We stayed in the Trastevere neighborhood in Rome, just across the river from the coliseum and Roman forum area.  In addition to being conveniently located (30-minute walk max. to most major tourist sites), the neighborhood is hip and happenin’ and definitely a good place to “live” for a week (or more).

Our cute little apartment building

Graffiti across the street from our apartment

Painting on a roll-down security shutter on a shop in the neighborhood

Creeping vines were a common landscaping theme

This cute little house with its shrine on the wall caught my attention

A fountain on one of the main streets in the neighborhood

Rome has a lot of fountains with natural springs water for the public – here’s one in our neighborhood

The heart of Trastevere is Piazza Santa Maria.  It’s a great place to watch performance artists, listen to musicians busking for spare change, or just sit and have a coffee and watch the people go by.  Typical of many Italian public squares, Piazza Santa Maria fronts a church that is named – wait for it – Chiesa Santa Maria.  This church is on the site of the first Christian place of worship in Rome (people used to gather at a home here when Christianity was illegal), so it was cool to go visit and think of the historical significance the place.  And the fact that it has beautiful mosaics didn’t hurt.

Piazza Santa Maria

Santa Maria church

These mosaics are easy on the eyes

Another historical church in the neighborhood is Santa Cecilia, site of another home where people would gather to worship.  Today, the church is removed from the busyness of city life by an enclosed courtyard out front.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect, though, is the remarkably realistic sculpture of St. Catherine’s dead body at the base of the alter, just in case you need a reminder of your own mortality while you’re sitting through Sunday service.

View of the church from the courtyard

The church interior

Sculpture of St. Cecilia

One day we visited Isola Tiberina.  This is a tiny island in the middle of the Tiber River housing a hospital, a church, and two restaurants.  Technically it’s not part of the Trastevere neighborhood, but it’s within kissing distance and our lunch there was so good that I could kiss that place.  Anthony Bourdain had visited this restaurant and we figured, if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for us.  Of course, we geeked out and had the chef’s four-course tasting menu with wine pairings.  Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon was a total bust.

The two restaurants on the island

View from the Roman forum side of the city – this bridge was built in 62 BC. Um, yeah.

View of the river on the other side of the island

The final neighborhood highlight for us was the botanical gardens.  The botanical gardens of the City of Rome are located right in Trastevere.  How convenient is that!  After having stayed in the botanical gardens in Forio, Ischia and having visited the botanical gardens in Palermo, Sicily, it was interesting to visit the Rome garden and see how it compares to the others.  Every garden is unique to its particular location due to climate and topography, as you would expect, but I also realized that, much like a museum, the curator of the garden has a strong influence on the guest experience as well.

View of the palm tree section of the gardens

In the Japanese garden area

The “medicinal garden” section included many interesting plants

The tropical plants greenhouse had an elevated walkway that offered an interesting perspective on the vegetation

We left Palermo on Saturday morning and flew to Rome.  Why fly, you ask, when the trains are so romantic?  The train trip would have taken 10 hours but the flight was less than an hour.  We didn’t want to “go” to Rome, we wanted to “be” in Rome. 

Printing our boarding passes at a neighborhood copy store

And now here we are.

One of the interesting things about Rome that I don’t remember from previous visits is how easy it is to get around on foot.  Within our first 24 hours, we had seen almost all of the famous tourist stuff just by wandering around.  Most of the must-see sites are close together since they date from the time when people got around on foot.  This makes central Rome immensely interesting. 

Whenever you turn a corner you see something intriguing.  On our first afternoon here, I was reminded of New York where you can turn a corner and think, “I saw that building in a movie!” or “There’s Central Park!”  Only in Rome you say, “That looks ancient!” or “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle; there’s the coliseum!” 

When we were planning our trip, we both agree that we didn’t need to trek to see the coliseum.  I had seen it on previous visits, and Chad had decided that he was more interested in visiting a famous salumi shop than an old gladiator theater.  And then we found ourselves looking down an avenue and saying, “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle; there’s the coliseum! ”  So we took in a visit after all.

View of the coliseum from Via dei Fori Imperiali

At the coliseum

Obligatory artsy photo

And here are some photos of other must-see places that we discovered during our wanderings.

