Roma - La città eterna

After a five-year hiatus, Cathy and I finally returned to Rome for this year's Internazionali BNL d'Italia tennis tournament. Back in 2008, we came for the entire week's tournament but this year we decided on a five-day trip, with at least two full days at the tennis. \

I'm well aware that my blogs can sometimes go on a bit so here's the short version (note that the word "short" might not be entirely appropriate by the time I've finished writing this):
We stayed at the wonderful B&B Bio in the far north of the city. As its name suggests, it had a certain dietary theme. It's entirely vegetarian, catering for all sorts of dietary requirements over and above that. There are only three rooms, all painted using only natural paints. The couple who run it, Michel and Barbara, are utterly lovely. They couldn't do enough to help us, providing dairy-free milk and gluten-free products for our breakfast every day, and regularly giving us a lift to Piazza Mancini, saving us a 15-minute bus ride (although on one occasion, due to a very important tunnel being closed, the car journey took 40 minutes, but it was the thought that counted!) Michel runs a health food store (La Madre Terra) so of course we had plenty to talk about and, on the day that we visited his store, lots of price and product comparisons to do. The only downside to the B&B was its rather remote location. From the city centre, we had about a 35-minute walk, then a tram ride and then a bus ride to get back. On two occasions, one of which really wasn't our fault, we managed to miss the last bus (midnight - how uncivilised) and had to get a cab which, we discovered, is not an easy thing outside the main city centre. 


We arrived mid-afternoon on the Monday and headed out of the B&B at nearly 6pm. We stopped for a first little drink at Campo de'Fiori, a square that we had somehow managed to miss on previous visits. When here in 2008, we had attempted to visit the Trastevere part of town which, according to the guidebooks, is lovely and quaint and a must-see. The last time we tried, we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because we ended up in a rather squalid, council-estate type area! This time we got it right and agreed entirely with the guidebooks. It's a lovely area with little streets, plenty of restaurants and bars, all clearly frequented by Italians - always a good sign. The B&B host had recommended Ristorante Da Augusto for dinner, but when we arrived at around 7.30pm, there were about 20 people queuing outside. Now that might be a good sign as far as quality is concerned, but when you've spent most of the day since 6.45am travelling, waiting that long for a table isn't an option. Instead we went to Osteria Margherita, a lovely little pizzeria down a side street and sat outside enjoying huge stone-baked pizzas and a well-deserved glass of wine or two. On the way back, we stopped at Mimi e Coco for another quick digestif. That decision may, of course, have been to blame for our first late-night taxi ride. 

On the Tuesday, we decided to take a side-trip. We had been tossing up between Tivoli, Ostia Antica and Orvieto. Due entirely to the contents of a well-timed article in the Easyjet in-flight magazine on the way over, we settled on Tivoli. What a great choice! An hour from Rome and only €3 each way on the train, Tivoli is a lovely little town with a splendid combination of old and new. We had a quick drink on arrival, failed to find the tabac where a passing German tourist had told us we could get a free map of the town, and headed off. After a couple of hours, we followed the brown tourist signs to Villa Gregoriana. What a find! After several devastating floods, the river Tiber was diverted in the early 1800s into this valley, creating several amazing waterfalls. There was already an ancient Acropolis there but by the early 20th century the whole thing had gone to ruin and for many years, it was a dumping ground for unwanted rubbish (including fridges, washing machines etc). Thanks to the Italian version of the National Trust, it was cleaned up and opened to the public in 2005. It took us about three hours to cover the whole thing - steep paths with lots of little diversions to panoramic views, grottoes, waterfalls, low and sometimes narrow passageways but it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. Given that the temperature was hovering around 28 degrees in the sun, we were quite grateful for the shade of the trees and the relative coolness of the valley. We emerged at the Temples exit just in time to walk to the station and head back to town for some dinner.

