November 18, 2010: Getting Our Feet (etc.) Wet

Literally. We've clearly spent too much time living in a part of the world where it only rains for three months of the year. I know we really shouldn't complain, I mean, its not like we're in Portland, Seattle, or London, but its just starting to feel like it rains for some portion of the day, every day. This morning was pretty nice, but around 1 PM it started to rain consistently until about 7 or 8 PM. Some of the time it drizzled, but a lot of the time it poured, accompanied by some threatening sounding thunder and lightning.

Generally I don't think we would really mind so much - we've got umbrellas, rain jackets, Mike's got Gortex shoes, etc. But there appears to be a slight problem with drainage in Rome. Large (and hard to see) puddles quickly appear on most sidewalks made of the small, square, basalt stones. On smoother sidewalks, it looks like there are shallow rivers running by your feet. Sometimes, the solid looking sidewalk isn't so solid - and if you step the wrong way you end up flipping up part of the pavement and splashing a mini tidal wave onto yourself. And then there are the gutters. Ok, so its Fall, and the gutters are probably jammed with leaves. But drivers don't seem to consider the fact that when they drive quickly through the large puddles that have accumulated along the curbs - pedestrians get SOAKED. We've both been victims of not-so-mini-tidal waves recently, and ended up with pants wet past the knees and wet shoes. Needless to say, its not so fun to walk around like this.

So, we had somewhat of a limited day but still tried to make the most of it and visit some places we haven't been before. We walked up to where Italy's president lives (not Berlusconi) on the top of a hill near the Trevi Fountain. We walked along the street adjacent to the Palazzo Quirinale to the four-corners intersection where there are four fountains very similar to those we found at a similarly named intersection in Palermo. From there, we walked to another large fountain (Fontane dell'Acqua Felice) where we saw a large statue of Moses. Then we went up to see what the Palazzo Margherita was all about, and it was all about high levels of security and guards around the perimeter, so we moved on.

We ventured over to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II where we found a mini-Chinatown, clothing market, large sidewalks covered by porticos, and a large park with some ruins. The explanation wasn't completely clear, but the ruins seemed to be called the Porta Alchemica and were part of what used to be a large palace. There was some magic/mystery about these ruins but now they are just overrun by cats.

We found refuge from the rain for a little while we ate lunch, and then did some backtracking to visit the churches we had passed earlier in the day. We saw three churches - the San Bernardo (which looked sort of like the Pantheon inside), the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, and the St. Andrea al Quirinale. Without knowing any Italian you might be able to guess where these churches were located...

At this point, Mike got soaked as a bus drove by, so we gave up on walking for a while and went to get some tartufo to boost our spirits. Then we made our way home, cooked dinner, and did our last load of laundry. Tomorrow we plan for another day-trip, and then we have our friends Andrea and Khuzema visiting for the weekend from London!

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Both: Tartufo

To view our pictures from today, click here.