The Imperial Roman Forum

Part of the ancient forum of the Roman Empire

Another area of the forum with contemporary horse sculptures

Trevi Fountain

Trevi fountain with a boatload of tourists milling about

When you do another visit at 7:45 am, you can get photos without other tourists 

Bright and chipper…next stop, breakfast!

Close-up of some of the sculpture

Piazza Navona

This is a huge piazza with lots of activity

A fountain in the piazza

Detail of another fountain – clearly this guy wants octopus salad for lunch

The Pantheon

The Pantheon with a couple of tourists in front

The Pantheon with a couple of tourists inside

I am an architect – I must take architectural photos

We’ve been surprised by how touristy Palermo is.  We’ve been in restaurants where the only Italians are the restaurant staff.  We’ve seen a lot of tourist shops with postcards and refrigerator magnets and Sicily cookbooks in several languages.  I certainly didn’t expect any of this.  To be blunt, who picks Palermo for vacation?  The answer – lots of people.

On Wednesday, we hit what have to be the two biggest tourist attractions in the city – the Cappella Palatina and the main cathedral.

The Cappella Palatina is located in the Palazzo dei Normanni.  This palace was the home of the Kings of Sicily during the Norman rule and then was the seat of power for subsequent Silician rulers.  Today it is one of the Sicilian Parliament buildings.  Because it was originally a palace, it makes sense that this building would have its own cappella (chapel).

Okay, I’ll just cut to the chase.  The chapel was stunning and worthy of a palace.  The walls and ceiling were covered in beautiful mosaics.  It was interesting to think that, when originally constructed, this chapel was intended for the eyes of just the palace residents.  Now any old riffraff can pay ten euros to go inside.

A courtyard in the old palace

The entrance to the chapel is on the second level of the courtyard

A view of the interior

Another view of the interior

Detail of a mosaic on one of the columns

When we left the Palazzo, we passed through the Villa Bonanno gardens and came upon the ruins of an ancient Roman house.  After four weeks in Italy, ancient ruins are a dime a dozen.  Big whoop.  (Just kidding – this was still cool!)

Ancient floor mosaics and foundation walls protected by a new structure

Ancient foundation walls protected by a steel-and-glass canopy

More ancient foundations

The next stop was the cathedral.  Considering this was the main church of the city, I was surprised at how austere it was inside. 

The main cathedral

View of the nave

The alter

Christ on the cross in the transept

However, there were a few surprises inside.  First of all, there is a chapel with a silver alter and decorations.  It shines like a beacon from the end of the building.

The “silver” chapel at the end of one of the side aisles

The alter in the “silver” chapel

But as you’re walking down the side aisle towards this chapel, you look to your right and see a paper sign for the toilets, and this sign is in another side chapel.  This sign is indicating that the toilets are IN the side chapel.  Upon further investigation, you discover that entrance to the public toilets is, indeed, behind the alter in this chapel.  Much hilarity amongst the multi-national tourists ensues.

Side chapel with a sign for the toilets

And just it case you don’t believe me, here’s a close-up of the sign

Chad going into the bathrooms

Then we hit the Ballaro neighborhood market which was by far the best market.  It went on and on and on.  We had lunch in a little street restaurant.  One of the funny things about eating at a restaurant in the market is that there is a large stock of ingredients nearby.  When I ordered a chicken cutlet for lunch, the waitress yelled to the butcher three doors down, “I need a chicken cutlet!”  It was delivered a couple of minutes later and then cooked up in the kitchen.

Lunch at a small restaurant in the market

View of the market from our table

Chad ordered the “super” appetizer, and the waitress took him to this display and asked him to pick out what he wanted on his plate

After lunch, we wandered through the market and gradually made our way back home.

Cheese for sale

Snails for sale – some of them are making a break for freedom, albeit very slowly

Figs prettily arranged for sale

On Tuesday, we explored the southeast area of the historic old town.  Our first stop was San Domenico church in the Vucciria neighborhood.  Many famous Sicilians are buried in this church.  I know none of them.  However, it was still an interesting place for a looksy.

