Porta Portense Sunday Market

Sunday stroll through the Walmart of Rome

We live upstairs from the southern end of this famous market.  Our end is not the famous flea market; most guidebooks suppose you will shop starting north at the actual Porta Portense, part of Rome's original city wall.  But what our end misses in flea-i-ness, it more than makes up for in selling things that ordinary Romans need to buy.  Us, too.  We need some things to get on with our cozy winter life.



Today was our day to get our stuff and stroll through the whole market.  Cool enough for sweaters.  Not massively crowded.  Vendors doing their vendor act--some are quite lively and others sit around.  No hard sell here--it is pretty pleasant.

We have a list: electric adapter which goes from wide European-style 2 prong to piccolino Italian style 3-in-a row prong.  I have not seen this kind of plug anywhere but Italy so it is not surprising that they have lots of these adaptors around.  But in our house, never enough.

OK: electric adaptor, coffee mugs, shower caddy, clothes pins, toilet brush, knife sharpener, bleach.  That is for the house.  I personally am on the lookout for fuzzy slippers and a winter hat.

It is more fun to search with items in mind.

We have already picked up a frying pan and sauce pan.  Our friend Jean bought a large coffee pot which we use constantly.  This apartment is actually very well equipped but we do not do everything the Italian way--we need big coffee mugs and pans with lids.

The market starts on our end with a hamburger/sausage guy and a few plant stalls.  We have several blocks of clothes stalls--new clothes with every kind of stall from lingerie to shoes to coats, dresses and men's suits.  Fuzzy slippers are mainly for bambini and not my size.  Bummer.  There are winter hats in one stall but I do not need one just yet.  Several stalls of cashmere shawls with no hats.  What's up with that?  African carvings slip in surrounded by coat stalls.

Finally, housewares and electrical stalls.  To-ing and fro-ing to get the electric adaptor and then change for a 10. We manage to use our few words of Italian and have fun with the several guys who have to help in our transaction. This multi-party effort is repeated at the houseware stall where we find a knife-sharpener (affilacoltelli, we now learned) and reject plastic cereal bowls (below the bottom line).

Our shopping is reinforcing our experience that Italians are really nice.  Even in business transactions, our main interactions so far, merchants are personal and willing to try to communicate with us and actually help us.  It is charming.  We have had one Italian lesson so far and have a few things we can say--but cannot remember our words when faced with an actual Italian, so we appreciate their patience.  People in our local stores remember us now and let us try our Italian.  The guys at the butcher shop were gallant in their praise when I learned "mezzo-kilo" of hamburger. (We enjoy our small accomplishments.)

Anyway, the market vendors are just as nice.  And we got our stuff, for the most part.

Coffee mugs are elusive.  We passed out of the new clothes and housewares, through the curtains, slipcovers and chandeliers and reached the actual used-stuff part of the flea market before finding any coffee mugs as we know them in the US.  Italians seem to use tiny coffee cups on tiny saucers or little tea cups with saucers.  No mugs to be had in the new-stuff part of the market.






Since is is a lovely day and we were in wandering mode, we wandered.  The range of old, used stuff that is on offer is mind-boggling, especially to me who hates to shop.  Cameras, scopes.  Old radios and telephones.  Books galore.  Used housewares--including a few mugs.  Finally found one.  Really--one.  For 1 Euro, Ok.

Blocks more of market before we could find our way out.  Yay, we made it to Via di Trastevere and the tram.  At our stop-- Yay, again--the Chinese store on the corner has plain white coffee mugs. Maybe Chinese stores are a human universal.   Then home for a mug of coffee.

That was this morning.  This afternoon we took our walk the other direction to check out a supermarket.  They have racks of mugs.

Po River Delta, Italy; Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, Celts and birds.

Po River Delta: Newly discovered treasure

Julianne with sister Kitty, November 13-14, 2014

The Po Delta presented another series of wonderful experiences which happened along the way.  I am beginning to think the whole of Italy will be like this--something great around every corner.  So far, my luck is holding, with interesting things and great food everywhere I turn up. On this trip I was travelling with my sister, first to Venice and then to the Po River Delta, before our return to Rome and then her return to Alaska.

