Day 6 - kicking back

Our friends head to Istanbul today and we want to hang out with them before they go, so have decided not to include a visit to Tivoli or Ostia Antica today as planned.  They will be there when we return to Rome another time, for that we will. 

After a lazy breakfast and coffee at the Alex Bar, we wished A&E well on their way, and then decided to explore more of the 'hood.  First stop was the wonderful market at Campo di'Fiori, full of food items (for cooking, for eating and for taking home) including balsamic vinegars, dried herbs, olive oils, limoncello and crazily coloured pasta. 

There are also souvenirs of course, housewares and crafts- something for everyone.  After picking up a few items for gifts, we continued on towards the river, following our noses along streets that were full of shoe shops (Borini, Loco, and NuYorica), second hand jewellry, woolen shops and one wonderful little place that made and sold leather bags and purses, called T. Nobile.  The place smells fabulous and the woman who runs the place is great fun.  I couldn't decide which one to get, so got all three, including one hot pink prototype that I couldn't live without!

We went down to follow the river embankment a ways, joined only by a few homeless people and young lovers who sat on the wide bank and snogged, oblivious to the trash and smell of urine as only young lovers can be.  Rising again to street level, we emerged not far from the Synagogue and Jewish Museum, and the Ponte Fabricio, which once upon a time was called the Jews' Bridge as it once carried Jews and others who were not allowed to live in the city at the time across, to and from their workplaces.

It's no accident that the Jewish ghetto neighbourhood is located here, where the Tiber most often and disastrously flooded until the embankment was built in the nineteenth century.

We moved inland to see the ruins of Portica Octavio, built by Augustus before he was Caesar. Most amusing was seeing a house incorporated into the ruins, lived in by someone either who likes living among ruins or who wouldn't sell to those who preserved them.

We stopped for lunch practically next door (da Giggetto), where we finally got our fried zuccini blossoms (stuffed with anhovies) and artichokes (huge globes flattendd and fried until they are tender and crispy) as only the restuarnts in this area can do them (or at least that's what everyone says!) 

Little lanes suddenly turn on  themselves, or open into a square dominated by a church, or just wind on and on until they become something else.  It pays to stop a look up at walls and balconies and then even more at rooves and porticos as there are architectural and cultural rewards on display for the observant. 

We crossed busy and continued on to the Trevi fountain to throw in a few coins guaranteeing a return visit (so that we can see Tivoli and Ostia Antica!) 

and then past more shops for gifts - wonderful chocolates at Confetteria Moriondo & Gariglio, unique knits at Tartarughe, fountain pens at Stilo Fetti, wooden toys and pinocchios at still family-run Bartolucci. Oue feet sore, we dragged ourselves back home in time to watch the light change aand the bells ring over the rooves once again.