By Jude Polotan

Poor Giordano Bruno. Ten years before Galileo would take the same stance, this former Dominican friar had the temerity to assert that the sun and not the Earth was the center of the universe, earning him a spot front and center in Rome’s Campo di’ Fiore, where he was burned at the stake.

400 years plus one decade later, I wait in the shadow of his imposing monument at day’s end, watching an army of street sweeping machines whoosh around the piazza seemingly willy-nilly to clean up after the day’s busy fruit and vegetable market. A fragrant cloud of squashed flowers, pulverized tomatoes and bruised basil fills my nostrils while tourists study the menu boards of cafes lining the piazza and locals lounge at outdoor tables smoking and drinking wine from juice glasses.

A Saturday night, the whiff of spring in the air, and the city is as clogged as ever with tourists. This afternoon I’d navigated my way through the throngs strangling Piazza Navona, spying no less than half a dozen large tour groups, their guide waving high above his head the polka dot umbrella or the giant yellow daisy or the stick with a bright green ribbon tied to it. The clients, American and Japanese mostly, followed along like obedient puppies. I’ve always fantasized about how much more enjoyable Rome would be were its streets not jammed with these packs of knee-socked, camera-toting, menu turistico-seeking people from elsewhere. Where were the real Romans? Caught behind one of these gaggles of tourists, no doubt.

And yet, though traditionally I have not been a proponent of guided tours — preferring to do my own research and make my own discoveries — on a previous trip to Rome, my companion and I were solicited on the endless queue outside the Vatican Museums and were persuaded to join a small group tour. Lured primarily by the promise of kicking back in a café while our guide waited on the two-hour line for us, the real sweetness of the deal turned out to be the astonishingly knowledgeable guide himself, a friendly South African with a Ph.D. in art history who spewed out nuggets of priceless and juicy information that resulted in a far richer experience than we could ever have had on our own. Given that successful foray then, with caution, I amended my position. A carefully chosen tour with a truly knowledgeable, personable guide can lend an extra dimension.

It was this enlightened outlook that had provoked me to sign up this trip for a three-hour tour with the clever name, “Rome by the Glass,” which promised the opportunity to “indulge your inner Bacchus” as a certified sommelier brought you to local, authentic enoteche and educated you on the regional wines of Italy.

Which brings me to be hanging out with the heretic Bruno under the afternoon’s waning sun waiting for Ettore. It’s not quite six p.m., dusk descending, when he finds me and informs me I’m his only client tonight, and without further ado, we set off in the direction of our first enoteca. Ettore points out sights along the way: the Piazza Farnese, one of his favorite piazzas and one overlooked by tourists, the Holocaust memorial plaque and the Star of David on a red wall in the Jewish Ghetto, the captivating Fountain of the Turtles in the Piazza Mattei. He walks fast, talks faster and, for the moment, all I can manage is a nod, a smile. I feel shy, the only tourist on a group tour.

Enoteca Il Piccolo is tucked away in a small cobblestone street shooting off the Piazza Navona. True to its name, the enoteca is tiny — a handful of wooden tables squeezed together in a rustic looking space, bottles of wine shelved along the walls from waist height to the ceiling. There’s only one remaining table, the one closest to the bar, and I move some boxes of foodstuffs off the chair. It’s aperitivo time and along the short bar, an array of snacks beckons: bite-sized pizzas, olives, bread, spinach wrapped in turkey, roast pork. I collect a bit of everything on a small plate while Ettore engages in a very passionate conversation with the young man behind the bar, presumably ordering a couple of white wines to taste. When he returns to the table, I raise my eyebrows and he understands. “In Italy,” he says with a resigned shrug, “everything is a negotiation.”

Naturally our conversation at first centers around wine. Ettore’s knowledge turns out to be quite vast and I get the distinct impression that as much information as he’s feeding me, it constitutes only a fraction of all he knows. He tells me there are 450 varieties of grapes found throughout Italy. He explains about color and perfume and acidity and legs. Those are just the basics.

Our first taste is a Sauvignon from the Veneto region. Ettore swirls the wine in the glass. I mimic his movement and some of the wine splashes out of my glass. He pretends not to notice and I like that about him. Now Ettore peers at his wine. Note the barely yellow color, like straw. Note how long the wine clings to the side of the glass — not long, meaning low alcohol content. Note the smell — slightly grassy. This Sauvignon has been served fairly cold, allowing for more perfume while reducing acidity. It’s a young wine, he says. Less exposure to the sun, less heat, give the wine its crispness. At last we drink. I hold the wine in my mouth a moment and close my eyes. I’m not good at this, I feel silly, but the Sauvignon playing on my tongue reminds me of a gentle summer night, a slight breeze riffling my hair, and I think, this tour is going to be all right.

