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EUROPE DIARY, DAY 13: ORVIETO BACK TO ROME

Thursday 16 November

I had real trouble sleeping during the night, I think because my stomach was a
bit too full of all that good, rich food from dinner. We got up about 08:30 to
have showers and then go out to grab some breakfast before returning to check
out of the room. We found a coffee bar just a few steps from where we were
staying. M. had a cappuccino and a cornetto with apricot jam, while I just had a
plain cornetto. Then we returned to the room to clean up and pack our bags
before checking out. Check out time was 10:30, and at 10:20 a woman came up and
knocked loudly on our door and when I opened it she reminded us of the time. I
said we were nearly ready. A few minutes later we left.

The plan today was to try to visit a few places I’d looked up last night: the
Labarinto di Adriano and the Pozzo della Cava, two more underground attractions
in various parts of the town, the Torre del Moro, the main clock tower in the
centre of town which you can climb to access views from the roof, and the view
from a northern lookout at the cliff edge. But the morning was very foggy, with
tendrils of mist flowing along the streets of the town and a cold chill in the
air. Any views would be unlikely to be any good, so we decided to go to the
Labarinto first.

Walking to the marked spot on the map revealed a restaurant called Labarinto di
Adriano, which was a bit confusing until we discovered that the caves were
beneath and entered via the restaurant! Although the restaurant itself looked
closed, we pushed the for open and a man sold us tickets to the cave system
beneath. He pointed us down a staircase for the self-guided tour. This took us
through 20 separate rooms dug multiple levels deep below the restaurant (and
probably some of the adjoining properties). The cave system was only discovered
in the 1970s by the owners. It was very interesting in the caves and showed
different sorts of uses to the ones we’d visited last night, with many of them
being used for wine cellars. There were racks of hundreds of bottles of wine,
covered in dust. It wasn’t clear if these were actual bottles for use by the
restaurant above, or some sort of old historical bottles that they’d found down
there, or if they were prop bottles filled with coloured water for the look of
it.

From here we walked over to the lookout spot to the north. On the way we passed
through the Piazza del Popolo for the first time, to find a market in full
swing. There were fresh produce stalls, cheese and meat trucks, a fishmonger,
and several stalls selling cheap clothing and other random household goods. We
paused here to get a snack of biscuits at a coffee bar and M. had a coffee.
While she was sitting at a table I walked up the steps of the Palazzo Del
Capitano Del Popolo to take some photos overlooking the pizza and the market.

After finishing our refreshment, we walked north to the lookout spot over the
plains below, but the fog was thick outside the city and we had no view of
anything below the level of the hilltop. Given that one of our other planned
activities was climbing the tower for the views, we decided to leave this until
later in the day and headed to the Pozzo della Cava, another underground cave
open to the public. This one had a huge well dug into the cave system, which had
two components: an old Etruscan well, narrow and rectangular like the one we saw
in the Orvieto Underground yesterday, and intersecting this was a large
cylindrical well dig in medieval times. Much of the construction of these
medieval things was ordered by various Popes in the 12th and 13th centuries, as
they lived much of the time in Orvieto, instead of Rome, and wanted the place to
be self-sufficient in terms of water, and also impenetrable to attackers. One of
the things Cristiana had told us last night was that the residents of the town
had been in the habit of simply tossing any garbage over the side of the cliff,
and it had built up to form a slope that attackers could actually climb up to
gain access to the hilltop. So one of the other things the Popes ordered was
that every house had to dig a garbage pit for its own use. it was fascinating
putting all this history together to get an overall picture of how and why all
these caves and wells and pits were dug below the town.

By now it was time for lunch and we decided to go back to the same bakery where
we’d had the pizzas yesterday, they were so good. M. had a simple tomato slice
this time, while I had one with cheese and porcini mushrooms. we also bought
some grissini breadsticks to tale with us. They had five savoury flavours:
sesame, olive, rosemary, tomato and onion, and cheese. And they also had three
sweet varieties! Pistachio and chocolate, raisin and cinnamon, and fruits of the
forest. We got one of each savoury one and one of each of the first two sweet
ones. We ate the sweet ones straight away and saved the savoury for the train
ride back to Rome.

After lunch, we visited the Torre del Moro. There is a small entry fee and you
get to climb the tower. There is a lift that lets you shortcut the first couple
of floors, but from there it’s stairs all the way to the top, about another 8 or
9 floors by my estimation. It was worth it for the view though. The fog had
finally lifted and we had clear views to the horizon in all directions. Also, we
were the only ones up there when we arrived, and only after several minutes of
walking around the small square rooftop did two groups of two other people
arrive.

By now it was getting close to time to head back to the station for our train to
Rome, which was scheduled to depart at 15:27. But M. wanted to have a last look
at a leather shop near the Duomo, and we also passed a gelato place where M.
decided to have a chocolate fondant gelato to help soothe a slightly sore
throat, and I chose to try the whisky cream, and ricotta and cinnamon flavours,
which were very nice.

So by this circuitous route we eventually found our way back to the funicular
station. We expected that it would still be buses replacing the service, but the
funicular was operating! A car was leaving just as we arrived, so it would be a
few minutes until the next departure. We bought tickets and were the first in
the queue to get on, though it wasn’t very full. The ride lasts about two
minutes and was a fun experience, sliding down the hill as the other car came
back up, passing each other in a section in the middle where the track splits
into two to allow the two moving cars to pass one another.

