Heather had been fighting a cold the past couple days mostly successfully but today she wasn't 100% so we didn't plan for much. We'd also been having full days and we didn't mind some time to relax and for me to catch up in my blog and photo captions. So we just planned to wander around Trastevere. We hadn't really seen much of it except for a couple popular streets with restaurants.
First off was Santa Maria in Trastevere. Unfortunately there was a mass in progress (it was a Sunday, so maybe we shouldn't have been so surprised) so we didn't enter.
Took some random streets, keeping an eye out for the brass cobblestones that marked the last chosen place of residence of victims of the Holocaust. We did see some, usually in groups where a family had lived.
Stopped into a random basilica, Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. It was a beautiful basilica. There are so many of these in Rome it's ridiculous.
Some more random streets and photo ops (somebody had conveniently locked their green bike on a street of red / orange buildings which made a great subject), and then we crossed back to our side of the Tiber.
There were NYE preparations in progress, as well a large line up of tourists for Bocca della Verita, literally mouth of truth, which is a marble mask where supposedly you stick your hand in the mouth and if you tell a lie it bites off your hand. I would suggest there's better ways to spend your time in Rome. But to each their own.
We wanted a cosy place for lunch and thought about the place we had lunch in the piazza with the turtle fountain. It was packed with visitors to the fountain so instead went to Il Vinaietto, a cosy little place kitty corner to other place. It was more of a small bites place with stools and little counter spaces, jazz CDs playing in the background. I had a bagel with salami, Heather had a soup of the day (carrot and potato with freshly grated ginger) and a broccoli pie. It was pretty good and fit the bill.
Back at the hotel, Heather took a nap and I tried to catch up a bit in my blog.
For dinner we figured on just finding a place in Trastevere. We had arrived on a Sunday and not had any problems. However it was way more busy today, possibly because we were out at a more respectable dinner hour of 8ish rather than 7pm. Gino 51, where we ate last Sunday, had an hour wait. Actually, it was more of a come back one hour which didn't necessarily mean we'd get in an hour. More like just come back and check if there's availability in an hour.
So we went back to Ai Bocci where we ate last night. The host was a bit hesitant when we said we didn't have a reservation, but luckily the owner recognized us and seated us.
We wanted to try the zucchini and shrimp (highly recommended by our hotel manager) but it got lost in translation and we just got the zucchini. It was stringed, breaded and deep fried and excellent. For pasta we had the cacio e pepe, a little salty but still good. For the main we tried the steak, served sliced with pecorino and balsamic. I was curious to try it (the table near us had it last night), but I found the pecorino made it taste dry-ish. Had an espresso and a deconstructed cannoli (which to me was just cannoli after you've taken the first bite). It was very tasty. Finished with a limoncello, which I'm liking more than amaro.
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