The second wine arrives and Ettore hasn’t finished emphasizing the importance of temperature, using Coca-Cola as an illustration of the relationship between temperature and acidity: the warmer the Coca-Cola, the more acidic. And since it takes three minutes to warm the wine by one degree Celsius, a good sommelier will serve the wine a degree or two colder than ideal knowing it will take a few minutes before the customer picks it up and drinks. Well now, that clears it all up.

By now I’m thirsty and surely our Grecía Salentina has warmed sufficiently, so I raise my glass. “This is a more direct wine,” says Ettore, hailing from Avellino, a region of Compania. He leads me through the steps: inspecting first the more golden color, then swirling again to show how the legs stick to the glass longer, evidence of the higher alcohol content. I swirl along with him, more gently this time, and wait for the legs to drip back down.

As we drink, the legs of our conversation grow stickier. The language of wine is so technical, I say to Ettore, commending him on his fluency in English, which prompts him to reveal his secret weapon: an American wife, originally from San Diego. He tells me the story of how they met a decade earlier, when he was selling sweet, peachy wine to undiscriminating tourists in Florence. After getting married, they started their tour company together. Then it’s my turn. Learning that my partner’s son is 23, he shakes his head.

“In America,” he says, “he’s a man already, but in Italy he would barely be weaned.” Ettore himself is an exception, of course, but he laments the immaturity of his male compatriots, noting that even though it is changing, when Italian men marry, most still expect their wives to do all the cleaning, cooking, shopping, child-rearing and handling of household finances.

Time for the next enoteca, and threading our way through the nighttime bustle of the city, we touch upon Obama and American politics, the depressed real estate prices in Puglia and his incomprehension of American fashion. What Ettore can’t understand is why American kids wear their jeans hanging down off their butts. In Italy, he points out, it’s the exact opposite — the tighter, the better. “I’ve noticed,” I say, and we laugh like two old friends.

At La Vecchia Bottega del Vino in the Jewish Ghetto, Ettore orders us a plate of local charcuterie and another of cheeses. While we nibble on prosciutto and speck, bresaola and mortadella, we sample the first of two reds, a Nero d’Avola from Sicily The heat of the sun comes into play here. In most places, the days are warm, the nights cool, but in Sicily the nights are also warm — resulting in an especially dark grape that produces a smooth, hearty wine tasting of plums and smoke.

With the cheese plate comes the lustier Barbaresco, product of Piedmont. The Barbaresco has the longest legs yet. We swirl and sniff and sip while we shift now to the topic of children, and I’m surprised to learn that Italy has the second lowest birth rate (Spain is first) in the western world and that few Italian women have more than one child. Ettore chalks it up to economics, but I wonder. Whatever the reason, at this point, more Italians are dying every year than being born. Considering the Catholic majority in the country and the proximity of the Vatican, this is a revelation to me.

Ettore and I are having a good time. We could linger over this table all night, but his wife is waiting on him for dinner and, after all, this is a paid tour, not a night out with a friend — although the distinction is hardly clear at this point.

By the time we part company, it’s almost 10 p.m., four hours since I stared up at Giordano Bruno. Given his prominence, I imagine Bruno sees quite a lot of tour groups congregating at his feet. I reflect on the Inquisition which sentenced the former friar to death back in 1600, when apparently no one had a very open mind. I’m still skeptical about how many tours (and there are so many in Rome) give you a real feeling for the city, how many take you beyond the standard tourist pabulum, but after my enjoyable and educational night with Ettore, I’ll hold off on burning any tour guides at the stake.

[Enoteca by Tom Kelly/Flickr; Campo di Fiore by Brad Eatherly/Flickr; Enoteca il Piccolo by Ekunz/Flickr]

The post Rome By The Glass appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Oh man, my dream job: a city tour guide — in Rome no less. Rome Walks, a walking tour company in The Eternal City, put together this handy vid, pointing out some tips for seeing the city, both on and off the beaten path.

Highlight: 2:22. “Wander down Vicolo de Cinque and you can find your favorite liqueur served in a chocolate cup.” Yes, please.

