Last year when we were in Rome we visited a small fish restaurant that was highly recommended by friends (thank you Lisa). It was a good half hour walk from our hotel, but it was well worth the effort. This year we discovered that it is only a four minute walk from our apartment. It is very popular, so you can’t always get in. They don’t take reservations, but after we dried out from our walk back from the Ara Pacis museum, we decided to risk it, even though it was a Friday evening.
Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara
They have a simple menu – deep fried cod and puntarelle salad – but both are excellent. They complement each other, and when you add in a half liter of white wine, you have the holy trinity … the basis for a religious food experience.
Cod, puntarelle salad, and wine
You can get wine by the bottle, but the local wine is excellent. The taps on the wall pour water, three types of beer and two types of wine. Simple and delicious.
Wine on tap
This was not a leisurely Italian dining experience. The place has a certain energy to it that encourages a quick meal without ever pressuring you to hurry up. It is THE place to go for a great local meal. When we finished eating, we went for a stroll down the streets enjoying the ambience. A light mist was falling when we decided to pick up a gelato to bring back to the apartment for dessert.
Gelato
Gelato with a light sprinkling of Italian mist makes the perfect end to the evening.
There have been many days this trip where rain showers were forecast. Every time, the forecast was wrong and the weather was great. Today that streak ended. But once again, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The first day we arrived in Rome we saw signs for a Keith Haring exhibit. The museum was only a four minute walk from our apartment, but we were busy seeing Roman ruins, so we hadn’t gotten to see the exhibition. But some of us were “Roman-ruined-out” and besides, with rain forecast, a museum close to home seemed like a good idea.
Jan was familiar with Keith Haring’s work, but I confess I wasn’t. I was impressed and found the exhibition fascinating, especially some of the videos showing him working on street art in realtime. He was a contemporary of Andy Warhol, and seeing his work, this wasn’t a surprise.
Sculptures by Keith Haring
Keith Haring had a very distinctive style, developing a number of iconic images that appeared frequently in his work. Here is a sample of some of the most famous.
I’ll include one example of a piece that incorporates some of these ideas into a larger picture. This piece was part of an exhibit in support of victims of a 1980 earthquake. Look closely at the images in the lines.
Keith Haring died young, in his early 30’s, from complications due to AIDS. What might he have achieved if he had lived longer?
The weather held for the morning, and after lunch, in spite of the fact that some of us were “Roman-ruined-out”, we decided to risk a somewhat longer walk to see the Ara Pacis – an altar dedicated to the emperor Augustus, celebrating Pax Romana (basically celebrating the end of the Roman civil war, which Augustus won). It is a relatively small museum dedicated to a single subject, but that was perfect for us. And the museum had a wealth of information about how the altar was rediscovered and pieced together.
Ara Pacis
What you see is a mix of original pieces, plaster copies of originals held in other museums, and a bit of interpolation. It is put together in a way that allows you to see the altar as it would have appeared in the time of Augustus. Where there are gaps in the material, they try to show them, highlighting the pieces that are original. These pictures show some of the gaps.
The detail in the remaining images is amazing. Here are a few to give you an idea.
I started this post hinting at rain, but so far we had been lucky. But while we were in the museum, the skies opened up and we got quite wet on our walk back to the apartment. But it was definitely worth it.
I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to brave the crowds to see the Vatican Museum, but in the end we decided to check it out. I’m really glad we did. I suspect we may visit again on a future trip to Rome.
But first we had to get there. We booked “skip the line” tickets, but when we showed up at the entrance there was a huge queue. This did not look good at all. We followed our guide and then our guide handed the flag to Jan and went ahead to check on things.
Jan’s new job???
Turns out that most of the people in the queue were for the 11:00 AM entry, and we were for 10:30. Once that was sorted, we jumped forward and were soon having our tickets scanned and going through security. It was quite a production, and I was glad we paid the extra to have someone guide us through the entry, even though once we were inside we were on our own to explore. And oh my, was there ever a lot to explore. The first area we saw was Egypt. Wait, what? I thought this was about the Vatican. Turns out that when hieroglyphics were finally decifered, Europe suddenly became fascinated with everything Egypt, and the Pope asked Catholics around the world to send Egyptian artifacts to Rome for a new museum.