                                                 


For our first few annual visits to Rome, we stayed right in the centre at a little place called Planet 29. Right opposite, was a pizza place (La Famiglia) which we frequented probably a little too often. It had given us our first taste of risotto alla ortica (nettle risotto) and we had been able to check from our hotel window for a free table and then run down the stairs to claim said table. We had promised ourselves that we would try to get back there for a meal. After our Tivoli train pulled in to Termini, it seemed logical to pop just down the road to La Famiglia. Very little had changed. We nabbed the last table outside and were treated to some very familiar somewhat surly service. They're not rude exactly. They're just, well, down-to-earth! They don't try to be your best friend, they just do their job! In a nostalgic move, we both ordered nettle risotto, with a starter of deep-fried mozzarella balls and a litre of house wine. €8 for a litre of wine - who could turn that down? Like any other wine of that price, it tastes a lot better after the first couple of glasses! 

You might think that was the end of our evening. So did we. We planned to walk back to our tram stop via the Trevi Fountain and then get a relatively early night. The one thing we certainly didn't plan to do was miss the last bus again. Just round the corner from the pizzeria, we decided to buy a couple of postcards to write and post later. The guy in the shop, however, told us that if we bought SwissPost stamps along with the postcards, we could post them from a small postbox in the shop. Standing outside the shop scribbling our postcards, we were approached by an elderly couple who we recognised from the pizzeria. The lady asked us, in French, if we knew where Via Flavia was. It didn't occur to either of us that it was a bit odd to be asked a question in French in the middle of Rome by people who couldn't possibly know where we were from. We both replied (in French) that we didn't know but we had a map and could help. We finished writing our postcards quickly and then consulted the map. Via Flavia was only about 6 streets away but there wasn't a simple route for them to memorise so we offered to walk with them at least some of the way. We chatted away (still in French) all the way to the street with their hotel. They had left the hotel earlier in the evening looking for something to eat, wandered the streets, settled randomly on the same pizzeria as us and only when they finished did they realise they had no idea where they were or how to get back! He (another Michel!) was 77 and she (whose name we failed to get) was 75. They were originally from Paris, had retired to Cannes and were gradually working their way round Europe. When we reached the right street, we attempted to head off to our bus stop but then they invited us for a drink at their hotel. Initially, we resisted but they were so sweet and so keen that we relented. Off we went to the Hotel Marcella Royal and up to the utterly fantastic seventh floor roof terrace bar. We were met by a lovely barman who clearly liked his funny French customers who showed us to a table right by the fairy-lit outer wall with its view straight over to the illuminated St Peter's Basilica at The Vatican. Wow! We were so pleased we'd accepted. They treated us to a Campari Soda and a Kahlua (which they'd never heard of until then!) and far too soon we had to leave or we were risking missing public transport. I took a quick photo of Cathy with them on the roof terrace and we headed off.

 
We got the tram OK but as we jumped off it at the bus station, we saw our last bus just starting to move. A man was hurtling across the concourse, banged on the door and the driver opened it, let him on, closed the door and moved away again. We were perhaps three steps away from the bus, Cathy managed to reach it and bang on the door but the driver just carried on and we watched our final bus disappear into the night. Grrrrrr. Getting a taxi was only a little easier than the night before. A tram driver kindly found us the number of a cab firm but he didn't know the code for Italy or for Rome, so we had to call Dade for the info! (This would all have been a lot simpler had I been able to access the internet using 3G on my mobile at all during the trip!) We finally got home around 1am again! 

Finally it was time for some tennis. Having grabbed our lunch on the go ingredients from the little supermarket down the road, we jumped on the bus to Foro Italico. We'd pre-booked tickets for Wednesday and Thursday day sessions so after the usual melée of people all trying to collect pre-paid tickets, we were in. It's certainly grown since the last time we were here. There's a whole new court! Campo Centrale (Centre Court) has gone from a somewhat temporary affair, with scaffolding and metal staircases, to a properly built concrete arena, holding probably half as many people again. The new court (SuperTennis Arena) occupies a space which, for the life of us, we can't work out what was there before. The lovely Pietrangeli court is still there though - an amphitheatre court, where you sit on marble steps, surrounded by Roman statues. Despite the forecast, only an hour of play was lost on the Thursday. The rest of the time we sat in temperatures of high 20s and glorious sunshine. Our combination of tickets meant that we didn't get to see Nadal, Djokovic or Federer but it didn't matter. Over the two days, we saw a succession of talented players, including a fairly new guy on the block - Jerzy Janowicz - he saw off players much higher up in the rankings. Our only disappointment really was that, despite having booked the tickets in mid-January, our seats on both days were in the very last row.The people who showed up on the day and rocked up to the ticket office got better seats. We weren't to know that though and we didn't want to risk getting all the way out there and finding it was sold out.

