ferdinand.  They gave the church the first gold that was brought back from the first voyage of Christopher Columbus.  That gold helped to build the Basilica.  There are two huge armoires in this room.  There are eclectically vestments in them, as well as a copy of the Letters of St Paul – copied from the original.

We are now hungry, so head for a Chinese restaurant mentioned in a book Andy has.  It tells of the best eating places in Rome.  This  is a big restaurant and it is packed.  We get the same dish we had yesterday…Andy gets crispy duck with herbs and I get duck with orange.  We want to compare.  She said her crispy ducks were equally good.  Mine were also, but different.  Yesterday, the sauce was sweeter with large slices separating the pieces of duck.  Today, the duck was boneless and had bright chunks of blood orange over the slices.  Both very crispy and very good.

Back to the church with a stop at a bakery.  Beautiful pastries and cookies, tarts and biscotti.  I got some to go with my coffee tomorrow.  At the church, we did the third tour of the museum.  It was filled with ornately embroidered vestments and the chalices for the communion wine.  Each in gold or silver and each more ornate than the last.  Candlesticks and monstrances.  These are ornate standing pieces that usually have a holy relic under glass in the center.  A  piece of bone of a saint for instance.  They are in silver or gold and very ornate and often bejeweled.  The museum also had paintings of religous scenes and portraits of many of the ancient popes.  After we finished there, we went into the church itself.  Altho it is huge, it isn’t as ornate as many we have been in.  The dome behind the altar is covered with a massive mosaic that is very ornate and beautiful.

We walked back to Termini, caught our bus and headed for home.  Another fun and busy day.  We are planning to come back to this area on Friday as we saw a couple of museum exhibits we want to see and maybe St Paul’s will be open.