Another Showing

Bummer! We had high hopes for the apartment listed with an address at Piazza Santo Stefano. But it turned out to be unacceptable.

We arrived for our noon showing a little early to wander around the neighborhood a bit, then met the realtor at the residential entrance of the Palazzo Bolognini Isolani.

Yes, we’d be checking out an apartment in the ‘attic’ of a palace … which dates back to 15th century.

Piazza Santo Stefano is a busy place, but once we entered the apartment, the first thing I noticed was that there was no noise filtering inside. No surprise, I guess. Not only is the attic apartment, with dark wood exposed beams, set away from the front of the building, there was just one tiny window in the living room! The showing went downhill from there!

The place was dark … it felt dingy. The bedrooms held a mish-mash of furnishings; one of them looked more like a storage room than a bedroom. The kitchen … well it just felt old and worn. And the two tiny terraces were literally cut out of the roof with tall walls on all four sides … the only light coming in from the open top. A couple of buckets were strategically placed under what looked like leaks in the hall ceiling.

The realtor’s attitude, which was quite abrupt, was the clincher. We crossed the property off the list there and then.

After the showing, we went to a museum I spotted yesterday. I’ll leave that part of our day to another footprint and move onto lunch.

While I was finishing up at the museum, Mui was looking for a restaurant for a late lunch … something other than the usual trattorias we’ve been patronizing. He found it in a “pesce in osteria” … a fish tavern, if you will, on Piazza Aldrovandi … named for the man considered the father of modern geology.

Pescheria Aldrovandi turned out to be a small eatery under one of the porticos … outside of which were a bunch of stalls selling everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, to sweets, to fresh fish. Thanks to our off-hour dining, we managed to yet again get seated without a reservation.

The waiter spoke English, and there was a menu in English and French, so perhaps the place was a bit touristy … but the prices were reasonable and none of the other patrons were speaking anything but Italian. It very much felt like a local establishment.

I opted for the fried seafood dish … calamari, shrimp, white fish, courgettes, and carrots. All very good. Mui ordered the grilled seafood dish … calamari, shrimp, tuna steak; prawns (head and all), and a salad. We had white wine to accompany our meal, but skipped dessert in lieu of gelato later.

By the time we left the restaurant, the rain that had been threatening all day had started to fall … with occasional thunder and lightning. After we got our gelatos, I headed to the apartment; Mui went to check out a couple of furniture stores to see what they carry.

We are quickly nearing the end of our hunt for an apartment. We’ll be seeing the last two tomorrow. One of them is a long shot; but we have high hopes for the other one.Read more