At the station we found our train departure platform and went over there to
wait. Orvieto doesn’t see many trains, so despite waiting 20 minutes there were
no other services to get confused with. We boarded and found seats, but the
train was partly full and there weren’t any pairs of seats facing forward so we
sat across an aisle from each other. Later on the man opposite me moved to look
out the open doors at one of the intermediate stops, and M. moved over. He came
back in but sat somewhere else.

We arrived at Tiburtina in Rome about 16:50. From here we braved the metro to
ride to Termini on a crowded peak hour train, then switched to the other line to
Spagna, which was a bit less crowded. We walked back to our apartment, stopping
at the supermarket on the way to buy some more muesli and milk for breakfasts
for the next few days.

After eating a bit we ventured out for dinner. We had a booking at Da Gino Al
Parlamento, a small trattoria near the Parliament building. One of M.’s
co-workers had recommended this restaurant, so she said we had to try it, and we
made the booking a few days ago. When we arrived there was a queue of people
waiting for tables and bustling waiters telling them they only had tables
outside, where it was fairly chilly tonight. But when we got to the front and
said we had a reservation, they showed us to a table inside. It was against a
wall and had another table for two up against it, which they pulled apart by
about 3 centimetres, and filled with another couple soon after we sat down.
Since they were so close we ended up having a bit of conversation with them.
They were an older couple from Manchester in England and said they travelled to
Rome twice a year and frequently ate in this restaurant.

After last night’s heavy dinner, we ordered a simple mixed salad to start,
followed by ravioli with ricotta and spinach for M. and a spaghetti carbonara
for me – a dish I’d wanted to have while here, and today was my last chance,
since our meals for the next two nights are planned. The salad came split
between two bowls for us, and at first we thought we must have gotten two salads
instead of just one to share, but at the end of the meal when we got the bill we
saw that we were only charged for one salad, so it must have been a really big
one and they just put it in two bowls for us. The pasta was really good. And
having learnt our lesson with dessert last night, we stopped there. The bill
came to 40 euro, which was possibly the smallest we’ve had since we arrived in
Europe, though with the current exchange rate that’s still a lot of Australian
dollars.

We adopted the Italian passeggiata (leisurely evening stroll) and walked back
via the Pantheon to get some night photos, and grabbed a light dessert at
Giolitti. I got a lemon and strawberry gelato, which is basically just water,
and M. got a small occhcio di bue biscuit with chocolate. And then we walked
back to our apartment. The plan is to sleep in without an alarm tomorrow and
just get up when we feel we’ve had enough sleep, and then plan what we’re doing
for the day after that. We have two days free now to do anything we think of,
without pressure to get any specific sightseeing done.

Posted on 2023-11-17Categories Daily updateTags travelLeave a comment on Europe
diary, day 13: Orvieto back to Rome


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 12: ORVIETO

Wednesday 15 November

It’s been a very busy day. We began waking up with an alarm at… 06:54. I said
last night we should get up at 06:55 and I set an alarm. But when morning rolled
around, M.’s alarm went off and mine didn’t. The reason: she set hers a minute
early just to get in before me!

We got up and had showers and breakfast. We finished off the first batch of
muesli and milk, so will need buy more when we come back to Rome tomorrow.
Because today we were leaving early to get a train to the town of Orvieto, in
Umbria. A train left from Roma Tiburtina station at 09:12, and we had to walk to
the Spagna metro station, get a train to Termini, then change metro lines for a
train to Tiburtina. We were only carrying overnight bags, leaving our main
luggage in the apartment in Rome. At Tiburtina, I used a ticket machine to buy
tickets to Orvieto and return tickets for tomorrow. They were cheaper than I
expected at about 8 euro each.

We were at Tiburtina with time to spare, so M. got a coffee there, and then we
went down to the platform to wait for the train. The one before was going to
Venice, and ours was destined for Florence, but we were only going four stops to
Orvieto. The train took us out into the countryside around Rome and north to
Umbria, eventually to Orvieto. Along the way, first the ticket inspector came to
check our tickets. Then later three police officers walked through the train,
checking everyone’s ID. I saw them looking at other passengers’ driving
licences, and when they got to us I said (in Italian) that we were from
Australia and spoke English, and the officer asked in good English to see our
passports. He took photos of them and handed them back. We have no idea what
they were doing, if it was just a random patrol or if they were actually looking
for something.

Orvieto is a medieval hilltop town, built on the remains of an ancient Etruscan
settlement, on top of a large plug of volcanic tuff and pozzolanic ash, rising
about 160 metres above the surrounding plain. The best way to get from the
station into the town, up the hill, is via a funicular railway that operates
every 10 minutes. Or at least it does normally. When we got there it was out of
service and they were running buses to replace it. We bought tickets and crammed
onto a bus with about 70 other people for the 7 or 8 minute journey up the hill.
The bus dropped us at the top funicular station.

From here the first thing we did was walk over to the nearby lookout, which gave
panoramic views across the Umbrian countryside. After taking several photos, we
walked into the centre of the town to find our accommodation. It’s a B&B called
Sant’Angelo 42, easy to find since the address is Via Sant’Angelo 42, behind the
church of Sant’Angelo. A woman greeted us at the door and took photos of our
passports, then showed us to the room. It’s a very nice room, large and with a
very large bathroom, all tiled with red clay tiles.

After dropping our bags we went to explore the town, walking down the main
street to the piazza and then through to the western end of town, where there
was another spectacular view. The town was very quiet, with very few people
about. A few locals, an occasional tourist or two, and that was it. It was
obviously a good time to come here, out of peak season. Compared to the bustle
of Rome, it was a peaceful breath of fresh air. M. spotted a small bakery called
La Nostra Terra, where we bought lunch: a zucchini pizzette for M. and a slice
of pizza with some sort of ham for me. We also got some biscuits, one with
almonds and raisins for me and a couple of tazzetti for M., chocolate and
orange. She said the orange one was really good.

