aROMAtherapy

What can one do when the grey, blah, rainy, London weather causes depression and listlessness? Why, try some aROMAtherapy. Ben and I did just that and found that the warm and sunny climate, beautiful art, and easily accessible and cheap internet cafes (compare this last item to our Paris posting) lifted our spirits enormously.

The trip to the airport justified all my nervous-traveler tendencies. There was a fatality on the track and the our high speed train shut down. Given that I had left a ridiculous amount of extra time, we made it with no problem on the slow and nauseating bus ride to Stanstead airport. (One negative of our very cheap tickets is that we had to fly out of this small airport 30 miles north of London). The plane ride itself was marred by two very screechy kids of mixed British and Italian parentage. The Italian indulgent side seemed to mix with the British "let the governess handle it" attitude (alas there was no governess) to create monsters who rendered the entire plane supporters of either infanticide, euthanasia, or both.

I knew it was going to be a good trip when the guy who met us at the airport had a sign reading "Mr. Ben." I actually think having someone meet you upon arrival is a good idea when you haven't been to a place before. Our other choice would have been a bus, to the train, to the metro, and we weren't quite ready for that (though it was no problem on the return).

We arrived late and hungry on a Friday night. Our hotel was in a residential neighborhood and we went to a local restaurant. At 10:30 the joint was hopping -- and I mean literally. Every time they emerged from the kitchen, the waiters would run, and take a long, showy glide, punctuated by a little hop. There was lots of yelling, supported occasionally by a megaphone to give a shout out to friends passing by the restaurant or to sing happy birthday. The food was delicious -- the best we had while we were there. We were the only non-Italians in the place. My Italian failed regularly -- especially in the din of the small restaurant where the lights were turned out every time a flaming dessert was served and I could consult my Berlitz book.

Rome is not well-marked for tourists, and when we emerged from the metro the next day looking for the Gallaria Bourghese, it took us a while. We stopped for fresh-squeezed blood oranges and got some directions. The Gallaria, once the private resident of the Medici family is over-the-top Baroque marble, gold, art everywhere. Sumptuous, beautiful, and too much all at once. Ditto for the surrounding gardens.

Ben asked, if gallery is galleria, what is diary? I guess Italian art inspires the high brow in him.

Other things we saw:

• many lovely fountains by Bernini
• the Pantheon (which is now a Catholic Church)
• the coliseum
• the Roman forum
• the Vatican (Ben comments that the Sistine Chapel is overrated. I just don't think anything worth looking at should be on a ceiling unless we're talking mirrors in tawdry motels)
• We ate gelato -- some great, some awful

Much of the food was surprisingly disappointing and of the tourist-trap pizza variety. The key, we found, was to search out a place (1) off the beaten track; (2) small; and (3) with lots of Italians eating in it.

Although we had some tiffs, Ben and I made good travel companions. We both enjoyed the change of scene, in fact it was therapeutic.