We’ve spent the last few days in the coastal city of Salerno.  Never heard of Salerno?  Not surprising.  Even frequent visitors to Italy are unlikely to have spent much time here, unless they were touring the popular Amalfi coast.  Then they might have stopped here when their bus turned around to head back north.

Salerno is at once beautiful and depressing.  The city has seen a lot.  Allied forces landed near here during WWII.  The part of the city before that time is beautiful.  A medieval city that reminds me of many in Tuscany. But the part where we are staying, the newer post-WWII part comes in the form of high-rise apartment complexes.  Lots of them.  There is a feel of quiet desperation about the place.  I don’t know what the industry is here.  I need to do some research.  There has to be something going on locally, as the city is home to 150,000 people.  Funny, that’s the same size as Salem…

We arrived Wednesday, after an eventful night in Rome.  We’d taken the train through Naples, where we stopped for just enough time to grab a cappuccino outside the station.  It became clear, quickly, that our language skills would be tested more now than ever.  After trying to order coffee, we thought we were being dismissed.  With a wave and something that sounded like “go,” we gathered our bags and prepared to head back to the station, stunned.  Having seen us looking quizzically at each other, one of the baristas came out to tell us to sit and to confirm that we wanted the cappuccino.  She cleared out a couple of local guys who were camping at one of the sidewalk tables, smoking and talking.  They scattered like birds.

We sat down, our big bags giving us away as tourists as clearly as anything could.  The locals quickly returned to chat with us, telling us repeatedly how nice people in Naples are.  We assured them that we were enjoying our time, and eagerly slurped down our excellent cappuccino.  We bid arrivaderci to our new pals and headed back into the station to catch our train.  We were rusty.  We’d been able to buy the high-speed tickets from the machines in Rome, but forgot to validate on the platform.  Cazzo. I realized this as we stepped on the train, and ran back to find a little, yellow machine while the Ant staked out our seats.

We’d made the mistake of not insisting on sitting in our seats on the trip to Naples.  We had assigned seat numbers, but there were people sitting in them, so we found an empty compartment and sat, hefting our huge bags into the overhead compartments.  This worked just fine for the first half of the trip, when a group of well-dressed older Italians bustled in to claim their seats.  We pulled the bags down, trying not to bludgeon anyone, and moved one compartment over.  Where the scene was repeated about 20 minutes later, this time with a confused younger couple.  “I don’t understand,” he told us in his decent English.  “Why did you let them take your seats?”  He’d taken our tickets to look at them and help us to our seats.  We knew where our seats were, we just didn’t want to go through the hassle of trying to remove guys from our seats in our super-poor Italian.

“No, no, va bene,” I insisted as, once again I dead lifted my backpack.  He was preparing to take us to our seats and kick some serious ass.  “It’s not right,” he insisted.  “I know, I know.  I’ll do it.”  Now an older gentleman in a sportcoat was getting up and pushing past me into the corridor.  A minute before he’d been feigning sleep.  Now he looked like he was about to toss someone out of the train by his lapels.  I stepped in front of him and assured him that it was alright.  I don’t have any problem asking for or accepting help, when I need it, but I hadn’t even tried to get the guys in our seats to move, and I thought it a little unfair to send these two gentlemen after them at this point.

So, I steeled myself, took a deep breath and walked into the third compartment.  I pointed to the seats, pointed to the tickets and said something like “quelli sono nostro.”  I have no real idea if that’s correct, but it worked enough for us to grab a couple of the seats.  After a final placement of bags, this time one precariously balanced in the overhead rack and one sitting in the corridor, we sat down.  The young gentleman who seemed to be serving as the informal “train police” walked by a couple of times to make sure we had recovered our seats.  We waved and smiled, and he seemed mildly placated.

Then we settled in for the rest of the train ride, which was rapidly becoming interesting.  The city had given way to green, and, as we rounded a bend in the tracks, a strangely familiar site came into view.

Being from the northwest, I know a volcano when I see one.  Still, this one was startling.  Vesuvius. Destroyer of Pompei.  I jumped into the corridor and pulled down a fold-up seat from the wall so that I could snap a few pictures through the dirty train window.