We walked west to the medieval quarter of the town, where there were many old
houses and walls, built on different levels as the narrow cobbled streets
diverged up and down hills. There was another spectacular lookout at the western
end of the town, at the top of a medieval wall that led us around to the south,
over the top of one of the only two roads that led into the town.

In this area we stumbled on the restaurant Le Grotte del Funaro, which was one
of the Orvieto restaurants that Debora had recommended to us. And just a few
metres around a corner we found Mezza Luna, another one she recommended. M.
liked the look of this one, which was lively with people eating a late lunch. I
went in and asked if we could have a dinner reservation, but the staff said they
were fully booked for the evening. The place was small, a single room down a set
of stairs, with room for maybe 20 cramped diners. So we went back to Le Grotte
del Funaro and asked there, securing a dinner booking for 19:30. This place was
also downstairs from street level and looked a lot bigger inside.

We walked around the old medieval wall to the south, getting more views and
picturesque medieval buildings along the way. We ended up in the Piazza del
Duomo, approaching the huge Duomo di Orvieto from a narrow street directly in
front which revealed ever more of the enormous facade as we approached. The
Duomo is simply stunning, ridiculously large for such a small town, and
decorated with rich paintings and gold all over the front facade. The sides are
horizontally striped with alternate layers of white travertine and blue-grey
basalt, which is repeated in the interior walls and columns. Entry was 5 euro
each and worth it to see the magnificent interior with amazing paintings in the
chapel. Many of the windows were thin layers of translucent marble instead of
glass, letting in some light but opaque from the outside. While here I checked
the time for guided tours in English of the Orvieto Underground. The only one in
the afternoon was at 17:15, so we said we’d come back and get tickets later.

We continued walking around the southern side of the town, heading to the Pozzo
di San Patrizio, the Well of Saint Patrick. This was not far from the upper
funicular station where the bus had dropped us. The well is a spectacular
circular shaft descending 53 metres straight down into the rock to reach the
water level. Twin staircases descend into the well in a double helix, designed
that mule teams could go down one staircase, collect water at the bottom, and
ascend via the there staircase in a continuous loop. We walked down 248 steps to
the bottom, and back up 249 steps to the top. I guess the builders were a little
irregular in their step spacing on the two spirals. The views from the arched
windows between the staircases and the well shaft were amazing.

After experiencing the well, we walked around more of the town, exploring some
of the northern parts this time, although they were a bit more modern and not as
interesting as the central areas. This was on the way back to the Piazza del
Duomo to get tickets for our 17:15 tour of the Orvieto Underground.After getting
ticket, we took a few minutes walk to the nearby lookout to the south. The tour
group gathered outside the ticket office to wait for the guide as the sun went
down, bathing the Duomo in sunset light.

Our guide appeared, a lively woman named Cristiana, who led the tour group of 23
people towards the same lookout and there through a gate to a path below the top
of the cliff. She opened another gate into one of the caves, leading into a
large room where she explained the basics of the Orvieto caves. The rock that
Orvieto is on is a mixture of volcanic tuff and pozzolanic ash from ancient
volcanic eruptions. The Etruscans first built a town on top of the hill around
500 BC, excavating many caves below the surface for use as cellars. It was easy
to dig in the soft ash. The town was abandoned for some time and repopulated in
medieval times, and the occupants then excavated further caves, digging cellars
below their houses for various uses such as crushing grapes and olives for wine
and oil, storage, and so on. She said there were around 1200 known caves, and
people kept finding more.

Cristiana led us through a series if connected caves, which had been used for a
very particular purpose. They were just inside the cliff wall and had open
windows which could see out the side of the cliff. Inside the walls were lined
with small niches – literal pigeonholes, where the residents would get pigeons
to nest. The pigeons could fly out to feed themselves and would return to their
nests, giving them free meat. Only the wealthy residents of Orvieto could raise
pigeons like this, and they sold some of the meat to the poorer people. More
modern passages had been dug through to connect several to these caves, and
there were also other rooms used for pressing olive oil and raising and
slaughtering livestock.

We went out of this cave system and along the path a bit further to another cave
system, this one larger, and with more levels. She showed us an Etruscan well,
which was a narrow rectangular shaft, dug by a single worker, with another
worker hauling up the loose ash. The worker cut niches in each side of the shaft
so they could climb with one foot and one hand each on opposite sides of the
shaft. They had to dig these well shafts 90 metres down to reach the water
level, which was just amazing to think about.

After this very cool tour, we returned to our room to rest for a little before
heading out for dinner. We returned to Le Grotte del Funaro and were led through
a system of caves very similar to the ones we’d just toured, although in this
case decorated nicely as a restaurant. We were shown a table in one of the
interior rooms, which had a small window looking out the side of the cliff. The
restaurant looked pretty classy, very different from the noisy vibe of Mezza
Luna.

We ordered appetisers of panzaretti—a sort of terrine of fresh vegetables and
breadcrumbs, dressed with balsamic vinegar and a “special” olive oil described
as having won a 2023 competition for best tasting olive oil—and a dish described
as bocconcini di crepes, which was a crepe rolled around a selection of finely
julienned vegetables dressed to be something like coleslaw, then cut into
bite-sized morsels. These were both good, with the panzaretti being really fresh
and crunchy. For our main courses we both selected the ombrichelli pasta, a sort
of thick, rustic spaghetti with some variation in cross-section. M. had pesto
sauce and I had mine with Orvieto black truffle. M. described hers as the best
pasta she’s ever had in her life! I tried a little and it tasted like it was
loaded with pecorino cheese. The truffle pasta was good, but not the best I’ve
ever had. After this we decided to have dessert. I had apple strudel, which came
with whipped cream and caramel sauce – unusual, but the caramel suited the
apples. M. had tozzetti and vin santo, the classic dessert of Italian biscuits
and a glass of sweet dessert wine to dip them in. Although she really just
wanted the biscuits and let me have the wine.