One of the “must see” items in the Vatican is a white marble statue dedicated to Hadrian’s favourite, who drowned in the Nile.
It was very impressive, but some of the others were at least as interesting from my perspective.
Here is another one. This statue represents the Nile.
The Nile
I’ll finish with this statue of the god bull Apis, dating from 1500 B.C.
God bull Apis
From Egypt, we moved into Mesopotamia. This is a clay cylinder with an inscription for Nebuchadnezzar II from 600 B.C.
Nebuchadnezzar II
And finally, here is a cuneiform tablet, wrapped in a fragment of the envelope that it was sent in. None of this was what I expected to see in the Vatican.
Cuneiform tablet
Next up was the map room, lined with maps of the regions of Italy. This picture gives you a sense of how long the room was. Also note how ornate the ceiling is, even though the focus is on the maps.
Map room
I wanted to show an example of the maps, so I picked this next map because we were just in Sicily. The interesting thing is that south is up on this map. It also has an inset for important cities, so I’ll include Syracuse because we spent some time there.
SicilySyracuse
The floors throughout the building were mosaics that you just walk on, but a few special ones were roped off to protect them. Here are two to give you a sense of their beauty.
Mosaics
There were also many wall mosaics, with tiny pieces the size of a mechanical pencil lead. I’ll show the entire mosaic, and then zoom in to show the fine detail where you can see the individual pieces.
MosaicDetail of mosaic
On the ceiling of one of the halls we were treated to an example of trompe d’oeuil where a painting looks like it is a three dimensional sculpture. It was so realistic that I couldn’t tell the difference. But I guess that is the point.
Trompe d’oeuil ceiling
Then it was off to the renaissance rooms with paintings by Rafael.
Of course, the other significant renaissance art is in the Sistine Chapel, which was painted by Michelangelo, but we were’t allowed to take pictures there. But very impressive to see.
We had expected to view the renaissance paintings, but we had not expected to see a significant body of more modern works. I’ll start with a giant sculpture of a globe within a globe in the courtyard.
In another courtyard a sculpture of a wave, or perhaps a tsunami was very impressive. Totally appropriate for the news this week too.
The wave
And finally, earlier this week I said that a sculpture of a Roman emperor reminded me of The Thinker by Rodin. Today I was able to see the real thing.
The Thinker
I’ll close on a sadder note about how people can be idiots. Even here, there were bits of graffiti.
Why would you do this?
Tomorrow will likely be a museum day since it looks like the weather is finally turning. But we can’t complain.
Last year we were in Rome for the first week of November and arbitrarily picked November 4th to visit the Forum. We were prepared to pay at the ticket booth but we were informed that this was National Unity Day, and tickets to the Forum were free. This year we’re also visiting Rome the first week of November and planned another visit to the Forum, so we made sure to schedule it for November 4th. Sure enough, admission was free again. We visited some of our favourite sites from last year, but we also saw many new areas. There is so much to see. I can’t show everything, but I’ll share a few pictures to give a sense of what you can see. First up, a bronze door that dates back to 307 A.D., and the lock still works. They don’t make them like they used to.
Bronze doors
We often see pieces of marble lying on the ground in the Forum and around the city, but we’ve never seen them quite like this. The pieces of marble were neatly stacked and labeled “Historic pile of marbles”. Technically true, but open to misinterpretation. We loved it.
Historic pile of marbles
One of the pieces had been used as a game board. I wonder if anyone knows the rules.
Game board
Here are a collection of pictures of some of the buildings to give a small sense of walking around the forum.
In the Forum
The scale of some of the ruins is awe inspiring. If you look carefully, you can see people in the picture to provide a sense of scale.
Of course, we didn’t just walk around the Forum. We read every plaque and discussed what we were seeing. Some people believe we also count how many stones there are. Not true, but we do spend a lot of time pondering the meaning of what we see.