I guess after a millennia or so, it shouldn’t be son intimidating, but this mountain intimidates me.

We finished out the ride and managed to get off at the right stop and find a taxi to take us to the other side of town where we would meet the owner of the apartment we would be renting for the next 3 weeks.  The cab ride was quiet.  The Ant phoned ahead to Carmine, and I mumbled to the driver that I was sorry that I didn’t speak Italian well.  Then I thought about whether it would be insulting to try to ask him where he was from.  I thought I could get the question right, but would he consider it a waste if I couldn’t understand the response?  So I sat, thinking about the Italian classes I’d promised myself I would take before returning.

And then we were there, Café Verdi, a super-cute, upscale café in the middle of blank-looking apartment complexes.  We sat and thought about what we would drink in the 80 degree weather.  We were sweating, and it was too late for cappuccino.  “Something cold and wet” said the Ant.  I thought I could manage that.  By the looks of things, the locals were ordering fancy cocktails.  Not so much what we were looking for.

Even with our huge bags, it didn’t seem that we’d been noticed by the wait staff.  I walked in and ordered at the bar.  A sweet young guy helped me through the process.  “Qualcosa freddo, senza alcool?”  He was game, but the waitress had now noticed me, and commanded me back to the table.  So I smiled feebly and went back to wait for her.  “I guess we order at the table,” I told the Ant.

Carmine had told us he’d meet us in 30 minutes, and we were getting close to the time limit.  Eventually, though, the waitress came over to us.  We went through the same song and dance, and she came up with a good solution for us.  Orange juice.  Fantastic.  10 minutes later, we had fancy glasses of orange juice in front of us, and a plate of savory snacks.  We watched the locals scurrying across the busy street, wondering which one was Carmine.  Surely he would be able to find us by our big luggage.  When the phone rang, the Ant answered it, and I looked up to see if I could find someone on a phone.  There he was.  A stringy, well-dressed man who had walked by us a few minutes early.  We waved frantically to get his attention, and he jogged over, a big smile on his face, and a dictionary under his arm.

Over the next hour, Carmine showed his to his rental apartment, which resembled a beach house, with its adequate kitchen and sparsely decorated walls.  He also took us past the supermarket, the beaches, the public park and the pizza place across the street from Café Verdi.  We learned that he is a professor of Italian in the neighboring town of Eboli.  He inquired as to whether we ride bikes, and when I responded enthusiastically and lamented that I didn’t have one here, he showed us where his were locked up and promised to drop the key the next day so that we could ride in town.  Fabulous.

He bid us good bye and we bid him ciao, both trying our best.  Then it was time for food.  We put off grocery shopping in favor of pizza and headed down to Pizza Vesuvio.  15 minutes later we were eating pizzas, one with eggplant and one with bufala mozzarella.

We were happy.

Next, we located the Sisa grocery store, a major victory, as the walking paths and streets are vastly different in this part of town.   Past the cement church, and across the busy street we walked, pausing to smell the jasmine blossoms on the air.

I’ve always gotten a thrill out of shopping in Italy.  It’s a relatively safe environment in which to test my language skills.  I fell back into the routine I’d developed during my last trip to Italy.  We looked for the cornettta I was used to eating at the house in Fornacci, the yogurt, pomodoro sauce, pasta, and cheese.  We even picked out some local cookies.  The only thing I couldn’t get my hands on was pane coto nel forno a legna, though when I asked the deli clerk, she gave me a knowing look.  She told me they’d had it earlier, but they were all out.  Oh well.  We grabbed another loaf and headed out.  We’d make do for tonight.

Through the checkout stand, the greeting, total due, bagging and salutation.  We made it.  We even found our way back home, where, exhausted but  exhilarated, we prepared a humble dinner of pasta marinara, which we enjoyed on one of our excellent patios.

We even made some tea and ate our entire selection of sandwich cookies, comparing our favorites and trying to guess what the marmellata filling was.  I think we settled on peach.  Then we settled into our beds, doors and windows flung wide to take in the Salerno night.  For the next three weeks, we were home.

My first night back in Italy was spent in Rome.  Rome.  The eternal city.  I like to call it Romissimo, because it strikes me as the Texas of Italy:  everything is the biggest and best here.