After dinner we walked slowly back to our room for the night, very full but very
satisfied with an excellent dinner.

Posted on 2023-11-172023-11-17Categories Daily updateTags travelLeave a comment
on Europe diary, day 12: Orvieto


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 11: TRASTEVERE MARKET TOUR

Tuesday 14 November

This morning we had a market walking tour booked at 10:30. So we took the chance
to sleep in a little, then got up and had muesli for breakfast, showered, and
got ready for the day. We walked slowly over to Trastevere, where we’d be
meeting our tour host. This is another thing booked via the same website as last
night’s dinner with Debora.

Before leaving the apartment we dropped in some laundry to be washed at the
laundromat next door. We found it there when we arrived and it’s very handy
being so close. Then we made our way slowly towards Trastevere. M. stopped for
her morning coffee at a bar along the way.

We arrived at Piazza di San Calisto and found the correct door and intercom
buzzer. But ringing it didn’t produce any results. We tried again a couple more
times with no luck. The door was actually open, so we ventured inside, found the
correct door and buzzed there, but again no answer. After eating for a bit, we
decided to call the phone number that came with the booking. I had to activate
my mobile roaming to do so, but it was worth it as our tour host answered and
immediately asked if it was David. I said yes, we were waiting at Piazza di San
Calisto, and she apologised and said she’d made a mistake and was waiting at
another location! She said she had two places where she did market tours and had
gotten mixed up, and she’d come right over if we would wait 15 minutes. So we
waited in the piazza while two men got set up with guitars and an amplifier and
began playing, and many other people walked to and fro.

After a while our host Michela showed up, and again apologised for the delay. We
got right into it and walked over to… the small produce market that we’d visited
ourselves here in Trastevere at Piazza di San Cosimato on Monday last week! Not
that this was a problem, because this time Michela stopped at several stalls
with us and explained the various Italian vegetables and when they were in
season and how to cook them and so on. In particular the artichokes are not
quite in season yet, and there’s been problems with tomatoes and porcini
mushrooms this year because the summer was so rainy. She explained about
broccoletti – a leafy green related to the broccoli family, with a slightly
bitter taste, that goes well with pasta and cheese. We also watched as the stall
holders cut and prepared various vegetables, such as peeling outer petals and
washing artichokes, stripping leaves off broccoletti, and using a wire mesh tool
to slice things into sticks. Michela grabbed a bag of cherry tomatoes for
herself and got us to try one each. She also grabbed us some clementines to try.
She helped M. peel hers while I struggled a little. After eating the sweet,
tangy fruit my hands were covered in the fragrant oil, and Michela rubbed hers
into her own hands and smelled them and declared it beautiful.

From here she led us down a street. She said she’d take us to the best cheese
shop in Trastevere. We stopped at a delicatessen, where we got to try small
pieces of Roman-style pizza – not too big because she didn’t want to fill us up
just yet! M. had one with just tomato sauce on it, while they sliced fresh
porchetta to put on mine. It was salty and delicious. Lastly was a piece of
coppiette, a type of cured pork jerky with chilis. It was very tough and chewy
and very spicy, with a chilli hit that lasted for quite a while. Not bad, but
not really my kind of thing because it was so meaty. But we were wondering if
this was the cheese shop – it had some cheese, but was mostly meats.

But then Michela took us further along and we walked into what was definitely
the cheese shop. The aroma of strong cheeses hit us as we walked in the door and
there were dozens of huge wheels and balls and wedges of cheese arrayed all
around the shop. There were giant cylinders of pecorino, stacked on steel trays
with tall lips. Michela said we could tell they were true pecorino by the black
wax coating, and the steel trays. As the cheeses mature, water drains from them
into the trays, and the cheese loses some weight. So the amount of cheese you
get for the weight varies with the age of the pecorino. She ordered us a tasting
plate of cheeses and salume. There was a mild cheese, some pecorino, and
Parmigiano Reggiano. And for me there were samples of a mild salami, prosciutto,
cinghiale (wild boar) salami, and truffle salami, all of which were pretty nice.

I told Michela I was learning Italian, but having trouble thinking of what to
say quickly, and listening to people speaking rapidly. I needed them to slow
down so I could understand the words. So she very patiently conversed with me
several times throughout the tour in nice, slow Italian, which made it much
easier to understand.

Next we stopped in at a suppli shop called Suppli Roma, selling several
varieties of these deep fried rice balls that are very typical Roman street
food. They also sold pizza slices, but Michela said we had to try the suppli.
For M. there was a choice between cacio e pepe, or cacio e pepe with lemon. I
was intrigued by the carbonara, but Michela recommended the classico, which was
filled with mozzarella and ragu. I also got to try a little of the cacio e pepe
without lemon because Michela had one of those and a piece fell off and she said
I should try it. And then she urged me to try the carbonara as well! She was
covering the costs of all this food, by the way – presumably she had a budget
taken out of the price we’d paid for booking the tour with her. So I tried the
carbonara suppli as well, which was good, with gooey egg yolk in the middle, but
honestly I think I did prefer the classico. By the time we were done here M. and
I were both quite full enough for lunch.