Discussing the Ruins
We found a museum inside the Forum, so of course we couldn’t resist. It was a building that had been constructed inside the temple of Venus and Roma. It contained many artifacts from excavations within the Forum, dating back to before the founding of Rome. It also provided information on how the site had been transformed over the millennia. After learning all this, we walked around the site, marveling at the beauty and the scale. Pictures don’t do justice to the scale, but here is one picture with a detail from one of the huge niches in the temple.
Then we headed up the Palatine hill to get a good view over the Forum. Along the way we passed a fountain where the water flows through ferns before dripping into the pool below.
Fountain
On this trip I have been learning more about the site of Rome before the founding of Rome. During the excavations they have found evidence of an Iron Age settlement on the site, with post holes from a hut dating back to the 9th century B.C. According to Roman legend, this was the site of the original hut built by Romulus and Remus. Based on the archaeological evidence they believe the hut would have looked something like this.
When Augustus became emperor, he built his house in this area because of its significance to the founding of Rome. As Ian noted, even the ancient Romans loved ancient Roman ruins.
I’ll close with a shot of the local wildlife. The seagulls were watching us all day and finally one came up to say hi.
One of my favourite memories from our visit to Rome last year, was walking down Circus Maximus. The streets of Rome may have been crowded with tourists, but we almost had the place to ourselves in Circus Maximus.
Circus Maximus in 2025
I wanted to recreate the same experience this year. But when we arrived, we were greeted by this… Not at all what we were expecting.
Circus Maximus in 2026
The entire place had been taken over by the military with a mix of military equipment and recruiting for the branches of the armed forces. Since we were already there, we decided to (briefly) check it out. There were lots of drones and autonomous vehicles, showing their leading edge technology. But I like this picture showing a drone mounted on a vehicle, with ruins on the Palatine hills in the background. Old and new in the same picture … though both very militaristic.
New and old – some things never change
There were also a selection of police cars available from Alfa Romeo and Maserati. Very cool police cars. Very fast police cars.
At one end of the Circus Maximus there are excavated ruins that you have to pay to see. Last year we passed, but this year we decided it was time to check them out. We think this picture shows the area under the stands. We spent a lot of time discussing why the arches had been sliced like this. Maybe for the seats but why had it then been bricked up. Who knows?
We had this sort of detailed discussion in front of every building and piece of marble. And we read every bit of information to help us figure things out. Here are two pictures that show how we operate when we explore. The first shows Jim and Ian deep in discussion about the ruins.
The second shows Jan looking on, slightly bemused.
By now it was time for lunch. The restaurant was near where we stayed last year, so we kept saying “I recognize this – I know where we are”. It was great fun. And after lunch … another museum, of course. We headed to the Capitoline Museum. There is so much to show…
I’ll start with the symbol of Rome – Romulus and Remus. This bronze statue is from the time of the Roman Republic.
Romulus and Remus
Next, two friezes I found interesting. The first shows Hadrian, and is in amazing condition. It shows a horse drawn chariot, which seems appropriate, given our tour of the Circus Maximus this morning. The second is of a similar age and is … interesting. No idea what it is trying to tell us.
Jan found a room with samples of all the types of marble that were used in Rome from all over the empire. There were hundreds of examples, most taken from existing ruins. It was fascinating to see the huge variety of colours. It became quite fashionable for the collectors of the time to build cabinets to display stone samples.
There were so many ancient statues. So many. This is Boy With Thorn from the 1st to 3rd century BC.
Boy With Thorn
This next one is amazing … and has an amazing back story. The bronze statue dates from the 4th or 5th century B.C. It was discovered in the 19th century when excavating a foundry from the late Roman or medieval period. It seems the statue was waiting to be melted down for scrap when the foundry was overtaken by events unknown, and the statue was saved for us to view today.
There is also a larger than life statue of Marcus Aurelius, dating from the time of his reign. It’s now in an enclosed room, but for 1800 years it stood outside in the elements. It held up rather well.
