Having taken the train back to Rome, we made our way towards the Vatican City, home to the Pope since 1376 and also an independent sovereign state since 1929. We are staying just close by at B&B RomAnticaRoma, where we have a very comfortable studio room and vouchers for breakfast at a cafe a couple of doors down where they have a great choice of croissants!
Needing to stretch our legs and having only visited Hadrian’s retirement villa yesterday, this afternoon we head to his mausoleum. His ashes are long gone as is the original building, but we saw the central area where he had been interred. The building is now Castel Sant’Angelo, renamed by Pope Gregory in C6, after a radiant silhouette of an angel sheathing a flaming sword was seen in the sky which brought to an end a particularly bad bout of the plague. Since then, there have been six statues of Michael the Archangel on the roof – the first was wooden and was lost, replaced by a marble one which was destroyed in a siege. The third was marble with bronze wings which were hit by lightening, the fourth was bronze and melted down for cannon balls, the fifth is on the terrace, sadly relegated when the sixth was put on the roof in 1956, but I my view far nicer.
We climbed up to the ramparts and onto the roof which gave great views of the city.
There is a covered corridor called the Passeto di Borgo connecting it to St Peter’s Basilica and there are several sets of state rooms of different ages that have housed popes who have taken refuge here and we spotted a portrait of Hadrian himself.
The afternoon had clouded over but we could see St Peter’s just a short walk away and went to have a look and even saw a marching band. We also saw the huge number of people waiting to enter and we resolved to get up early one morning to avoid the queue, and also thought our photos might be better with a clear sky …
Another afternoon, another gelato – this time gelato by Claudio Torce who pioneered the natural gelato movement in Rome. My passion fruit and raspberry cone was Jewel coloured and delicious, while Chris continues in his search for the best coffee and pistachio gelato in Rome.
We also checked out some local restaurants and ended up having dinner at Ristorante Cantina 26, possibly the only restaurant in Rome serving vegan dishes as well as a regular menu, which meant Chris had an option of a main course which wasn’t pizza or pasta! The food was excellent – courgette flowers stuffed with anchovies then fettuccine with sea bass and artichokes for me and artichokes, pumpkin and cinnamon risotto and then tofu in tomato sauce for Chris and a lovely bottle of local white wine. We thought we would get a little exercise after dinner and walked to St Peter’s square to see it lit up at night. While we were there, a group of several hundred people processed into the square singing, knelt and prayed, then got up and left. It was very moving.
Off Travelling Together 