But we weren’t done yet! Michela asked which option we preferred to end the tour
on: tasting some wine, or visiting a gelateria. I knew M. wouldn’t want gelato,
so we chose the wine options. Michela took us to Trapizzino, which is a newish
place serving Roman food with a twist: they make fresh focaccia-like bread, then
cut a corner and stuff it with various traditional Roman dishes: chicken
cacciatore, eggplant parmigiana, meatballs in tomato sauce, beef tongue in salsa
verde. Michela snagged a table for us and recommended some wines, a red
Sangiovese/Syrah blend and a white Malvasia. Too full to try a trapizzino each,
we ordered one eggplant parmigiana one and shared it. The bread was really
delicious, with a thin crunchy crust, and the filling was rich and hearty. The
wines were nice too.

And here Michela wished us well and said goodbye. We sat and watched the world
pass by as we finished our glasses of wine. Very relaxing and a nice way to end
this marvellous food tour. From here we had nothing else planned until our
dinner booking at 19:30. So we slowly wended our way back to the apartment. We
first went back to a clothing shop that M. wanted to revisit in Trastevere, then
made our way to the Ponte Cestio and across to the Isola Tiberina island in the
middle of the Tiber River. There’s not much on this island – a hospital, and the
Basilica di San Bartolomeo all’Isola. We’d gone inside this church on a previous
visit and I recalled there being some worthwhile decorations inside, so we
walked up to see it again, but it was closed.

So we continued on across the Ponte Fabricio, the oldest extant bridge in Rome,
built in 62 BC. Then we walked slowly back north, stopping a few times to look
in shops, churches, and for M. to get a coffee. An item on our to-see list was
the Galleria Sciarra, an Art Nouveau courtyard little known to tourists, despite
being just a few steps from the Trevi Fountain. It is in fact a private
courtyard and so looks like a place you can’t enter, but it is open to the
public during business hours as a passage between two streets. It was beautiful
inside, and indeed empty, with nobody else there to admire the view while we
were there. Exiting the north side we could see the crowds of tourists just a
short block away on the heavily trod trail between the Trevi Fountain and the
Pantheon.

We made our way back to the apartment and rested for a bit before dinner. We had
a booking at Ristorante Laganà, just around the corner from our apartment. We
ordered vegetable antipasti, which was a plate of marinated eggplant, zucchini
slices, red capsicum strips, thinly sliced fennel, cauliflower florets, and I
think what might have been cabbage, though it could easily have been something
else. The waiter brought a pepper grinder and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil
for us to dress the vegetables, or the bread which came with it. There was a
warm flatbread with the starter, and when we’d finished that they brought a
basket of slices of a loaf plus grissini bread sticks. M. had linguini with
tomato and basil sauce, and I had the mixed grilled seafood, which had a piece
of white fish, a large prawn, a scampi, and a chunk of calamari, cooked very
nice and tender. I ordered a side of boiled green leaves (a mix of chicory,
spinach, and something else) to go with the seafood. It was all nice and a good
change from the heavier food we’ve been having a lot of on the trip so far!

We skipped dessert and came back to the apartment for bedtime. I finished off
the crostata that I’d started a couple of nights ago, and which was big enough
for two desserts! Tomorrow we need to get up a little early because we have a
train to catch to Orvieto!

Posted on 2023-11-15Categories Daily updateTags travelLeave a comment on Europe
diary, day 11: Trastevere market tour


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 10: TRIONFALE MARKET AND ITALIAN HOME COOKING

Monday 13 November

We went to bed a little early last night and got up this morning around sunrise
at 07:00. It was muesli for breakfast again. It’s good to have something with
some fibre in it and not so much sugar. The Italian breakfast of a sweet pastry
filled with jam or Nutella is nice for a day or two, but gets too much very
quickly. We didn’t have solid plans for the day, so figured out what to do.

First up we decided to catch the metro from Spagna to San Giovanni to take a
look at two things: the Mercato di Via Sannio flea market, and the Basilica di
San Giovanni in Laterano. We’ve seen these before last time we were in Rome in
2014, but M. wanted to have another look to reinforce the memories and also
check out the market to see if there was anything food there. We tried the
market first, but it was a little empty and not busy, as though half the stalls
were still yet to set up, despite it being an hour after the market opening
time. Maybe some of them take Monday off. Overall it was a bit disappointing and
not as interesting as M. remembered from last time. M. stopped to have a
cappuccino in the same coffee bar that she’d had one last time.

The Basilica on the other hand was impressive all over again. It’s a huge
church, spacious and with a very high ceiling, and splendid marble floors in
intricate designs and multiple colours. We arrived early enough that it was
virtually empty. We had to pass through a security check to get in, but the
x-ray machine wasn’t even switched on and the lady police officer there just
lazily waved us through the metal detector without giving us a second look. As
we wandered around inside for some time, a few more people arrived, and we left
just as a large tour group arrived, so our timing was perfect.

We quickly looked in at the market again on the way back to the metro station,
in case more stalls had opened up, but it was only a few if any, with several
still closed up. So we hopped on a train and rode north again, this time across
the Tiber River to the Ottaviano stop in Prati, north of the Vatican. Here we
explored the neighbourhood briefly as we made our way towards the Mercato
Trionfale. But on the way I had to stop to use a toilet and so we stood in a
coffee bar and had drinks and a small bite to eat: cappuccino and a bite-size
occhio di bue with apricot jam topped with cereal grains for M. and a spremuta
orange juice and occhio with blueberry jam for me. Then after using the toilet
we headed to the market.