Guide books in English do not mention the Po Delta all that much, but when you mention it to Italians they all say “Ahhh!!”  We found it because it is a large natural area with significant birding all year.  It is a national park:  Parco del Delta del Po.  It is just south of Venice and still in the Veneto Region.

The Po River is a long river which starts in the mountainous area in the north and west of Italy and drains the whole north of the country.  It has been fertile and productive farming country at least since 800 BC, when the Etruscans began trading food to the Greeks from towns and ports in the Po Valley.  Several large channels enter the Adriatic Sea in the large delta area. Italians seem to say “Ahhh!!” in part because of the fame of the produce of the area and its current fame as a locale for

 agrotourism and the “slow food” movement.  One goes there to eat, ride bicycles, observe nature, and relax.  Books and journals seem to be devoted to restaurants and local products.  B&B’s are all over, agrotourism farms are common and it is a pretty easy place to visit.  Not that much English spoken--it looks to us like the majority of tourists are other Italians.

We had a rented VW Bug convertible, and to our delight we were able to drive with the top down while birdwatching.  The area has had severe floods over the last several weeks and the days before our arrival had much rain.  We struck it lucky with sun.  

Finding our way to our home, Casa di Paola (casadipaola.it), was nerve-wracking but ultimately worked out fine.  It is a remodeled farmhouse in Borgo, a tiny community along the main channel of the Po, outside the merely small community of Papozze.  Getting the key from the tabbacherie, managing to park our car which suddenly seemed large--all accomplished.  What a darling house.  It was cozy and well set up for us, but would be even more darling if you had kids with you--toys and decorations abound which appeal to children.  I might have to borrow some and go back.  A row of tiny little rubber boots--too cute. Paola is a friendly, outgoing woman who persisted in chat despite our lack of language in common. Spanish did ok for us, and sign language. We had fun with her--and she made a wonderful breakfast.

Only one restaurant in the area, but it turned out to be enough--star quality as far as we are concerned.  Le Magnolie in Papozze was a lighted beacon in an area very dark at night; it was friendly, served delicious food and was filled with Italian families and groups of friends. It seems to be a destination restaurant, but just now is the slow season and locals are filling it up.  Plus us, of course.

We had been thinking of going out on a boat with a bird guide but there was a confusion of communication and this is the low season so boats are not going often.  Never mind--we fired up eBird and found out where others had seen good birds. We google-mapped our way around.  From Porto Levante south through lagoons we saw so many water birds--including shelducks and greater flamingos in large numbers, perhaps 1000 ducks and 500 flamingos. What a wonderful treat. The small birds have mainly moved south for the winter but the water birds are coming in from the Arctic and other points north.

November days get dark early, but luckily someone at our lunch stop alerted us to the National Museum of  Archaeology in Adria that is open Italian hours--until 7:30 pm.  Adria is a smallish town on a canal of the Po but was a significant port city 800 years ago.  The Adriatic Sea--duh!  It is named because of the significant trade with Adria from the Greek/Etruscan era through the demise of the Roman empire. Greeks sent delegations to trade with the local Etruscans. When the Romans defeated the Eturscans and then the Greeks, they continued to use Adria as a trading center for goods from the east as well as from the Rhine and Danube drainages. The city remained important until about 100 AD when the main channel of the river moved and the town diminished.

Our good luck is that a local noble family, the Bocchi, developed an interest in archaeology in the 18th century and continued to excavate graves in the area until the early 20th C. They were careful excavators and good stewards of their finds. They have given their findings to the National Museum, which has displayed the collection beautifully. Late bronze age (maybe 1000 to 800 BC) to the 2nd and 3rd C AD graves were systematically and carefully excavated and documented.  The complete contents (minus human remains) of many graves are displayed showing the change in material items through that time.  Fantastic Greek pottery from the 8th century BC gives way to less skilled but locally made pottery and finally to fine glassware during the Roman era.  Since many of the grave goods were placed in large clay containers, they are intact.  A stunning display of glass from the later period represents more Roman-era glass than I have seen anywhere.