Last time I was here, in December, it was my first time in the city.  I had spent 6 weeks hiking around the Tuscan country side, and a week in Venice, acclimating to the bustling and winding streets.  That is to say, I was a little prepared for Rome.  I only spent two nights that time, so I made sure to pack in as much as I could.  I spent 5 or 6 hours the first night walking through the city.  I was exhausted at the end, but I had been prepared.

But on this trip, my aunt and I decided to stop-over in Rome on our way south.  We had just one night.  So, starting at 6, we walked to our hotel, housed in an old pallazo.  We were greeted by an empty entry and a set of steep, marble stairs.

We looked around the tiny space and noticed an elevator.  At least, we noticed a tiny wood and glass door and a brass-plated call button.  We pushed the button, and the lights flickered on inside the little elevator car just behind the glass.  I froze.  I have recurring dreams.  This is one of them.  It’s not a nightmare, necessarily, but the riding up and down in little, teeny, wood and glass elevators that don’t completely work, is something that I do in my sleep.  It’s not something I really enjoy in my sleep.  I wasn’t sure how I’d handle it in my wake.

But this seemed to be working alright, so I looked at my aunt, took a deep breath and stepped inside.

It took some maneuvering to get us both in there with our luggage.  Like a sliding puzzle, there was one way for us to fit, and one way for us to get out.  I went in with my pack, and she followed, pushing her rolling suitcase in front of her so that she could reach out and pull the door shut.

Then we pushed the button and the little car lurched to life, coming to an abrupt stop at the second floor.  Given our large bags, we used the lift rather more than usual, and we became pretty good at the routine.  Though I never really got good at being completely comfortable in it.

Still, we were now at the hotel, and after check-in and a quick orientation, we headed to the room, a great, high-walled square with parquet floors and a painted, beamed ceiling , reminiscent of the palazzo it once was.

We were there just long enough to drop our stuff, lock our valuables in the makeshift safe/minibar, and head back out.  The breakfast from the plane was a distant memory, and my favorite pizza shop was waiting.

The night was hot and humid, so we didn’t even take jackets.  I only had 2 layers on, which is near crazy-talk for me.  Still, it felt like a night to live on the edge.  We walked briskly through the city, making a b-line for Piazza San Eustachio and it’s twirly spire overlooking Pizza Zaza and it’s little outdoor seating area.  Well, it was kind of a b-line.  We swung past the Trevi Fountain to toss our coins for a promised return, and the Pantheon to see its enormous columns at dusk.  And then we went around the corner to Zaza.

I could nearly hear a choir of angels singing when we walked into the piazza.  There it was.  Pizza.  We walked up to the little counter, and stood next to a police officer as he ordered.  The two of us sidled up and gawked at the great rectangles of cheese and bread.  I recognized the girl behind the counter, her sweet hardness comforting to me at the end of a long trip.  We ordered enough for three people and wondered aloud if it would be enough.  Then we filed past the state security agents that had arrived, their dark suits, sunglasses and earpieces standing out in the bright, little shop.

I’ve often thought back to the last time I was in Rome.  It feels like a dream, even now.  But one taste of the pizza told me it had been real.  I was back.  We were in Rome, eating pizza with church bells ringing in the background.

While we ate, I’m not sure how much we actually spoke.  We gestured and grunted, and the older Italian ladies with their perfect coifs and designer sunglasses chattered about us in low voices.  We didn’t stop until every morsel was consumed.

Zucchini, caprese, patata.  Each was as good as the last.  I licked the mozarella juice off of my fingers, not wanting to waste a drop.

Next, we decided to patronize Giolitti, the gelato shop I’d discovered last time around.  The huge shop wasn’t hard to find, just around the corner, with its enormous lighted sign, and groups of people milling about outside.