The Mercato Trionfale is a large covered market with about 200 stalls selling
fresh produce, meats, fish, cheese, bread, pastries and cakes, pasta, spices,
honey, and other foodstuffs, as well as a few businesses like tailors,
shoemakers, pharmacists, hairdressers, and so on. It was really good, with lots
of interesting and delicious looking things to see. We tried several types of
pecorino at one stall, with truffle, pepper, chilli, and so on.

We bought several things to eat! We got a small bag of toasted almonds and a bag
of vegetable chips. We tried these back at our apartment later and the chips
were delicious – dried slices of potato, pumpkin, carrot, square fingers of
sweet potato, and dried green beans, all very crispy. We also bought a couple of
apples for later too. But then there were the things we bought to eat right
away! We got a few little biscuits and sweets: shortbread biscuits with jam or
Nutella, bite-sized pastries, a pastry filled with mozzarella and chicory for
M., and little pizzette topped with tomato paste or potato, and I had one topped
with caramelised onion and pulled pork which was really delicious. And after
we’d browsed around to see everything the market had to offer, we stopped at a
bakery for some pizza al taglio. We selected a slice topped with potato, which
the woman warmed up in a mini oven for us. We sat and shared it on stools
against the wall, as a queue formed and the place bustled with people ordering
slices non-stop. There were a few other places in the market selling pizza but
this one was clearly the busiest, so presumably it was a good one. The potato
pizza was really delicious.

From the market we began walking back to our apartment. We chose a different
route, passing through St Peter’s Square at the Vatican again, since it was
close and my walking tracker app hadn’t registered that I’d been in the Vatican
City last time. I wanted to make sure it did so, because that unlocks a
traveller achievement for another whole country! What a reason to make a detour.

We rested back in the apartment for a couple of hours before heading out for our
dinner booking. I’d organised a surprise for M. by booking a dining evening with
a local host, who would cook dinner for us in her own home. The address was in
the Prati area, just north of Cipro metro station, not too far from where we’d
been this morning at the Trionfale market. We walked towards it by a different,
shorter route, through more of the Prati shopping area. At the Ponte Umberto I
across the Tiber, we picked up a large group of young people, early 20s, maybe
university students, all walking together in the same direction as us. We were
stuck in the middle of this cloud of students for several blocks, and wondered
where they were all going. I said they must be going to a rave, and M. said I
sounded like an old person!

The main street of Prati looked like a very nice shopping area for fashion and
things like that. M. stopped in at a place called Be Curious and bought a
sparkly dress with a geometric pattern in shades of brown. Everything here in
the fashion stores is brown at the moment. Clearly the fashionistas have decided
that this season’s colours are brown, brown, and more brown. We had left with
plenty of time to get to our dinner destination, so we dawdled a bit and browsed
in shops, yet still found ourselves near the area around Cipro with almost half
an hour to spare. So we added a few extra blocks to our meandering.

M. noticed that the area was getting distinctly less commercial and more
residential, with apartment blocks everywhere. She started to get concerned
about where I was taking her for dinner and asked me to spit the surprise. I
told her about the dinner with a local host and she was excited. We showed up at
the address a few minutes early, and didn’t want to commit an Italian faux pas
by buzzing the door any earlier than the appointed time, so we waited a few
minutes. Then as we approached the door, another couple walked up and asked if
we were doing the EatWith dining, and we said yes. The booking said it could be
up to ten people dining, so I expected we might have some others joining us. It
turned out they were the only ones and there were four of us plus our host.

We went up to the fourth floor of the apartment building in a tiny lift that
barely fit the four of us inside. Debora, our host for the evening, welcomed us
at the door and took our coats, then we had introductions. The other couple were
Chester and Mary from Korea, on their honeymoon. They’d arrived in Rome at
midnight less than 24 hours before, were fighting jet lag, and tomorrow they had
to be up and at Termini station by 06:20 for a gruelling day trip to the Amalfi
Coast! We said that one our first trip to Italy we did crazy stuff like that,
but now we were a lot more relaxed.

Debora’s home was beautiful inside, very spacious, with a large kitchen along a
wall facing a large dining table which was laid at one end for the four of us.
But first she asked us to sit in the lounge area, and brought nibbles of
focaccia with tomato sauce and offered white or red wine. After a bit of an
introductory chat we moved to the dining table, where Debora alternately chatted
and turned to the kitchen bench to prepare the food for us.

The first dish was eggplant caponata, chopped with olives, lemon, and perhaps
something else, left to develop flavours overnight, and topped with a sprinkle
of chopped almonds to serve. Next was ravioli, filled with a pecorino stuffing,
and served with pepper and diced pears – a fresh twist on the classic Roman
cacio e pepe pasta. The main dish was a swordfish terrine, made with capers,
raising, and breadcrumbs, topped with a spicy sauce made mostly of red capsicum,
with romanesco broccoli on the side. For M. Debora made a vegetarian zucchini
flan instead. And to finish, there was tiramisu for dessert, except for me she
made a lemon cream topped with pistachio for me as I don’t do coffee at all.

During the meal we learnt that Debora had worked as a chef for a few years
before giving up on working in a restaurant and moving to this home dinner
hosting thing. All of the food she made was very good. She made the ravioli
herself, with a mix of half flour and half semolina. She said it didn’t need a
sauce on it because ravioli is all about the stuffing, and she didn’t like it
when people put loads of tomato sauce on ravioli. She was an excellent host,
serving the for, explaining the ingredients and how she made it, and why she
chose those dishes, using seasonal ingredients and her own twist on classic
Italian cooking styles from various regions of the Italy, and topping up our
wine glasses. And she talked about the differences in food culture between
countries, and was very fascinated with insights on Korean cuisine that Chester
talked about. Debora said that breakfast was very different in Italy: people
stand at the counter in a coffee bar and have a coffee and a cornetto and it
costs 3.50 euro and it’s very quick: “Italians have breakfast in four minutes!
Maybe three!”

