Italy
Aedes Herculis Musarum

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    • Day 24 - Rome

      August 2, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

      Today we had no plans set, we woke up late after a nice sleep on from our late night at the colosseum.

      We do get breakfast at our BnB but consists of 3 packet croissants and a packet of other stuff I’m not really keen on trying.
      So we saw a nice reasonably priced cafe on the street. II Nido Gusto E Miscele, the waitress spoke great English and the breakfast menu start at 10am, we arrived a little after 10 luckily enough!
      Katie got avo on toast with pear on top, I got pancakes with fruit. Was a great coffee and will definitely be having their coffee again!

      We caught the metro to Spagla again and walked up the Spanish steps, then headed around town.
      We went to Chiostro del Bramante which is a cultural space hosting classic art exhibitions, we went there as the cafe has painted walls & roofs. The stair are done by an artist that let the paint run down the stairs not letting colours touch each other until the landing as well.
      We walked along Via del Coronari, a cobblestone street lined with shops, cafes plus churches and buildings as old as the 15th century.
      Next street we walked down is Via del Governo Vecchio, this is also a cobbled street with shops and restaurants with lively palazzos. Also home to the famous Frigidarum gelato store, we had to try some! So Katie got the lemon flavour that tasted like freshly squeezed lemon, I opted for cookies and chocolate! We walked past the pantheon the temple built 118-125AD, line was massive and they now charge for entry so we moved on to get some lunch.
      Lunch was pasta made a huge hit over TikTok, Pastificio Guerra. Lunch starts at 1pm and the menu isn’t announced until it opens, at €4.50 a serve of pasta and it’s made fresh! We waited in a small line, got some pork pasta and headed to Fontana del bottino steps to eat with others like us while watching the world go by.

      We went back to the hotel and opted to go to the laundromat, this was the highlight of Katie’s day watching the machine spin around and around 😂

      For dinner we went to the Jewish Ghetto, we looked at the Portico of Octavia, remains of an ancient walkway built in 2nd century B.C. to link two Roman temples. The turtle fountain that is an elegant renaissance fountain with bronze figures of men with turtles and dolphins and a walk around the ghetto itself.
      We sat down for a drink and some buskers were playing, I thought this is nice, drink music & my beautiful wife. They came around to all the tables for a tip, I have one euro and straight after they got all their tops they moved down the street! Katie didn’t let me down on this one euro for a while!
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    • Day 7

      Artichokes!

      April 26, 2022 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 68 °F

      I found a table at a place that has 4+ stars on Yelp. I decided on the fried artichokes and then finish my pasta quest with the cacio e pepe.

      It was very good and I enjoyed watching the owner clean artichokes by the front door.

      Afterwards, I headed home--but stopped for gelato. Orange almond and chocolate orange. Perfetto!
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    • Day 4

      Roman Forum & Jewish Ghetto

      May 22, 2022 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

      Putting these two together because I went through both fairly quickly (and consecutively) and did not take many pictures.
      The forum was apparently the commercial and social center of Ancient Rome, so it felt very cool to be walking around, and while there are some columns of old temples still standing I didn’t feel like there was a ton to look at. It’s wild to think those are the same avenues where ancient Roman’s spent their time. The place is very surreal and it is hard to believe how old the structures are.
      The Jewish ghetto was very interesting and I went into the museum there as well to learn about the history. Jews became confined to the ghetto in the 1500s as part of the counter-reformation and were confined there for hundreds of years. Interestingly, during the era of Napoleonic wars, the French liberated the Jews (they were big on freedom, at least on paper, at the time as this was right after their revolution), but once the Romans got the city back they sent the Jews back to the ghetto. Jews finally got freedom in the late 1800s and did very well for a time - despite being a small population they were leaders of the Italian wars of independence (Risorgimento) and there was even a Jewish mayor of Rome. Of course that went downhill during the fascist era.
      It was interesting to see the area was very touristic and modern, there were lots of restaurants with names like Kosher, ebraico, gerusalemme, etc. but looking at their menus most served non kosher food and even foods like sushi and poke that are completely unrelated. Apparently a legit traditional Jewish food here is fried artichoke, coincidentally some Dutch guys I met told me that is a traditional Dutch food as well. Doesn’t sound very good to me!
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Aedes Herculis Musarum, Tempel des Hercules Musarum

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