On the Wednesday evening, we walked back to our old stomping ground from our 2008 trip, the little area on the north side of Ponte Milvio. Even though we ate there almost every evening for a week back then, we couldn't really remember much about anything. The main thing we'd forgotten was that there were really only two restaurants! We ate at La Pallotta, which has a massive outside area (which was lovely until it started to rain on the pizzas - I was OK because I was under an umbrella but the waiters came over and moved our table - and Cathy - under the umbrella too!) It was very busy and there were plenty of Italians in there. Very tasty food and house wine that was almost as cheap as the night before! Even better news - we managed to get the bus back!!! Mind you, spotting where to get off on a residential street with no streetlights, whilst being whisked along by a bus driver who was the reincarnation of Mario Andretti. Cathy managed to spot a building just along the road from our street so we managed to leap up to ding the bell and got off not too far past the right place! 

On the Thursday evening, the tennis went on quite late so we ventured even less far! We crossed the road from the tennis stadium and went into a funny little pizza place that looks almost temporary. It's more like a pizza shack! We sat in the plastic-sided "outside" area. It might have looked cheap and nasty, but they made mean pizzas! Despite it being our last night, it was also our earliest and we were back at the B&B before midnight. 

Friday morning rolled around far too soon and it was time to pack up our stuff and decide what to do with our day. We had contemplated going to the tennis again and just buying a ground pass. However, the tournament had reached the quarter-finals stage so all the interesting matches were on the two show courts, not covered by a ground pass. That made our minds up! Tourism day it is! After a lift from Michel and a nose around his health food shop, we walked through the local market where there was some kind of TV show being filmed. No matter how much we darted or dodged, we kept finding ourselves in the camera's line of sight. Who knows? Maybe we're Italian TV stars now!
From there, we headed to the lovely Pantheon:

From there, we jumped on the tram down to Piazza de Popolo and walked to the Trevi Fountain. We bought a delicious ice-cream (pistachio and stracciatella for me) from the lovely gelateria overlooking the fountain. Then we made our way down to the fountain and threw the obligatory coins backwards over our shoulder into the water. If you don't know why, look here. 

and then on to Piazza Navona. It was buzzing with people, the sun was shining so we did the perfectly obvious thing - we stopped at a bar and treated ourselves to a glass of Prosecco. It was so nice (the sun, the atmosphere and the drink), that we were obliged to stay for a second one! As we left, we spotted these fetching portraits of a couple of Popes, some archbishop or other and ... er ... Obi Wan Kenobi:

We had a last wander through the little cobbled streets nearby and then headed to the Metro up to where Michel was picking us up to take us to the airport, and before we knew it we were waving goodbye to the Eternal City. 

It had been an utterly wonderful five days and we remembered why this used to be an annual trip! Roll on Rome 2014. 

If you want to see all my photos from the trip, click HERE.

Isn't sport meant to be good for you?

My attempt to get at least some exercise while I'm back in the UK, and to get back into much-missed racquet sports, got off to a reasonably good start on Friday evening.