Marcus Aurelius
When we first entered the building, we saw a number of pieces of a colossal marble statue of Constantine. Using the dozen pieces of the original that have been found, along with various descriptions of the original, a replica of the statue has been created. It is, as you might expect … colossal.
Constantine
I’ll finish our tour of the museum with a picture of a Cabinet of Curiosities, with finely carved details and including a range of marble. Very curious indeed!
Cabinet of Curiosities
There was so much more to see, but we finally cried “uncle” and headed back to the apartment – though Ian stayed on until closing time. On our way back, we came across a lovely fountain in a small piazza. You come across this type of thing all the time while wandering the city.
Fountain in a small piazza
We love just wandering around cities, as long as they are interesting, and pedestrian friendly. Rome is perfect for that. And we’re getting to the point where we know our way around more and more of the city. We love it.
Tomorrow, the Forum, or the Ara Pacis museum, or maybe …
When we were in Sicily, the weather forecast often said it would be rainy and cooler in a couple of days. But the next few days would be sunny and warm. The forecast would still show it was going to be rainy and cooler in a couple of days. But sure enough, the next few days would be sunny and warm yet again. It got to the point where we ignored any forecast that called for bad weather. Today, that finally caught up with us. It was cold and windy, though fortunately no rain.
Cold and windy in Rome
So we had a slow start and for breakfast we sampled the panettone that Jan bought. So very tasty.
Panettone
It gave us the energy we needed to brave the outside weather. But we weren’t going to be outside for long. Today was the perfect day for museums. We headed to the Galleria Spada, which houses an impressive collection of 16th and 17th century paintings collected by the wealthy Spada family. The rooms that house the paintings are almost as impressive as the paintings. It isn’t possible to do it justice with pictures, so I’ll just show a few of my favourites. The first is a 16th century paintings of Roman ruins. There is something about being in Rome, viewing ancient Roman ruins, and then seeing a four hundred year old painting showing ruins looking almost exactly like the ones you see in the Forum today. The idea appeals somehow.
Four hundred years ago – looking just like today
In addition to the paintings, there were a number of sculptures dating back to 100 BC to 100 AD. This next one may show Aristotle. I like it because of its resemblance to The Thinker.
Aristotle
In the gardens there was a colonnade that was constructed in a way to fool the eye into believing it was much longer than it really was. Very impressive.
False perspective colonnade
After the museum, it was time for a late lunch before heading back to our apartment. We are in the center of historic Rome, on a small cobblestone street.
Our street
The door to the apartment.
Inside, the apartment has been beautifully restored. It really is a lovely apartment and a wonderful area to stay in.
Today was cold, but tomorrow looks like it is going to be warm and sunny again. Our plan is to walk around Circus Massimo and then visit the Capitoline Museum. Should be fun.
Yesterday we flew from Catania to Rome, where we were meeting Ian and Lindsay. After getting settled into our apartment in Rome (absolutely lovely place – Jan nailed this one once again) we met by the Pantheon to walk to the restaurant. The crowds were’t bad at all, in spite of it being Halloween … and the Pantheon.
The Pantheon
I didn’t pay too much attention to the route we were taking, until we were suddenly surrounded by a huge crowd. Turns out that we were passing the Trevi Fountain. Not a great plan if you want to have a quiet walk.
Near the Trevi Fountain
This morning we decided to wander over to the Sunday Market in Trastevere. It’s mostly just fun to wander through the crowds, but we did manage to find a linen tea towel … one of the things we like to buy when we travel. The market goes on and on and on. We made it a little past a kilometer before we had to give up and take a side street to find a quiet cappuccino. One day we will need to walk to the end of the market to find out just how far it goes.
Half way along the Sunday Market
Many streets in Rome are crowded with tourists, but not everywhere. Walking back, we took a quiet path along the Tiber.
A quiet walk in the middle of Rome
We also walked over the oldest bridge in Rome that is still in use. It was built in 62 BC. It’s fascinating to walk over the bridge and let your imagination cast back to the height of Rome. Here is a view from below.
Built in 62 BC – still in use
On the way home we stopped for gelato and I had pistachio and fragola (strawberry) which has become my favourite. Now we are relaxing before dinner as we discuss what to do tomorrow.