This time, there was no line.  There were no children to step in front of us.  Just an open case of beautiful gelato, and a bemused clerk.  The Ant picked out niocciolo (hazelnut) and marone glace.  I opted for the marone glace (something I’d had recommended to me in Venice, and has become one of my favorite gelato flavors), and then asked the gelato slinger what he thought would go well.  “You like cinnamon?”  Damn.  He was on to me.  I thought I had that phrase down pat.  I guess I’ll just have to eat more gelato to practice my phrase-work.  I told him that was good, and he went off to get my chocolate-dipped cone.  Mid-way to the cinnamon, he stopped, put his hand up and said, “No.  Fondante.  You like chocolate?”  He was sincere and absolute.  This was the better choice.  Well, of course I like chocolate.

I really enjoy asking for the food advice of people who work with the menu on a daily basis.  They have a much better sense of what will go well together.  This guy was no exception.

He handed over the beautiful cone and we walked out of the store, grinning at the clerk behind the register.  She returned a knowing smile, watching us licking at the supremely good gelato.  Taking a quick break, we stood outside the store in the growing dusk.  We decided we had enough energy to walk up the Corso to Piazza Del Popolo (perhaps you know this location from Angels and Demons) to see the twin churches.

They were as beautiful and haunting as I remembered.  We sat on the steps of the piazza’s central fountain and gazed up at the obelisk, one of 8 gazillion brought back from Egypt.

Choosing a side street, we made our way past the vendors selling lighted helicopter-like toys, spinning them high into the air and catching them again.  We found the crowds over to the Spanish Steps, named for the Spanish Embassy at the top.

The steps are beautiful, and the view from the top is pretty magnificent, but we had been traveling for about 30 hours and still had a lot to see.  So we skipped the climb and mad our way back across town to the carnival-like atmosphere of Piazza Navona and Campo di Fiori.

Piazza Navona is home to the Four Rivers Fountain (also of Angels and Demons fame), as well as two other, less famous fountains.  Tonight, it also played host to legions of artists showing their wares.  and a street performer who had gathered maybe 50 people to him as he rode a super-tall unicycle and juggled flaming swords.

Campo di Fiori houses a monument to Bruno, who was burned at the stake and canonized as a “saint” by the people for speaking his truth.  It also houses vendors of various types.  Tonight, it was inhabited by more vendors with the lighted toys. We sat for a moment and considered our escape route back to the hotel.  We weren’t far, but our feet were beginning to rebel.  After all, we’d been walking for about 5 hours in Rome alone, and hadn’t even had a cappuccino to keep us awake.

We followed a crowd of people out of the piazza and ended up walking past the Victor Emanuel monument – always impressive, and especially at night.

And then it was back up one of the hills and on to the hotel.  All in all, we only made one unintended circle, and had to ask for directions once.  Even then, we were on the right track.

As we climbed into the elevator one more time, we were relieved.  We had seen Rome.  A lot of it.  We’d tasted it, and heard it and touched it.  But we weren’t done with it.  We climbed into the big bed, under the high-painted ceiling, listening to the city continue on through the night, our window flung wide in the humid Roman night.  Romissimo indeed.

There’s one God at the Vatican, but lots of gods in Rome.  I think that’s why there are so many pizza shops.  I’m guessing it takes a lot to feed all those gods, and I’m sure they eat pizza.

It seems everywhere I go I talk about how it’s the best pizza I’ve ever had.  But at a shop around the corner from the Pantheon I truly had some of the best pizza – ever.  Yes, ever.

After a long trip into the eternal city from my home base in Tuscany, I was hungry.  It was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which meant a lot of places were closed.  I consulted my handy guidebook and made a plan of attack for the evening – starting with food.  Pizza Zaza stood out as a shop in the vicinity of things I wanted to see.  It was worth a shot.

I traversed the city, and was ecstatic that I could find the shop, and ecstatic that it was open.  After going through the motions with the girl behind the counter:  “what doesn’t have meat, I’m a vegetarian, yes I eat cheese,” I picked out a piece with “sola potata” (she seemed worried that I’d be disappointed with only potato), and one with what I thought was onions or leeks or something similar (I just pointed and she confirmed that it was meatless).

Eyes wide, I walked my pizza to the little outdoor sitting area in the piazza overlooked by several churches.

It was a lot of pizza.  I was really hungry.  With the first bite, I realized this wasn’t like anything I’d had before.  The crust was crispy, but thick.  The potato pizza had big, thin slices baked right into a thin layer of cheese, and fresh rosemary.  Only potato, my ass.  It was heavenly.