Cathy had told me about a casual, drop-in tennis club so I thought I'd give that a try. As a warm-up, I decided to walk to the club - 40 minutes, mostly uphill. So I was knackered when I got there! They were very welcoming and I was thrown on court immediately as there were actually only two of us there at the advertised start time. I knocked up for half an hour with Richard, who I think was quite gentle with me as I told him I hadn't played for almost 18 months! More people turned up and we started the doubles matches. We were randomly paired up over the next two hours, I played with or against almost everyone there. Won our first match 6-2, then lost 3-6 and 4-6. Could have been a lot worse! It's a very sociable club so at the end I spent half an hour in the clubhouse with a much-needed beer before embarking on the long walk home. Other than my usual "wet rag" impression, and having a face the colour of someone who's about to have a heart attack, I didn't feel too bad. Then it all caught up with me. On Saturday and Sunday, everything ached! My calf muscles felt like someone was sticking knives in them and my shoulders were making alarming grinding noises. Still, I felt better for actually having done something!

By Monday, I'd just about stopped aching - so I went to a local badminton club! Again, they were a nice bunch though I think their website statement that they're mixed ability might have been a bit misleading. Some of them were VERY good! Still, I was pleased to find that despite not having played for 18 months, I could still actually play. All was going well - won the first match 21-15 then, like at the tennis, the groups mixed up. In the next match I spun/dived for an evil backhand smash from our opponents and felt (and heard) a rather nasty tearing sound from my right knee. OUCH! (Won the bloody point though!) Not wanting to wuss out, I carried on as the game was nearly over anyway and two points later it was over - we lost - and I hobbled off to see what the damage was. I was a bit concerned when I found that it hurt to bend it, straighten it or turn it! One of the others gave me some ibuprofen rub for it so I sat out for a game then decided there was only one way to find out if I should worry about it a bit more. So I played one more game (which we lost) - it stood up (no pun intended) to the challenge reasonably well, though I couldn't run backwards on it and I was very reluctant to twist. It seemed like a bad idea to risk it any further so, with 40 minutes still to go, I made my excuses and left.

This may be too much information but ... it was bloody hot in the hall so yet again, I could have wrung out everything I was wearing (clearly my DNA missed the class about "women don't sweat"!). However, I hadn't planned on using the changing room showers so I had no towel. Oh well, I thought! After my quick (cold) shower - gotta love private girls' schools - I attempted to dry off using my soggy sports gear! Memories of my school changing rooms came flooding back as I realised that it's actually impossible to get dry in them, towel or not. And to add a final insult to (actual) injury, I discovered that whilst I'd remembered to pack a change of clothes, I'd forgotten one rather vital item. To put it bluntly, I had to go commando for the walk home!!!

Anyway, my right knee just about survived the walk home although by the time I got into the flat, it was complaining, and I also found a strange dent in my left hamstring!

So - exercise. Good or bad for you? You decide.

Cathy dodged the volcanic ash!

Since my birthday weekend, I had my first visitor of the year last weekend. Cathy somehow managed to catch the only flight from Gatwick to Madrid that actually took off on Saturday and by 12 she and her dinky suitcase made it to Plaza de Castilla and the short walk to the flat. A quick lunch and a well-deserved beer and we headed out.

First stop was the cheap shoe heaven that is Calle Montera (otherwise known as Prostitute Street!). Baseball boots, sandals and the world's cheapest work shoes (they were for me) were purchased, by which time we were ready for tea and cake at La Mallorquina - great cakes and pastries to take away downstairs, and upstairs a tea "salon" that appears to be stuck in time. A couple of Napolitanas de Chocolate (pain au chocolat to the rest of us, though I have no idea why there doesn't appear to be an English word for these), proper tea with cold milk and a coffee set us up nicely for a trip to El Capricho.

Recommended by Debbie , El Capricho Garden of Enlightenment is a very peaceful little park hidden away almost at the end of Metro Line 5. It once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Osuna and consists of 14 hectares of land, containing a folly, a hermitage, a Temple to Bacchus, a lake, a mini fort, a palace and, thankfully, very few people! A lovely way to spend the late afternoon/early evening. We left but decided it was too early to head back into town so found a little bar, full of locals (and showing bullfighting on TV which we had to try to avoid seeing). One beer turned into two, then inexplicably into four and we finally wended our way to the Metro at about 10pm. Still, it was Saturday night so it would have been rude not to stop at the square near the flat for a couple more beers and a plate of very good patatas bravas.