A very long time ago, last millennium in fact, we visited Greece. The kids were much younger, and at the start of our trip we tried tzatziki at Sami’s Restaurant. It was divine. That started us on a search for tzatziki better than Sami’s. We never found it, but the search was fun. On that same trip, the breakfast buffet had baklava. It isn’t exactly part of a balanced breakfast, but we were on holiday, so why not. The kids had never had baklava, so I suggested they try it. They were dubious, but I said “just try one little bite”. I didn’t have to ask them to have a second bite. And that started a search for breakfast baklava. Much later, when I was visiting Jordan, I fell in love with shankleesh. That started the great shankleesh experiment where we tried many variations, and eventually learned how to make it ourselves. By now you can probably see where this is going. On this trip we have been in search of different types of caponata, arancini, and gelato in Sicily. We’ve also been sampling cannoli. This was from dinner last night which we finished with cannoli and limoncello.
We don’t do a lot of shopping when we travel, but we have been known to search out a few special (and small) items. Wooden spoons (we love cooking), scarves (Jan loves scarves) and Christmas ornaments (who doesn’t love Christmas) are our favourites. We found these in Syracuse this morning.
A few of our favourite things
Today was a travel day, and we are staying at an airport hotel tonight before we fly to Rome tomorrow, so it was a perfect day to wander in Syracuse before we headed out. Last night we noticed that several streets had been blocked off and stalls set up. By today, the vendors were beginning to set up.
One of the stalls had Etna Honey. On our tour of Etna we learned that some of the best honey in Italy comes from one small village on the slopes of Etna, and sure enough they were setting up a stall.
It seemed early for a Christmas market, so we did a little research to see what it was all about. Turns out that it’s a celebration of All Saint’s Day. Jan still insists it is celebrating her birthday…
Yesterday I posted a picture of the Syracuse Cathedral. We had some time today to explore so I did a bit of research and discovered that the original Doric temple was incorporated into the walls of a Byzantium cathedral in the seventh century. When the Arabs conquered Sicily, it was converted into a mosque, and then when the Norman’s conquered Sicily it became a cathedral again. We had to have a closer look. Once we knew what to look for, you could clearly see the evidence of the Doric temple from the outside of the cathedral.
We actually bought tickets and went inside. It was fascinating. The columns of the Doric temple were even more visible from the inside.
Doric columns in the cathedral
The floors date to the Norman period.
If you look at this picture, you can see one of the stones on the left is illuminated. The light is coming from the sun, through stained glass windows high on the other side.
Stained glass windows
Because the building has transitioned across several religions and cultures, you find a fascinating mix of styles. The base of the columns under the pulpit are lions.
This baptismal font had been a Doric storage jar, and the art on the stained glass and walls shows clear Islamic influences. Fascinating.
Baptismal font
Then it was off to Catania airport, where we checked in and then I managed to find the Hertz rental location. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. The charge for the scratch to the car was modest, and I was happy knowing that I never have to drive in Sicily again. We may be back, but not with a car.
Our plan to visit the Papyrus Museum in Syracuse fell through when we discovered that it was only open in the morning. Fortunately, we had a plan B, which was to visit Maniace Castle, built on the far point of Ortygia Island (essentially the old city of Syracuse). We walked past the castle yesterday while walking around Ortygia island, but today we went in for a look.
Maniace Castle
The castle was built between 1232 and 1240 by Frederick II, originally the king of Sicily, and eventually the Holy Roman Emperor. There were various exhibits lining the walls as we waited in line to buy tickets, and Jan spotted one of the displays showing early grenades. Have you ever wondered why they are called grenades? Well, it’s because the early ones resembled pomegranates, which are “granata” in Italian. You can see the resemblance.
GrenadesPomeganate or granata
At the start of the tour, there was a display dedicated to Frederick II, so we had a look. Turns out that I knew next to nothing about Europe at that time, so it was an excellent introduction to the castle. With that out of the way, we headed inside.
Maniace Castle
The castle included a great hall, which is rather impressive.
