First Day Sights in Rome

Yum.

Forget the jet-lag!  You're not on vacation!  You are starting day 1 of living in Rome for two years and unfortunately, you're on a budget!  Time to use that left-over espresso in the cabinet from the apartment renter before you.  Grab the stove-top percolator, turn up the heat and it's espresso time.  Oh excuse me, I forgot to say good morning.  Buon giorno!

Bet you Americani can't find this cereal in your grocery store.  Today, we decide to have my wife's favorite Italian cereal - Kellogg's eXtra.  This crunchy delight happens to be the kind with Cioccolato belga e Nocciole.  That's right.  My breakfast cereal has pieces of Belgian chocolate and actual hazelnut halves.  Does yours?  I didn't think so.

After a most delicious breakfast it's off to the center of Rome.  Our goal is to see the free sights.  So we head to the Vittoriano.  Some know it as the typewriter.  Others know it as the wedding cake.  I'm not sure why but some art historian told me it's true.  Anyone know why? Let us all know in the comments.

The Vittoriano... definitely as vast as it appears in this small photo.

Going up there led to some fair views of neighboring buildings.  It also connected us to something called the Capitoline, which led us to a great view of the Roman Forum.  I'm pretty sure I took the exact picture you see in all those post cards venders sell here.

My expert's favorite location in Rome, the Roman Forum

Then off to the Pantheon for a quick look around followed by a very nearby favorite gelateria of our friend.  She claims this may be the best fruit gelato in the city.  Can't speak for the rest of the gelato makers around town ... yet, but this seems to be excellent gelato.

Inside the Pantheon.  

The left cup has Mixed Berry on bottom and Peach on top.  The right cup has Banana on bottom and Mixed Fruit (Macedonia) on top.  The Macedonia was made with fresh kiwi and peach among other fruits and combined with Banana, really made that cup into tropical paradise.

Talk about a busy morning!  Maybe we should go home for lunch soon.  Or maybe we should do a few more nearby sites.  Sleep can wait.

It's on to the Piazza Navona.  A beautiful tourist trap full of vendors who will try to hand you toys, roses, gadgets, whatever and demand payment for them as if you wanted their junk.  Luckily that didn't happen to me.  Nor did I witness it.  Only going off what my expert says happens.  For those in love with Dan Brown books (and the resulting movies), and I promise you I will not need a spoiler alert warning, this is one of the last locations where something happens to someone in "Angels and Demons".  Hope that was specific enough for you.

Much of the Piazza Navona is shown here, give or take a fountain or two

Let's zoom in on the center of the piazza for you

And zoom in even more.  What a fantastic sculpture.  My expert tells me the center sculpture in this photo, ie, the topless dude with the beard, is a personification of the Ganges River.  10 points to the first person who tells me where the Ganges River is without googling it.

Then it's a quick walk to Campo De' Fiori where the outdoor market is a daily draw.  I would have taken more photos of all the booths, but I was too in love with my surroundings to take more pictures.

The outdoor market in Campo de' Fiori, a true feast for the eyes

Close to there is one of the favored stops for breads in my newest favorite book, Food Wine Rome by David Downie.  Simply fantastic if you like food.  And if you're in Rome.  So we stop by Marco Roscioli's Antico Forno and grab a daily special to accompany our lunch of Prosciutto Crudo, fresh Mozzarella and garlic and parsley infused extra virgin olive oil.

I named this bread "Super Crackle"

The bread was a little more than I'd like to pay but after trying it I'd say it was worth it.  It had an excellent, hard crust.  The kind of bread you can only tell is perfectly baked when you put your ear next to the baguette and slowly break off a piece to hear the crackle only a super hot oven with perfect moisture distribution can create.  If you don't know that sound, make sure you hear it sometime in your life.  It's sometimes the simple pleasures that make you realize life is good.  Oh, and the crumb (the stuff underneath the crust) was so moist, chewy, air pocketed with various sizes of holes.  Based on the taste, to me it was obvious the baker let the yeast do its magic overnight, possibly for a couple nights to transfer all the natural sugars contained in the flour into yeast-food.  In the baker's world, it's a refrigerated fermenting technique which slows down the yeast's sugar consumption and ends up bringing out the most flavors from the flours used. It clearly had no additional sugars like the white table stuff you put in coffee at home.  That bread was as simple and natural as it gets.

And with my fresh bread, salted meat, flavored oil and mild cheese, my expert and I were in extreme happiness after a jet-lagged full morning in Rome.