I finished up my potato pieces and reached for the other.  I took a bite without really looking at it.  WOW!  It almost tasted like cheddar – which I hadn’t tasted in a while – but it was cleaner.  It had a rich, yellow-orange flavor that caught me completely off-guard.  I knew what this was – squash-blossom.  Fantastic!  I was eating squash-blossom pizza in a piazza in Rome on the feast of the Immaculate Conception with an accordion celebrating in the background.

It was so good that, as it began to rain, I sat staring at my pizza until it was so wet that I had to move.  Still staring and eating, I just scooted myself up to the table of ladies next to me, who were under the only umbrella in the little sitting area.  I don’t think I even looked up.

I’d planned on that being my lunch, but, along with the excellent gelato I had about 20 minutes later, and the hot chestnuts eaten on the steps of the Trevi fountain, it also served as my dinner.  Come to think of it, the gods might eat gelato and chestnuts on the steps of the Trevi fountain, too.

“This post has been entered into the Grantourismo and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition”

My flight back to the US was an early one from the little Florence airport.  Florence is a couple of hours from Fornaci, and I had to be at the airport by about 5:30 AM, so I decided to spend the night in Florence.  Because the Florence airport is a small, regional one, there aren’t a lot of hotels that serve it.  We asked around, and found one that was about a 5-10 minute cab ride, and was safe and clean.

Deb and Tommy gave me a ride to the Fornaci train station, which I was pretty darn familiar with by now, and I hopped on a train to Florence.  I had a great moment at the Fornaci train station when a woman come up to me and ask me where to find the validation machine for the tickets.  It was a triumphant moment when I was able to understand the question and respond in Italian in a way that was actually helpful.

When I got to Florence – another train station I was pretty familiar with by now – I grabbed a cab to the hotel.  Once I confirmed that the cabbie knew where we were going, I settled in for the ride.  I prefer to sit up front in a cab when I’m alone.   Usually I’ll chat with the cabbie about the town, so I tried in Italian.  He was very nice, and we chatted back and forth, navigating my bad grammar together.  I recommended an art exhibit in town and he told me about growing up just outside Florence.

The hotel was in an industrial zone outside the tourist district of Florence.  When I walked in, I thought it might be deserted.  There was nobody to be seen.  Then a man appeared from an out-of-sight office to check me in.  I was pretty tired when I arrived, so I bid the front desk man “buona notte” and headed up to the room.  The room was Spartan, and I swear there was virtually nobody else staying in the big place.  It was a little creepy riding to the top floor in the teeny tiny elevator.  Fortunately the hotel attached its keys to huge, metal pieces that seemed perfect for use as a bludgeoning device.  This made me feel better.  Kind of.

After a long, hot shower, I found myself hungry and wandered back downstairs to seek out a little food.  The website and Rick Steves both showed almost nothing in the area.  I’d need a little help with this one.

The guy behind the desk pulled out a couple of business cards and pointed me down the road a little.  I’d have to walk, but there were a couple of pizza places about 5 minutes away.  “Just go right then left then down to the main street.  You’ll see the restaurants on the other side.”  Armed with my key fob, I headed out into a part of Florence that was different than the Florence I had seen before.

I walked quickly, hoping the area was safe and wondering if I should head back and have another Cliff Bar for dinner.  Until I saw a sign for military surveillance.  I was in the neighborhood of a military facility.  Suddenly, everything felt very safe.  I slowed down a little and even talked to a guy in a car who wanted directions.  I wasn’t really that helpful, but I tried.

When I finally reached the main street I was wondering if I’d ever find the restaurants.  There were a couple of American-style strip malls across the way, but nothing that really looked like a restaurant.  I checked the business cards.  Bingo.  One of the restaurants was just across the street.  The sign looked a little like a video arcade.  I was a little skeptical about the location, but I was hungry enough to forgive the strip-mall atmosphere, so I walked inside.

It was brightly lit, and filled with people picking-up to-go orders and long tables of apparent locals having dinner.  I sat down at a table with a salt and pomegranate centerpiece, and considered the menu.