The dinner was leisurely and enjoyable, but that meant it went fairly late.
Debora’s adult son came home later in the evening and said hello to us. He
apologised that he hadn’t been able to join us for dinner because he’d been
playing a soccer match. It was approaching 23:00 when Chester said that they
needed to leave so they could get up for their day trip in the morning. We said
our goodbyes and M. presented Debora with a little toy koala that we’d brought
from home.

We had earlier thought we’d have the option of hopping on the metro from Cipro
to Spagna and having a shorter walk home, but the metro is stopping at 21:00
every night at the moment because of maintenance. So we walked all the way,
choosing the most direct route. We got home and it was almost midnight by the
time we were ready to sleep.

Posted on 2023-11-152023-11-15Categories Daily updateTags food, travelLeave a
comment on Europe diary, day 10: Trionfale market and Italian home cooking


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 9: FOOD SHOPPING, WALKING TOUR OF MONTI

Sunday 12 November

I woke up a bit early but M. slept in until after 08:00. We had leisurely
breakfast (the muesli we bought yesterday on the way to the apartment) and
showers. The shower stall is so narrow that I couldn’t raise my leg to wash my
foot like I normally do, and had to kneel down on the floor instead.

First up this morning we went to the market in Campo de’ Fiori to buy some fresh
vegetables for cooking our own dinners. I searched for other farmers’ markets or
fresh produce markets, but all of the ones near here were closed on Sunday. We
walked down to the Campo via Piazza Navona, which wasn’t too busy that early in
the morning. At Campo de’ Fiori we found a vegetable stall and selected a
romanesco broccoli, an eggplant, an onion, a couple of tomatoes, and a couple of
apples. The woman looked askance at the tomatoes and pinched off some stalks of
fresh basil to add to the bag, free of charge. Clearly you can’t buy tomatoes in
Rome without getting basil as well! We looked for fresh chilis, but none of the
stalls seemed to have any. I also bought a small chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano
cheese from a cheese vendor. I tried asking if he could cut a small piece,
explaining that we’re only in Rome for a week and will only be cooking two or
three times, but it seemed all the cheese was pre cut and wrapped and they
wouldn’t cut chunks to demand. But the second cheese seller I approached had one
smaller chunk wrapped in cling wrap in the display and I asked if I could have
that, so he sold it to me.

M. stopped to have a coffee at a cafe-bar and said it was really good. We walked
back past the Pantheon, and I tried again to duplicate the photo of M. standing
in front of it that we took in 2001:



and again in 2012, eleven years to the day later:



We’re here again eleven years later again, but not to the day, alas, as those
photos were both taken in April. I used the old 2001 photo on my phone as a
reference and think I was standing in pretty much exactly the same spot. It was
difficult in 2012 because they’d put giant concrete flower boxes in the spot to
act as traffic barriers, but this time they were gone again, so that was good.

I popped into a supermarket near the Pantheon to get some eggs and also some
shower gel/shampoo for use in the shower. I looked again for chilis, but they
didn’t have any either. Very weird. That was all we needed because I’d checked
the kitchen cupboards before we left and found some essentials: olive oil, salt,
pepper, white wine vinegar, Nestlé Quik chocolate powder, and… a can of tuna for
some reason. I dropped the food at the apartment while M. went back to a
clothing shop to buy the vest that she had her eye on before we went to Finland.
Then she brought that back to the apartment as well and we decided what to do
for the day. We wanted to take it a bit easy, and I found a walking tour of
Monti in the Lonely Planet guidebook of Rome, which we thought would be good.

We set out walking over that way to the south-east, taking streets we hadn’t
explored before and enjoying the sights along the way as we meandered across the
city. On the way we stopped at Antica Trattoria Due Colonne for lunch, getting
panini. M. had a caprese filling while I tried a sausage and chicory. The
caprese had heaps of mozzarella and she removed a bit to share with me, and I
added it to my sandwich. The sausage meat was a flat patty, served hot with
wilted chicory leaves. They were pretty good.

We continued on to Monti, passing behind the back side of Trajan’s Forum on the
way. The walking tour took us along streets in the blocks east of Via dei
Serpenti (the Street of Snakes!), where there were many shops and food places
and interesting things to look at. Some of them were closed for Sunday, but
enough were open that it was interesting to stop and check them out. I grabbed
some gelato from Gelateria dell’Angeletto. I picked a cup size that I thought
would be good for two flavours, and chose the cheesecake with raspberry and the
ricotta and chocolate. But the guy insisted I choose a third flavour, even when
I told him two flavours would be fine. So I quickly picked banana and he added a
third spatula-load on top. They were all very good.

We stopped in at Antico Forno ai Serpenti (Ancient Oven of the Snakes!) and
grabbed some sweet bites. M. had a biscotto with chocolate chips, while I had a
sfogliatella, with crispy layers of pastry around a custardy filling. We ended
up finishing the walking tour at Bookàbar, a book store hidden inside the lower
level of a huge building, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. This is a strange
place, with exits from the book store leading into a basement warren of square
tunnels that house a cafeteria and toilets and exhibition spaces. M. felt like
another coffee so we explored around a block to find a likely place and stopped
at a small cafe-bar that we stumbled across. M. said it was fine, but not as
good as the morning coffee.