Sunday morning still threatened rain so our planned boating trip on the lake at the Retiro could wait. We headed to the Chocolateria San Gines for an artery-clogging breakfast of hot chocolate and churros (though we actually got porras). Then it was off to El Mercado de San Miguel , where we strolled around the many deli stands, admiring the sheer variety and quantity of delicious food and drink. Despite our filling breakfast, we couldn't resist a couple of mozzarella and veg kebabs, artichoke hearts, a tiny bean-filled pastry and a stuffed vine leaf, washed down with a glass of wine. We bought rustic bread and some interesting-looking cheese, ready to make a packed lunch for the tennis on Monday. A short walk took us down to La Caixa Forum , an art/exhibition centre near the Prado. There was an exhibition of works by Miquel Barcelo , including a very bizarre video of his live show from 2009 (I think) where he covered an assistant in blocks of wet clay and moulded them on him, before the assistant collapsed against a wall presumably to set! Hmm. Art, eh?! The second floor was more to our taste with a photography exhibition (FotoPrensa) - a random collection including civil unrest in Rwanda, graphic pictures of Pakistani women who had suffered "honour" attacks by having acid thrown in their faces, a weird 1970s themed nightclub and much more. Needless to say, there is a cafeteria upstairs so we stopped for refreshment, before heading over to Lavapies where there was a festival to celebrate Spain's Presidency of the EU this year.

We wondered if we'd got the day wrong when we arrived as it was all due to kick off at 4pm with street theatre etc, but we couldn't find anything! However, after wandering for a bit we stumbled across a square where there was some kind of dance going on, performed by a mixture of disabled and able-bodied teens. We spotted Debbie, Moira and Raul so we joined them, shortly followed by Krisztina, just in time to be entertained by a trio of Polish acrobatic breakdancers (one with abs, and a face, to die for), then a rather odd Finnish slow-motion dancer/contortionist and finally a group of 7 French freestyle breakdancers. Feeling entirely worn out by their exertions (!), we repaired to Baobab, a Senegalese bar up the road for more beer! A very stoned waiter with dreadlocks and particularly lovely eyes brought us beer, then another beer, then crisps, then another beer before we decided we really should go and find food. Being in Lavapies, the obvious thing to do was get curry - and very delicious it was too. A €7.95 set menu got us samosas and pakoras for starters, rice with veggie coftas for main, a beer each and tea or dessert. Bargain!

Monday rolled around and with it our long-awaited trip to La Caja Magica for the Madrid tennis tournament.
All went well initially, we picked up the pre-booked tickets easily but were a little too early as the gates weren't yet open so we headed into a tiny local bar for a quick drink (non-alcoholic I hasten to add, it was only 10.15am!) Once the gates were open, we clutched our tickets and marched happily towards the security staff on the gates. They asked us to open our bags and that was where the trouble started! No food or drink allowed! Nothing, not even a bottle of water! Outrageous. We vainly argued that we hadn't known etc, but to no avail. We had to scoff our tasty cheese and houmous bocadillos, as many crisps as we could and most of a can of Diet Coke outside the gates. We weren't alone, there were several people caught out by the ridiculous rule. We both decided to flout the rules and managed to smuggle our empty water bottles in by hiding them in amongst other things in our bags. I understand the economics of it - they want you to spend money on food and drink at their concession stands (and there are a lot of them!) - but it's not well-advertised, and not everyone can afford to buy everything they might need for around 9 hours there. Well, their cunning plan failed with us. We topped our water bottles up from the bathroom taps and made a point of buying absolutely nothing to eat all day! Little victories!

