Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Train from Rome's Airport to Downtown
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| The train, the Leonardo Express, that runs from the airport to downtown.
| On the train into town. Looks a bit like California.
Artificially brightened.
| We passed flat fields.
Artificially brightened.
| and some funky bridges. (I don't know what to call them. They're not
suspension bridges because those don't look like cables.)
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We saw this style of apartment buildings a lot on the way into town.
Everyone has balconies.
Artificially brightened.
| More apartment buildings in the distance.
Artificially brightened.
| We crossed a river and a truss bridge in the way into town.
Artificially brightened.
| My first Roman ruins: look right at the big arches and also left at the
old wall the traffic passing through.
Artificially brightened.
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A ruin right next to the train tracks.
Artificially brightened.
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| Downtown Rome
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| The Piazza Della Republica, a large traffic circle/plaza near our hotel.
This was our first introduction to the city's grand architecture and
fountains.
| I was surprised to see electronic devices listing prices here in a
grocery store in Rome. I thought these devices would only be used in a
high-inflation country.
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| Dinner at L'Angolo di Napoli
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| L'Angolo di
Napoli, the pizzeria/restaurant we chose for dinner.
| We chose it because we spotted this enormous brick pizza oven.
| The restaurant's friendly dining room.
Note the huge exhaust pipe
coming from the pizza oven.
| Napoli pizza: tomatoes, mozzarella, anchovies (the thing that look gray
and stringy), and, supposedly, oregano. Definitely good and
respectable. A fish pizza with little salty bursts from the anchovies.
The mozzarella came from fresh mozzarella balls that had been smashed.
Definitely good, and a bit different in character than most mozzarella
on pizza.
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| "Linguine al vesuvio": al dente linguini with mussels, zucchini
(courgettes), and "panchino" (according to the menu; I don't know what
this is). Very good, with a light olive-oil/mussels/clam sauce and
herbs. The mussels were good as well.
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| More Downtown Rome
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A restaurant in an ancient structure in the middle of a block.
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| Dessert
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| On the way home, we grabbed dessert from a pastry shop on a corner. I'm
not sure what this is called, but it was good, filled with
orange-flavored chocolate. The chocolate's texture was somewhere
between a crumbled chocolate bar and a moist, crumbly cake, yet the
chocolate stuck smoothly together like mousse, with no hard bits.
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