As you walk around, you can see areas in various states of repair … or decay. It isn’t always clear which. But in many ways it makes it more interesting.
You also see signs of abuse by people over the centuries. We were fascinated by some of the graffiti stretching back well over a hundred years.
Graffiti
Most of the castle was dedicated to defenses.
The original fort was built before gunpowder, but an explosion in 1704 damaged the fort and when it was repaired, it was modified to support cannons. This area included many vaulted rooms for cannons and the supplies to support them. Here is one of many.
And you can clearly see the tracks that supported the cannons and allowed them to be aimed.
Here is the view from one of the ports, where you can see the edge of Ortygia Island, where we walked yesterday.
We looked over the edge to see just how thick the walls were. The answer … very thick.
One of the things that fascinates me is how these buildings are modified over the centuries. In this next gallery you can see the signs of an old roof line, and down below it, the remains of the old foundation.
Roof lineFoundation
Then it was time to head back, walking through the center of Ortygia Island. Of course, it had many churches. This one was dedicated to the city’s patron saint.
And this next cathedral was illuminated by the setting sun. Apparently the remains of the main Doric temple in Syracuse, dedicated to Athena, have been incorporated into the cathedral.
After all that hard touring, we needed a little snack, so we stopped for cannoli with the filling freshly added while we watched.
Tomorrow we head back to Catania for the night and then off to Rome.
I didn’t have anything in particular that I wanted to see in Syracuse. I simply wanted to get a feel for what the city might have looked like in ancient times. Syracuse was known for being extremely well defended and difficult to capture. And during the Second Punic War, it had one additional advantage – Archimedes was, among other things, a military advisor to the king of Syracuse. He invented various devices to aid in the defense of the city, including a giant claw to lift up and sink attacking ships, and even a death-ray to set ships sails on fire. Knowing all of this, my goal was simple – just be here and immerse myself in the city, imagining things as they were long ago.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The theme for the day was “simple” so we began with breakfast, then relaxed with a cappuccino in our room. We finally summoned the energy to head out in time for lunch. Jan had scoped out a small street-food restaurant and we had no trouble getting a table. Turns out our timing was once again perfect, because by the time we finished, the place was packed. With lunch out of the way, we started our tour of Syracuse old town, with no set agenda. The old town is on a small island with stone walls and sharp rocks all around the edge. We walked the perimeter, and these pictures give you an idea of what the defenses would have looked like.
The walls of Syracuse
We often find that we discover the most interesting things when we aren’t looking for anything in particular. Today, we came across a display that recounted the history of the founding of Syracuse in 734 BC by settlers from Corinth. It had a scale model of the very first temple built on the site. It was relatively modest, having been built long before the much larger temples the Greeks built in places like Agrigento.
Scale model of the original temple in Syracuse
Jan is particularly interested in the architecture, especially the combination of old and new styles. Here is an example of what you see everywhere in Syracuse.
Different architectural styles
Quite a bit of restoration is underway in the old city, no doubt influenced by UNESCO’s designation of the city. I’m pretty sure this cathedral has been recently restored, at least the facade. We didn’t go in for a look.
We were surprised to see people enjoying the beach. A very small beach. It was a lovely warm day, but not that warm. Further along we saw several people going in for a swim. Yikes.
Enjoying the sea
It wasn’t just the temperature that surprised us when we saw people swimming. The rocks around the city were jagged with strong waves. I certainly wasn’t tempted to brave it.
When we finished walking the perimeter, we headed into the center where there is a maze of winding alleys. This is one of the wider streets.
Syracuse, old city
Our wandering took us to the Diana fountain.
Diana fountain
It was getting late, so we headed back to the apartment, stopping for gelato along the way.
The perfect end to the day
And later…
In keeping with the theme of simple pleasures, I’ll finish with a picture of the caponata from our wonderful dinner last night. We have been sampling caponata wherever we go – it is everywhere here, with significant variation. This was the absolute best, and it turns out is unique to this restaurant.
Caponata Agape
Tomorrow … who knows. We might just do it all again.