Most everyone was ordering pizza, so I followed suit.  There were margherita, verdure, funghi, and a new one:  parmagiana.  Eggplant parmesan pizza.  Yum.  I hoped it was as good as it sounded.

It was.  The pizza was beautifully thin, with tomato sauce, mozzarella, thinly sliced, tender eggplant, and a healthy crust of parmesan on top.  The eggplant was juicy, so I ate most of this one with a knife and fork.  The crust was thin, but sturdy, making it possible for me to cut strips, fold them over and shove them in my mouth with the toppings inside like a little calzone.  I was perfectly content eating what I knew would be my last pizza of the trip (not counting the airplane pizza, which isn’t really in the same league).  I listened to the people around me and watched as the long table next to me ordered dessert.  It looked to be a birthday celebration or something similar.  The table was full of older couples, but the women sat at one end and the men at the other.

I got a preview of dessert as the men, who were closest to me, harassed the waitress over the dessert menu.  My entire trip I found it interesting the role that fruit played in almost every meal.  In people’s homes, a big basket of fruit would be placed on the table after a meal.  In restaurants, fruit was served, whether in a salad form or on its own, as dessert.  Pineapple, “annanas,” was commonly on the menu.  Cut lengthwise into thirds, the fruit would be sliced and served in the rind, sometimes drenched in a liqueur of some kind.  The men at tonight’s table ordered pineapple, except for one, who ordered an orange – which showed up by itself, rolling around a plain, white plate.

I like fruit, but it’s not what I had in mind for my last night in Italy.  I asked the waitress for the “dolce” and she started down a list.  Somewhere along the way I heard “pistachio torta.”  Yes, that one.  I’d had good luck with nut pies.  I hadn’t, however, experienced fluorescent green nut pies.

The minute it arrived I knew this wouldn’t be the best dessert of the trip, but, all things considered, it wasn’t bad.  There were even little pieces of pistachio in the unnaturally green gelatin.  Along with the caffe, it was a totally satisfactory dessert.

The pizza was excellent.  Probably ranks in the top 3 from the entire trip.  But the best part of dinner was the fact that I didn’t speak a word of English the whole time.  I don’t want to congratulate myself too much for making it through a few sentences, but it was nice.  My last night in Italy I was able to get myself to Florence, find a place to eat, and even get through a meal in Italian.  Like the rest of my trip, I had help from friends along the way (sometimes a lot of help), and in the end, I was able to do what I needed to on my own.  What more do I need than a place to sleep, a blunt instrument, and a really good pizza?

The best way to see Rome is from the back of a scooter.  I say the back, because you aren’t fully aware of the impending doom that is around every hairpin turn, swerve, screeching stop and turbo acceleration.  So long as you can get used to these and let go of the need to control anything, I think it’s the best way, for sure.

“Rome traffic is fluid, so don’t be afraid or anything.”  He’d picked me up at my hotel and buckled a helmet on my grinning head.  “You’re going to have the ride of your life.”  Now we were zipping down the street in front of the floodlit Colosseum.

“Oh, I’m not afraid,” I half-shouted, bumping helmets as I tried to get close enough for him to hear.  “I’m just holding on.”  It was true.  I was grinning ear-to-ear, but wasn’t about to let my grip slip off the little handles on either side of my thighs.

Fabio is another amazing Italy contact:  a friend of a friend, who after a couple of emails back and forth was taking me out to show me his city – from the back of his scooter.

“Tell me what you did today so I know what you’ve already seen.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  I looked at him, unable to begin a sentence.  I’d seen quite a lot.  It had been a couple of the longest days of sightseeing I’d ever had.  I started down the list, but we got sidetracked, or he stopped listening or something happened, because we had cruised past the forum, palatine hill, and nameless other piazzas, and were now passing the Coliseum.  Fabio was narrating from the front seat.  This was simultaneously entertaining and nerve-racking.

“Oh yes, I saw this today, it’s beautiful.”  “You went inside, too?”  He was surprised.   “Yup.  It was great.”