San Domenico facade

View of the interior

The alter area

An ornately carved side chapel

I really liked this tomb with its protectors

Then we came across another church with an open door, so of course we went in.  This was Santa Maria della Pieta, and it was decorated for an upcoming wedding.

Santa Maria della Pieta facade

View of the interior

The ceiling

One of the side walls – note the real pipe organ in the foreground and the fake/painted organ further down the wall

Next stop, the Orto Botanico.  These botanical gardens are run by the University of Palermo, and it’s a worthy visit.  The plants here are all conducive to the hot Sicilian climate, so there are cacti, palm trees, ficus, and aloe plants among others.

Cactus Row

This plant was interesting

Stately palm trees

I’m glad my houseplants don’t get this big

I love this plant!

This is one, single ficus tree. Seriously. I know, right?  It’s 176 years old.

A pond with bamboo in the background

By this point, it was time for lunch so we wandered over to the old harbor, having been told that there were a couple of good restaurants on the water.  We had lunch at an open-air venue with great seafood.

Sailboats in the harbor

Fishing boats

View from our table in the restaurant

My lunch – beneath those potato slices is a delicious fish called “croaker”

After a leisurely lunch, it was mid-afternoon and hot as blazes, so we headed back to our air-conditioned apartment where I was able to watch “New Moon” on Netflix in cool comfort.  (By the way, watching that Volturi headquarters scene that was filmed in Italy while I was in Italy myself was dorkishly awesome.)

With the exception of Naples, our trip this year has focused around small towns – Forio, Ischia; Monteferrante, Abruzzo; Taormina, Sicily.  We also had our two-day road trip through rural Sicily which was nice and quiet.

And then we arrived in Palermo.  I had forgotten what city life was like.  Palermo is big and bustling and loud with lots of traffic and people.  Our first evening was a little bit of a shock after our pastoral road trip.

The evening passagiata on Via Maqueda near our apartment, shoulder-to-shoulder people in the street

San Domenico church

Each neighborhood in the old town has signs like this on its main street

A stately fountain in Piazza Pretoria

Now that we’ve been here for a few days, I’ve gotten used to being in a big city again.  I can jostle my way through a crowd and jay-walk a busy intersection like a local. 

We’ve got a great apartment in an ideal location.  It’s a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with plenty of room.  When we first arrived, we took a tour of the apartment and said, “We should have the cats shipped here and live here permanently.”

The elevator in our apartment building – yes, it’s the size of a phone booth and about as ancient as landline technology

Our living room

Our kitchen

View of the building across the street

The car-free shopping street below

We’ve been exploring the city and checking out stately buildings in addition to smaller, out-of-the-way streets.

Teatro Massimo

Fascist architecture! The main post office

The Quattro Canti intersection has facades like this on all four cornes

A little side street

Graffiti of a cat that is looking at…

…this graffiti of fish across the street!

This “one way” sign caught my eye

A collection of pretty dresses hanging out to dry

There are a lot of churches in Palermo – this photo has a church in the foreground and another in the background

We’ve also been spending time with Chad’s parents who are renting an apartment nearby.  Fran’s birthday was earlier this week.  We spent that morning at one of the markets to pick up groceries, and then Chad made a delicious birthday lunch.

The market in the Capo neighborhood in the old town

Squash blossoms for sale

Tomatoes for sale

We stopped for a drink and a snack

Chad made a delicious appetizer for Fran’s birthday – focaccia, broccolo (giant broccoli), stuffed squash blossoms, tomato salad, fresh zucchini

One of the fun things about staying in a city for a few days is that you can catch some local activities that you might otherwise miss.  In 1993, a beloved local priest was assassinated by the mafia.  I don’t know why, and I really don’t understand it because you would think that priests are off-limits.  In any case, yesterday was the anniversary of his death, and last night there was a music celebration at the cathedral in his honor.

The priest’s tomb in the main cathdral

A poster for the music celebration

Hundreds of people attended.  There were young and old, locals and tourists, monks and nuns, boy and girl scouts, clowns and police.

The stage and audience on the main plaza in front of the cathedral

Another view of the plaza

During the celebration, a member of each music group recited one of the priest’s well-known sayings from backstage, and then the group came out on stage to perform. In addition to more traditional music, the performances included a drum circle, interpretive dance, spoken word, and a strange a capella version of Stairway to Heaven.  It was a weird mix of artistic styles, but it was a nice celebration with a diversity of talent.