We'd been a little surprised by the order of the play for the day. It's a men's and women's tournament, we knew that, but we assumed that the play would be split about 50/50. Not at all. Play started at 11am on most courts, yet there wasn't a men's match on until 2pm and the women accounted for about 75% of the day's play. I'm not averse to a bit of women's tennis when there's no choice, but I'm afraid it doesn't hold any great fascination. Still, Court 4 found us watching Petrova win pretty convincingly. We wandered wondering what to watch while waiting for the first men's match on the main court, when we noticed that the current match on that court was looking more interesting than expected. Serena Williams had lost the first set so we decided to head over there and cheer on Dushevina. It was a surprisingly good match, lasting over 3 hours, but in the end (disappointingly) Williams won. And finally it was time for some real tennis (!) - Gael Monfils beat Stephane Robert pretty convincingly, then my second fave player, Feliciano Lopez was up against Lucasz Kubot. Amid many calls of "Vamos, Feli!" he won, to the delight of course of the Spanish crowd. And that was that. By the time that match was over, play on all the outside courts had finished and they were starting to let people in for the evening session. We headed off, stopping for dinner at the splendidly-named "Bosphorus Grill" Greek place near my flat. Can't beat houmous, tzatziki, stuffed vine leaves and beer after a day watching people chase a small ball round a rectangle of red clay.

Tuesday brought Cathy's last day so we managed to get up at a vaguely reasonable time and headed to the local square for another chocolate and churros brekkie, then down to the ghost Metro station at Chamberi (Anden Cero) - I'd been there before but it's a nice, quick and interesting thing to take visitors to. Our timing wasn't best as we found ourselves following a big school group around, but they were fairly well-behaved teens.

Quick lunch at the flat and it was time for Cathy to head back to the airport and for me to get ready for my first class of the week. It wasn't at all certain that Cathy was going to make it back, as the other two Gatwick Easyjet flights of the day had been cancelled due to the volcanic ash. Off she went though and, as with Saturday, turned out to be on the only flight of the day that actually got off the ground.

It was a very lovely weekend and it was great to see Cathy for the first time since Christmas. A lot of catching up was done! My (few) pics can be found HERE

(Note - as always, if you'd like to leave a comment, please go to the original blog at http://emsr2d2.blogspot.com  to do so. Thanks.)

Pain and paracetamol!

Not expecting any sympathy for my spectacular Sunday hangover - entirely deserved. A quick drink with Hannah at 6 last night ended with me stumbling up the 4 flights to my flat at 3am, desperately trying not to wake Eve. As tends to happen, one beer became 2, then a different bar for 5 Desperados and 2 very large neat Amarettos. With no food. You'd think I'd have learnt by now, but apparently not.

So sunny Sunday has so far consisted of me gingerly crawling out of bed at 12, to an empty flat as the ever-energetic Eve has gone hashing (no, not the illegal kind, the running kind) with a weekly group. Good for her! As for me, I barely made it to the kitchen for hangover-helping bread and tea before I had to sit down again! Pathetic, quite honestly.

As anyone who's on Facebook will have seen, all I've managed since then is hours of FB rubbish, finding my vampire name etc etc. How old am I?!

I'm desperately trying to work out if the Monte Carlo tennis final is on a TV channel I can actually get here. Watching the live scores on the net just isn't the same as watching a sweaty Nadal massacre Djokovic. Match starts in 15 minutes so fingers crossed one of the main channels will have the sense to show it.

There was a very unexpected and unlikely group of British guys in the bar we started in last night. For the life of us, we couldn't work out what they were doing in such an odd part of Madrid. There were 6 or 7 of them, loud, drunk (OK, so I can't really talk!) and generally resembled the worst examples of British football hooligans! I'd spotted them sitting outside a little earlier and could tell they were Brits from about 500 yards away - never a good sign! They wouldn't have warranted a second glance in a bar in the centre of town, but up here in the sticks, they stuck out like the proverbial. They made me feel Spanish!!!

So, it's back to the orange juice, pain killers and hopefully some tennis. I need to recover for later cos I'm meeting up with Mirjana somewhere in town at about 10pm. She arrives this evening and starts the Vaughan teacher training tomorrow! I sincerely hope she takes to it better than I did!