“I’m trying to figure out how you did everything today.”  So was I.  “Well, I did coliseum, forum, palatine hill and the pantheon this morning and then the Vatican this afternoon.”  “But you didn’t do the Vatican museum today.”  It was more of a statement than a question.  “Oh no, I did.”  I’m not sure he believed me.  I’d also done the Sistine chapel, St. Peter’s and Trevi again.

“Well, have you seen the pyramid crypt?”  I’d only seen it in guidebooks.  So we headed there.  It’s a pyramid shaped crypt that makes up part of the wall of the non-catholic cemetery.  “It’s really a pyramid” I was informed.  Well, it certainly looked like a pyramid.

We next drove past the Circuis  Maximus, an old chariot racing track.  Then we drove up a hill to “the keyhole.”  I’d never heard of it, but Fabio assured me that it was a very famous place.  We pulled into what appeared to be a military-guarded parking lot.  Fabio took me over to a building on the edge of the lot closest to the military guys, and pointed to a large, round keyhole.  “Have a look.”

“This is the smallest sovereign nation on earth. You’ve heard of the order of Malta?  This is their place.”  I looked up and saw the Malta cross in concrete above the door.  Fabio told me this single building is the headquarters, and is its own sovereign entity.  That’s why it was guarded by guys in camo, who were watching us closely.  Fabio seemed terribly unconcerned.  This was his city.

“That’s the most famous view in Rome.”  I motioned for him to take a look.  He just smiled wryly.  “That’s alright.  I know it.”

He took me past several churches.  “That one is the oldest Christian church in Rome.”  “Those are all from 500.”  “That one is from 900.”  “Bellisima!” he declared as we rode past each.  The suffix ‘issima’ means ‘the most.’  Apparently every church in Rome is the most beautiful.  Or the most old.  Or something that the rest of the world has copied.  The Greek part of me wanted to say something about the fact that the Roman temples that many churches now inhabited were, in fact, modeled on the Greek temples of the ancient world.  I kept my mouth shut, though.  I was on the back of a scooter, getting a private tour of Rome, and I was happy to be there.

We’d decided to cross the river to a part of town I hadn’t seen yet.  Trastevere was a medieval part of town where people still live and work.   A bustling neighborhood that boasts its part of the medieval wall that used to be closed at night to keep out thieves.  We pulled up to a large, high building .  It had no paint and a very plain façade, except for the torches set in brackets, sending up large, flickering flames.

Fabio knew I was vegetarian and went out of his way to find a place that would accommodate me.  “I would have taken you to another place, but they would probably be unfriendly to a vegetarian.”  I pictured myself being slapped by a steak.  “Roman food is very…earthy,” he said, bringing his hand down through the air in front of him.  I reassured him that I can almost always find a pasta or pizza to make due with.  And this place we had come was a pizzeria.  More pizza!

We walked up a flight of steep, narrow stairs to a heavy door on the second floor, and pushed.  The inside of the restaurant was dark and had bare, rocky walls decorated with old, wooden farming equipment.

Tonight, Fabio ordered for us, explaining that I was vegetarian and that I didn’t drink.  It was nice not to have to struggle through the conversation with the waiter.

We started with bruschetta.  “You know what it is?”  Oh yes.  Terribly yummy toasted bread with stuff on it.  The only thing I had always wondered about was how to say the word.  Ours were lovely large, thick pieces of bread toasted perfectly so the inside was still chewy.  We had three.  One was a kind of garlic oil, one a chunky, marinated tomato, and one diced, seasoned mushrooms.

Fabio kept telling me to eat.  We were two lawyers, and I had someone across from me who wanted to talk politics.  Global politics, American politics, Italian politics, everything.  And in English.  We were talking about the past three US presidential elections, the state of Italian politics, the political situation at the time of the first two World Wars, pending US judicial decisions, military theory, and more.  The conversation and the bruschetta was excellent.

And then my pizza came.

As you can see the pizza in Rome is a little different than the pizza I’d been eating elsewhere.  It was thicker.  And the toppings were thicker.  Instead of the really thin slices of eggplant and peppers I’d had on almost all of my other pizzas, this one had thick, juicy slabs of eggplant, and mounds of peppers.

I don’t know if this was truly indicative of Roman pizza, but it was good.