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Some friends of mine are planning a trip to Italy at the end of the summer, and they recently asked me, “Where should we go?”, which, if you think about it, is quite a loaded question given the scale of the country. It’s kind of like asking, “What should I do with my life?” or “Do I look fat?”; questions that beg a serious, heavily crafted response lest your own safety becomes in peril.

What do you say? Classic (Rome), modern (Milan), romantic (Cinque Terre), iconic (Venice), off-the-beaten-path (Puglia), creative (Sicily)? See what I mean?

This Nat Geo piece makes a good argument for starting in Rome, and shows what the city’s like from the viewpoint of staying in the high-end spectrum of the lodging category (the Hotel Hassler —  Condé Naste’s Reader’s Choice for best hotel in Rome), down to the quainter, middle-of-the-road stay (the 13-room Hotel Teatro di Pompeo) where one can settle into the daily rhythm of the neighborhood and feel, at least for a small time, that they’re one of the locals. The best way to do this? Find a surrogate Italian mother that likes to feed you.

I enter into a relationship of a very different sort with an establishment next to my pensione. Trattoria der Pallaro is the localest of local haunts. From her small kitchen, Paola Fazi has been turning out meals for 46 years. A squat woman in a blue house dress under a well-worn apron, Fazi is an Italian mamma’s mamma. She wears her long black-and-silver hair pulled into a bun, which she wraps with a second apron, folded and tied around her head like a crown.

Der Pallaro has no menu. You eat what Fazi is making—and whatever it is on that particular day, she’s making a lot of it. With deep-set eyes and an aquiline nose, she patrols her sidewalk tables with authority. I dare not leave one zito uneaten. When she stops by my table and sees I’ve cleaned my plate, she puts her arm heavily upon my shoulder. With the fear of a second-grader, I look up. Deep black rings pool under her eyes. She nods, slowly. I stop breathing. Then she unleashes a wicked smile. I exhale and lean my head upon her breast.

After a little more pondering I thought, maybe I’ll just to refer them to Rick Steves. That way they can blame him if they don’t like any suggestions. But they’re my friends, of course I wouldn’t do that to them.

The post I’m Heading To Italy, Where Should I Go? appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Isn’t a little disconcerting that so many animal metaphors are invoked when describing summer travel in Rome? Well, there’s a reason for it: too many people at too few sites equals cow-like tendencies. For a little help as to when to stray away from the herd, and when it’s best to go ahead and corral with the horde, see Ellen’s guide at BootsnAll on how to see the sights in Rome.

For example, the Colosseum is huge and there’s lots to see, but there’s really not much gained by joining a tour or hiring a guide; most of what you need to know can be carried around in a good guidebook. So give yourself a break and wander freely, saving time to feed the cats and gawk at tourists taking pictures with gladiators.

But when you’re at the Vatican Museum, those umbrella-toting 50-something guides who lead groups help to direct you to the prized sights in the vast museum and help to protect you from being crowded out by other mobs of art-goers, so sticking with your fellow bovine in this case may actually be okay. But make sure to ditch them as soon as possible when you’re done.

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I came across this great video on Rome by Cameron Moll the other day while I was browsing the “Travel Videos” section on Vimeo.

Despite the obvious commentary at the beginning (“We’re standing in front of the Colosseum . . . Rome — Italy”), Cameron does a great job capturing images of the Eternal City and putting them to the haunting music of the Texas instrumental band, Explosions in the Sky.

Man, I always get so jealous when I see other people using using video cameras that are way better than mine. I think it’s getting time for an upgrade to HD, what do you think?

The post Be Blown Away By This Amazing Video On Rome appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Seen the Vatican? Done the Coliseum? Walked the . . . well you get it. From decorative crypts to Jetsons-like malls, here are the top 10 lesser-known sights around Rome you’re unlikely to find in any travel guide.

By Sarah Parker

1. The Hot Air Balloon in Villa Borghese

Villa Borghese may be one of Rome’s most popular destinations during the warm summer months for locals, but not many visitors know about the giant hot air balloon located here. One of the largest in the world, this offbeat attraction allows you and 29 of your closest friends to rise 150 meters into the sky for some of the best views you can get of Rome, short of walking several thousand steps to the top of a cathedral.

2. The Capuchin Crypt

Located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini on the Via Veneto, this morbid attraction, perhaps best suited for Halloween time, consists of bones from over 4,000 French monks who are said to have fled their home country for the safety of Rome during the French Revolution, and whose bones can now be found decorating the walls of the church’s many chapels in intricate patterns such as crosses, flowers, arches, and other happy shapes. Wondering what time it is? Check out the large clock on the wall composed of vertebrae, foot, and finger bones.