Our further good fortune was to be the only visitors in the evening on a week-day in the middle of November. (Maybe this is not surprising.)  The director of the museum, Dr. Fabrizio Boscarato, recognized our struggle with the signs, which are only in Italian, and gave us a personal tour of the exhibits.  His insight and guidance gave us a richer understanding of the progression and the social changes reflected in the grave goods than we could possibly have managed on our own.

A Celtic grave from 5th C. BC invasions, with skeletons of 3 horses and a chariot with harness, is a highlight and a change in grave type from the local nobility through the ages.  It appears that the grave was robbed in antiquity so no body or other grave goods were found.  The style of harness and related items left by the robbers connect the grave with the Celtic tribes from France who were among those who invaded Italy through the Po river.

The migrations and social changes which affected the area are reflected by traces of Bronze Age, Etruscan, Greek, Celtic and Roman periods.  The Visigoths invaded this area on their way to Rome when they ended the Roman Empire in the late 400’s.  Many people from Adria and all around the general Veneto area were killed; the survivors fled to marshy islands in the Adriatic--this was the end of the northern Adriatic trading area and the founding of Venice.

I am big on museums and antiquities but I have rarely (ok, never) seen anything like this complete record from a single area which was so connected to all the European classical cultures.  A 5-star attraction in a 5-star day.

The Lasagna Challenge--November, 2014

Lasagna taste tests, a blog contribution framed by Julianne, with input from a team of five.

Our pleasure, nay delight, maybe edging toward rapture: our friends Cynthia and Jean have been visiting for the last 2 weeks. My sister, Kitty is here too and will be with us for another week.  What a good moment in our travels!

The five of us met in Florence, where we stayed a week, and then traveled by train to Rome for another week of eating, talking, walking, looking, and games.

Florence seen from Piazzale Michelangelo. 

They were out of lasagna at that restaurant, but the view was great.

It may surprise you to know that Italy has good food? Our pleasure the last few weeks has been trying it out.  We have eaten in some great restaurants — some by planning, some by chance or good luck.  More on some of the great restaurants anon (haven’t you always wanted to say “anon”?), but it is essential first of all to report out on the results of the lasagna tasting.  I was not on the lasagna team.  We are depending on Nancy and Jean as subject matter experts for the greatest insight.

 

Sculpture, snacking at the TI office, Florence

Florentine lasagna loved, or not, by us:

Chance took us for our first dinner to a fine Italian restaurant, La Spada, near where we stayed in Florence.  Heavy on meat so the vegetarians were not as delighted but the lasagna team formed that night.  Turns out that lasagna in Florence does not have red sauce — this had ground beef in a béchamel sauce. Definite notes of nutmeg.  Mixed reviews as it defied our expectations and we had to get used to the idea.

Il Desco had a vegetarian lasagna which was light, not greasy.  Cynthia reports that this restaurant is high on our vegetarian approval list. The lasagna had pistachios and a tangy cheese which delighted the mouth.  Planning team — a win.  May win the Florentine lasagna prize.  Post-lasagna, there was the visit to Michelangelo's David, giving perspective to any scale of mundane to sublime.

David, taking a bite of lasagna
(and you thought he was holding his sling)

Our lasagna tasters were not as pleased with the lunch lasagna offered at Trattoria Marione near our house, where we had lunch after visiting the Uffizi. It too had a béchamel sauce but less flavor and a little oilier of a cheese.  The other lunch offerings were great, but we are working on lasagna here. We loved our lunch there overall and would definitely go back, but not for lasagna.

Unidentified sculpture at Uffizi declining lasagna

Osteria Giovanni was a foodie highlight of Florence.  We all had such great offerings and recommend it highly.  However, no one even asked about lasagna.  Our planning team had outdone themselves in identifying the restaurant from a mystery story set in Florence (Dying on the Vine by Aaron Elkins) and then discovered that food critics also love it.  We are now groupies for Osteria Giovanni.