The conversation continued on, winding through our careers.  We eventually found ourselves talking about happiness.  What was it?  Could you be happy bringing happiness to others?  Was happiness a collective or a personal experience?  Was it worthwhile pursuing.  Fabio is a smart guy.  We sparred regarding the functionality of lying, military force, and fear.  “I wish I was as sure as you are,” he said in response to some binary comment I’d made.  “Oh honey, I’m not sure about anything really.  I’m just trying to be happy.”  In the end we came to no conclusions and agreed that it was a good result.

We walked back out into the night, through a group of people smoking on the narrow stairs.  Italy passed laws banning smoking in places like restaurants, but they don’t seem to have mirrored the US laws that require smoking to take place away from the buildings.  “That’s horrible.  I would never do that,” said Fabio as we pushed our way through the crowd, and he took out a pack of cigarettes.

I asked him how he was a marathon runner who smoked and he assured me that it was just a myth that you coughed if you smoke.  I gave him a fair amount of crap, and he told me a story about hitting the wall at mile 20 in one of his races, and asking a guy on the side of the road for a cigarette.  The picture of him running with the cigarette made the local paper.

We headed to the river for a quick look at the view.  He seemed totally unconcerned as we wedged ourselves through tall young men drinking bottles of beer.  I paused to take a picture of the gorgeous river.

It was nice to have a guide.  I would never have come across the river at night by myself.  Not because of Rome, but because of me.

Fabio wanted to show me more of the neighborhood, so we walked the streets of Trastevere.  He pointed out more old buildings and beautiful churches, and insisted on taking a picture of me with one.

While he took the picture, a wild-looking dude walked up and opened his mouth right in front of the camera that was balanced on a bush.  Fabio stood up, looked at the guy, and said something to the effect of “now that’s not even funny.”  He was still dressed in his suit from work and looked like he was going to slap the dude, who just shrugged, laughed and walked off.  Fabio’s expression was far from amused.  I was chuckling a little at the interaction.

We walked a bit more, Fabio pointing out his old haunts, especially noting the place where he used to get late night pastry – now closed up.  This was truly a man after my own heart.  Politics and pastry in the same night.

We found the scooter and crossed the river again in search of an excellent cappuccino.  After several u-turns and dead ends (evidently they change the streets around in Rome on a regular basis), we were in a familiar piazza.  I asked him if he’d had the pizza at the little shop.  “You’ve eaten there?”  He was starting to sound like he didn’t believe everything I had done.  I had coffee in the piazza already, but at the place across the street from where we were headed.  It seemed I was one shop away from the purported best coffee in Rome.

We ordered a couple of coffees, and waited at the bar while Fabio explained that many Italians order a glass of water with their coffee in order to cleanse their palate.  I’d noticed the water but didn’t realize its purpose.  The coffee arrived and Fabio insisted on another picture.

“Well, at least you have proove that you were here.”

I can’t really say if the coffee was good.  Fabio seemed mildly pleased, but they had sugared the coffee for us, something I never do, so it was a very different experience.  It was like drinking a cup of flavored sugar, or something from Starbucks.  I finished it off, though, crunching the grains at the bottom of the cup.  I hadn’t had dessert, so the coffee would suffice.

We were in the neighborhood of the original location of Fabio’s university, as well as his high school.  His high school had been housed in the building where Galileo was held while he was on trial.  You could see the observatory where he was working at the time.  Pretty amazing.  Fabio took me around the corner from the coffee shop to show me a little fountain – one of many in Rome.  This one was frequented by students at the university before their exams.  Drinking from the fountain was supposed to bring good luck on the tests.

As I raised my camera to take a picture, Fabio reached out and pulled a bit of garbage from behind one of the concrete spheres, with a disgusted look on his face.  He took the garbage with us and found a garbage can.  This was his city, and he was clearly very proud of it.

It was now almost midnight and we both had early days in the morning.  So we climbed back on the scooter and headed back to my hotel.  I gave him a big American hug and offered to take him around Portland if we found ourselves there at the same time.  He agreed and hopped back on the scooter.  I’m not so sure we’ve got the oldest or most beautiful of anything in Portland, but maybe I could find a friend with a scooter.  Portland might look pretty cool from the back of a scooter.