3. Municipal Rose Gardens

Spread out over a compact 2 1/2 acres, Rome’s Municipal Rose Garden (Roseto Comunale di Roma) contains over 1,000 varieties of roses from over 20 different countries, including the green-petaled Chinensis Virdiflora and the foul-smelling Rosa Foetida. Open only during May and June, a trip to the Rose Gardens is an appropriate end to a day spent within the carnage and brutality at the nearby Coliseum.

4. Scala Santa and San Giovanni Basilica

Located across the street from each other, the Basilica of St. John Lateran (Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano) and the Holy Stairs (Scala Santa) are some of the most famous locations for Christian pilgrims. The amazingly ornate Basilica is the cathedral for Rome’s bishop, and has seen many reincarnations since its days in the 1st century when it was a mansion (now located 5 1/2 meters below its nave). Brought over from Jerusalem in the 4th century, the Scala Santa are a series of 28 marble steps that are believed to be those steps walked by Jesus on his way to see Pontius Pilate. Today you can watch devotees ascend the stairs on their knees while you sit back enjoying a cool Limoncello.

5. MACRO Rome (Contemporary Art Museum of Rome)

Once the site of a large industrial complex, MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art Rome) sticks out in a city where it’s hard to find a museum containing works less than a millennium old. MACRO contains works from Italian artists from the 1960’s on, or what is considered in Rome as “recently.”

6. The Keyhole of the Priorato di Malta

One of Rome’s oddest attractions, if you stoop down to look through the keyhole of the Priorato di Malta located in the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, you’ll get a perfectly framed view of the dome of San Pietro, an effect apparently planned by the architect of the surrounding building. Perfect for a romantic evening of two or for that out-of-town visitor that really loves keyholes.

7. Porta di Roma Shopping Center

Rome’s newest and one of Europe’s largest, the Porta di Roma is a 150,000-square-meter mall consisting of 220 shops along with various restaurants, four tennis courts, two football pitches, and an indoor gym with a swimming pool. Tired from all that walking around you’ve been doing in the Ancient City? You’re in luck. The mall contains a series of moving sidewalks, escalators, and upholstered seating to aid your weary feet.

8. Trattoria Remo

Found in Piazza San Maria Liberatrice, Remo is almost as well known for their long lines as they are for their their giant thin-crust pizzas. Consistently ranked as one of the top 10 spots for pizza in Rome (which is saying alot ), you can also pick up some authentic cooking supplies like rice and mozzarella-filled breadcrumb coating at this local institution.

9. Ristorante-Caffe’ Lo Zodiaco

This quaint cafe on Viale del Parco Mellini offers breathtaking views of historic Rome from high above. One of the lesser-known by tourists, this cafe is especially romantic at night when the meals are served by candlelight beneath gigantic windows framing the city nightscape. Note: if your girlfriend is heading here with a Roman “friend” you may be in store for some trouble.

10. Villa d’Este

Visiting Rome makes it apparent that no one lived better throughout the years here than the members of the Church. Villa d’Este is a testament to the power and grandeur even a Cardinal can bring to a building project when he shows a little interest. Built in the 16th-century by order of Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, this palatial estate boasts some of the most beautiful gardens in Europe and serves as one of the finest models of Renaissance culture

The post Top 10 Alternative Sights In Rome appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

I finished rewatching La Dolce Vita the other night and I was surprised at how different the film was from what I remember after first seeing it many years ago. Most noticeably, how critical Fellini portrays Rome. Far from the glamour and the romance so associated with the city, Fellini really takes a negative view of Roman culture around 1960 when the film takes place, and at the same time is criticizing modernity itself, which is accentuated by the fact that the action almost all takes place within the landscape of ancient Rome (e.g., the infamous Trevi Fountain scene where the buxom American actress played by Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni cavort just as the sun begins to rise in the morning).

That being said, I think it’s not Rome itself he’s criticizing, but rather the era in which the movie takes place, which may explain that despite everything that goes wrong in the story, you can’t help but want to visit Rome as soon as you can after watching the film; and the fall is one of the best times to head to the Eternal City as the tourists have fled the city and the hot, muggy air has given way to comfortable, walking weather. Above is a good video of some tips and inspiration for your trip.

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