A recitation of the priest’s words

Drum circle women

A capella group

Another group

When traveling in Italy, it’s easy to take the train from city to city, and the trip is generally predictable.  Sure, the train might be late.  It might leave the station, drive for 50 meters, stop for 20 minutes, and then reverse back into the station it just left.  (True experience.)  But you know that eventually the railroad will take you on a predetermined path to your next destination.

Driving a rental car through Sicily’s interior is a very different experience.  You’re on your own schedule.  You can act on impulse and pull over to check out an interesting site.  You can wake up in the morning and ask, “Which direction should we go today?” 

We left Taormina on Friday morning and drove west.  As we circled around Mt. Etna, the rural Sicily that we drove through had narrow mountain roads, rural farms, small vineyards, and hilltop towns.  While the speediest drive to Palermo would take three hours on the interstate, we spent the better part of two days making the journey.  As we drove, we made a few stops.

Stop one – Gole Alcantara.  This is a beautiful wild state park with a river gorge as its central feature.  There are interesting gardens and trails at the entry level of the park, but then you can descend into the gorge and go into the river (which is super-duper freezing ice cold, by the way). 

A path in the park

The river headwaters before the water flows into the gorge

View of the gorge

Swimming at the bottom of the gorge

Looking downstream – that concrete tower is the elevator bank that goes from the park entrance down into the gorge

Stop two – Tenuta delle Terre Nere.  Our go-to wine guy in Inman Park told us to check out this winery if we had the chance, but we hadn’t planned to stop there.  We were just driving down a little country road when we came across the sign for the place.  Chad slammed on the brakes and then reversed back on the country road until we got to the driveway again and drove up.  Unfortunately, their tasting room was closed, but we were able to wander around a little bit.

Entry to the vineyard

Equipment in the production building

This truck drove in from the vineyards with those plastic crates full of just-picked grapes

Empty barrels and bottles are stored on the patio outside the production building

For most of the first day, we were on little country roads with no other cars. After the crazy tourist crowds of Taormina, it was heaven.  

Little country road

An old watchtower on the side of the road, out in the middle of nowhere

There’s a curve coming up and, by the way, watch for cows

Road trip vista

And then, after so many miles of small, windy mountain roads, we arrived at our agriturismo.  An agriturismo is kind of like a B&B (you can sleep there and have meals) but it also has to have a farm (agricultural – “agri”) function.  The place we stayed at has sheep, cows, geese, chickens, goats, horses, a donkey, and peacocks, plus dogs and cats of course.  Our agriturismo also had a restaurant and a pizzeria, and all ingredients were prepared on the property – bread, cheese, sausage, pasta, marmalade, wine.  The food was really good.

Driveway to the agriturismo

The barn and fields beyond

Sheep

Geese

Breakfast time for the goats

A curious pony

The next morning, the farm’s cheese guy made ricotta, and we were invited to watch and learn with tastings along the way.

Cooking the sheep’s milk in a giant kettle on a wood-burning stove

Ladling the cooked cheese into strainers where it will settle and drain

The finished product

When we left the agriturismo, the most direct route to Palermo was on the interstate, but how boring is that?  Instead, we headed back up into the hills and had another day of driving on country roads.

We stopped for lunch in the hilltop city of Gangi.  We wandered through little streets, popped into a couple of churches to have a look, and admired the views of the countryside down below.  We were only there for a couple of hours, but we could definitely go back for a few days and hang out.  It’s a cute town with interesting nooks and crannies, and the people were all very friendly.

View of Gangi – it’s a huge hilltop town!

A cute street

Steps going up under a short archway

A small piazza

City hall

A cute street just below city hall

At this filtered water dispenser on the side of the road, you can bring your own bottle and pay 5 cents for regular filtered water or 10 cents for sparkling water

View of the Sicilian countryside from Gangi

As we left Gangi, we drove down the mountain on a long cobblestone road.  Holy bumpiness, Batman!  My teeth were clattering in my skull.  It was at this point that Chad said, “Dear Hertz, you now need an alignment.”