We are at Osteria Giovanni in Florence
Julianne, Kitty, Jean, Cynthia, Nancy (l-r)

The very next day, the very worst! Santa Maria Novella church, which is near the main train station, faces a large piazza filled with tourists and tourist-catering places. The piazza is partly blocked off by a paving project, and on the far side of the chain-link fencing from the church we settled on a café with umbrellas to ward off the sun. We didn’t pick it on the basis of any foodie knowledge, but we were hungry. One of the lasagna team ordered lasagna, and got what must have been the last piece from a large pan – curled up dry noodles, a crust on the surface. Really, no flavor. Let’s not mention that one again!  Definitely, advance planning pays off—we learned our lesson.

Fresco from Spanish Chapel at Santa Maria Novella, Florence

The baby is safely born, but not the lasagna!

Our last restaurant meal in Florence was at Il Santo Bevitore, on the south side of the Arno. So many delights to choose from (and we chose many).  Kudos to the planning team.  The lasagna taster reported excellent lasagna.  But we were so distracted by all the other offerings we kind of forgot to make note of what its special characteristics were. A particular highlight was the waiters reaching over our heads with a long-handled grabber to get down wine bottles – pretty entertaining. The almond fig soup was so outstanding it rates a mention even in the lasagna posting.

Il Santo Bevitore - Hazelnut ice cream with spun sugar and chocolate sauce

Cynthia and Julianne not finding lasagna

By the time we got to Rome, we had adjusted to the idea that there may not be “Italian” food, but regional food from specific areas of Italy.  A major research effort clearly had to be — what is the Roman contribution to the mix?  Do they even have lasagna?  How will we survive for 5 months if they do not?

Chance (yay, chance team!) places us in our apartment in Trastavere across the street from La Tavernaccia, and we crawled over for dinner after the rigors of a travel and moving-in day.  Among many excellent offerings, we found lasagna.  L-team swung into action.

The lasagna, ordered by Nancy and tasted by Jean, was quite nice; Jean forgets why.  Still we love the restaurant. However, when we returned, no lasagna.  We may report back in the future—this is our home from home.  We will survive, it appears.

From our front window we can see our favorite Rome restaurant

The next day, a desperate lunch stop after wearing ourselves out on a tour of the Vatican — no lasagna.  Team was filled artistically and spiritually but physically down to the nubs.  A subset of the group went the following day to the Borghese Gallery and had lunch at a venerable Roman restaurant named Giovanni’s. Good reports of lunch in a restaurant filled with Roman businessmen.  No lasagna report, however.

Finally we had a chance to get all our questions answered about lasagna and many other foodie things at our “Cooking Classes in Rome” class on Friday.  Chatting about food, chopping, stirring and eating for the whole day—this is a great class if you are looking for one. 

The lowdown on lasagna is that it is not a Roman dish.  It grew in the US because of the large numbers of Italian migrants in the early 20^th C -- but they were from such places as Bologna and Sicily.  Lasagna as we know it in the US has the red sauce of Bologna and the prep and ingredients of the people of Sicily, who created a great dish out of poverty food.  Ricotta, for example, was the undesirable leftovers from making the prized mozzarella.  Yay, immigrants! for creating a silk purse literally from a sow’s ear - but too bad for us in our search for lasagna.

 

Ingredients, but not for lasagna, at our cooking class. Jean with pumpkin flowers

In a couple days, though, chance again took us to a great lunch, this time in Orvieto — back in Tuscany.  The lasagna on the menu had spinach, ground beef, and béchamel sauce.  Trattoria del Moro restaurant, near the clock tower in Orvieto, wins our lasagna prize.

 

Julianne at Trattoria del Moro in Orvieto

Considering all the great food we have had and good restaurants we have chanced upon or found through research we all could have much more to say. Anon.  There are worse ways to spend time than chasing great lasagna.

by Julianne, with pictures by Nancy and Kitty