Eventually, we drove down out of the hills and rejoined the interstate for our last part of the journey into Palermo.  But before that, we did have one last memorable moment on our country drive.

That “watch for cows” sign is the real deal.

Well, of course, Taormina has awesome churches as well.  Every one is different from the last.  Having given my discourse on the Naples churches, I will make this blog a photo essay.

A church in front of the Roman Odeon (old Roman temple)

The church’s interior

Christ on the cross

Part of the church’s floor has been cut away to reveal the foundations of the old Roman Odeon beneath

A church just outside the old city walls

The church’s interior

A different version of Christ on the cross

The pipe organ on the balcony above the door at the rear of the narthex

This church was on the main piazza

The church’s interior

The cross above the main alter had a cool shadow

A shrine along one of the interior walls

A side chapel

I always thought that August was the only crazy tourist season in Italy.  Even thought it is now September, Taormina is still “contaminated” with tourists (a phrase from one of the guidebooks).  When we arrived a week ago, we went for a stroll to check out the town of Taormina, and the main street was shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists.  Jamb packed.  My head almost exploded as I thought, “Oh, my, we shouldn’t have come here, this is too much.”  However, our stay in Taormina is Week 3 of our trip. It’s all good.

Whenever Chad and I take a long vacation, our rhythm follows a pattern.  Week 1 – Woo-hoo! We’re on vacation and so energized to do things and explore!  Week 2 – Wow, there’s still so much to see…What should we do today?  Week 3 – Meh, I’m not doing squat except for relaxing and maybe going for a walk…and if I’m feeling ambitious, I will take a morning nap AND an afternoon nap. 

We spent our Week 3 in Taormina.  Our apartment totally rocked.  Life is good.

First of all, here’s our apartment:

Seating area

Kitchen

Bedroom

Outdoor dining

Wrap-around deck

More deck

Now you know why we don’t feel bad about just being lazy or reading books or cooking dinner at home.  This apartment is a great place to chill.  It’s also a great place to spend the evening looking out at the town.

Sunset view from our deck

View of a church below and Mt Etna beyond (right side of the photo)

View up hill from our place – there was a popular bar/lounge right there in front of us, lit up with blue and purple lights at night

We’ve also spent time exploring the nooks and crannies of Taormina that tourists don’t usually see.  We’ve noticed that 99% of tourists do not venture more than a few feet off the main street of Corso Umberto.  For us, this means that there are many parts of the city that are quiet and quaint and worthy of our time, such as a cute little square, an out-of-the-way city park, or a narrow alley of steps going up the mountain.

A small city park nestled between two old buildings

We hiked up this mountain above the town

On the path up the mountain

At the top of the mountain

Taking a break at a little wine bar off the beaten path

We also ate at a restaurant called Maffei’s, recommended by Mario Batalli.

Maffei’s courtyard dining area

Our appetizer – marinated anchovies and tuna crudo served with citrus and tomato slices

We shared a pasta dish of squid ink ravioli stuffed with prawn and lobster meat

We also spent time just sitting and watching the activity in the town.  One of our favorite places was a bar called Daquiri with excellent cocktails.

Cocktails at Daquiri – Chad had a Negroni and I had a cucumber-hot pepper-ginger-gin drink which was surprisingly refreshing

View from Daquiri looking down the steps into the main piazza

Chad checking out the view

On the day I wrote this post, we made lunch at home, which turned out to be a good idea, because a storm rolled in and there was lightening and thunder and rain for a couple of hours.  Even though we were on vacation in a beach resort town, I was totally fine with an afternoon thunderstorm because it gave me time to relax and nap and catch up on the blog.

Working on the blog

Lunch at home

As I wrote this post, I looked out at the ancient Greek theater on the hill across from us, and the thunder was booming all around me, echoing off the mountains.  I wondered if the ancient Greeks thought the thunder was the sound of their gods rolling boulders around on the mountain tops, because it was so loud and mysterious and it seemed to come from every direction.  And then it dawned on me that this booming, echoing thunder sounded exactly like it did in that baseball scene in Twilight.  So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to log into my Netflix account and watch New Moon because I see that it is currently available on streaming video.

View from our apartment with the Greek theater in the distance