We were near the Quirinale Gardens, and decided to see if we could go have a
look at those. We’ve never seen them on previous visits, and it’s never been
clear to me how to get access to them, as they are on a hilltop and all of the
surrounding streets seem to be many metres below the garden, facing impenetrable
walls that give no access to the garden above. We walked around about 75% of the
perimeter, but found no way to get in. Looking it up after we returned to the
apartment I found that the only way in is through the Palazzo Quirinale, which
we didn’t go past. But it’s not open on Sundays or Mondays, so we wouldn’t have
been able to go in today anyway.

We wended our way back to the apartment slowly, taking different streets to
explore more. On the way past the Antico Forno bakery I stopped in to get a loaf
of bread to have with out dinner. They were big loaves but the price was listed
per kilo and I saw one cut in half, so I asked for a half loaf, which the man
was happy to give me. We arrived back a bit before 17:00.

M. suggested we could find a wine bar or something to have a drink before
cooking dinner for ourselves tonight. I searched and found Vinoteca 900 just a
few blocks away, which opened at 17:00. We actually went about half an hour
after that, and found the place empty. Clearly that’s too early for pre-dinner
drinks when most of the restaurants don’t even open until 19:30 or 20:00. We had
a glass of red wine each. M. requested something light and dry, and the server
suggested a wine and had me taste it. I asked M. if she wanted to taste it, but
she said she trusted me. I thought it was good and the sort of wine she’d like,
so had the server pour her a glass. I chose a Nebbiolo for myself, which was
also pretty good. The wines came with a complimentary plate of nibbles: taralli,
olives with small pieces of preserved lemon, and salted peanuts, all in tiny
bowls on a long oval plate, with another empty bowl for the olive pits.

As we nibbled and drank, one of the staff put on a live soccer match, Lazio
versus Roma. All the staff plus some men who just seemed to hang around outside
the bar watching the TV screen were transfixed by it, and cheered when Roma
apparently scored a goal, but the referee disallowed it for some reason that was
entirely unclear to me. Three ladies sat at a table outside and ordered wine as
well, the only other customers to arrive before we left to head home. On the way
we stopped in at Antico Forno once again to get some dessert for me. We got a
slice of the crostata, which the sign said had frutta secca (dried fruit).

At the apartment, I chopped up the vegetables we’d bought this morning and
cooked a frittata, with fresh basil leaves and shavings of Parmigiano on top. It
took some preparation and was tricky juggling the minuscule amount of kitchen
space to organise. When it was ready I had to call M. to come grab her plate to
make space, while I had my hands full serving my own plate with no flat surface
left to put it down on. The result was pretty good though, with lovely fresh
bread sliced and drizzled with olive oil.

Later as I typed up this diary entry I tried the crostata. I’m not sure about
dried fruit as such, but it was rich with walnuts and had a layer of raspberry
jam on the bottom and apricot on top of the nuts. Very sweet, but delicious. I
only ate half and will save the other half for another night.

Posted on 2023-11-132023-11-13Categories Daily updateTags travelLeave a comment
on Europe diary, day 9: food shopping, walking tour of Monti


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 8: TRAVEL DAY, TAMPERE TO HELSINKI TO ROME

Saturday 11 November

I’ve figured out why Finns like saunas so much. It’s not for the heat, it’s for
the humidity. The cold air outside is humid with the rain, but the temperature
is so much warmer indoors that the relative humidity is very low, and it’s
playing havoc with my sinuses and mucus membranes. I was sniffling with a
scratchy nose during the night and it’s a bit uncomfortable.

Today was another travel day. We got up about 06:30 and had breakfast, then
prepared to leave our apartment accommodation in Tampere. We washed the dishes,
stripped the bed linen, and placed all the linen and towels on the bathroom
floor as instructed. We also had to take the garbage out, and the instructions
said the bins were found in the apartment courtyard. I went out to find them and
had to search a bit to locate the courtyard. I out plastic into a recycling bin,
but the paper and general garbage were supposed to go into huge rectangular
things like giant garbage skips – except they had heavy metal lids and were
hooked up to power, apparently to open and close the lids hydraulically. There
were a series of buttons on the side and instructions… in Finnish. I tried a few
things but nothing worked. Eventually I noticed a handle on the general bin and
tried using that to force the lid open, which managed to do the trick. I tossed
the rubbish in, but then had to figure out how to close the lid as it was now
too far away to reach. But I spotted a rope attached to it and used that to pull
the lid down and closed again.

That task done, we checked we’d packed everything and left the apartment,
leaving the key on the dining table. We walked over to the train station and
bought tickets to Helsinki. I tried using the ticket machine to select seats
next to each other, but every single window seat on the train was booked, except
for some in the first class cabin which would have cost extra. So we ended up
with seats across the aisle from each other again. But when the train pulled
out, the window seat next to M. was still empty, and the first stop was over an
hour away, so I moved over. But I noticed a weird smell there, which was
unpleasant. I went for a walk around the carriage, going downstairs to a section
that was for passengers travelling with dogs. Down there were plenty of seats
free. M. checked them out and suggested we move down there, which we did, and it
was much more pleasant away from the weird smell. M. said she thought it was the
guy sitting in the seat in front of us. Anyway, I’m glad we moved.

The trip was just over 1.5 hours long, with only a couple of stops in the
suburbs of Helsinki before depositing us at Helsinki central station. We found a
luggage storage room and left our bags there for a few euro. The lockers were
self-operated using an electronic system, and we had a ticket with a QR code to
open the locker when we got back.

We walked out of the station and down the main street towards the park. The day
was very dim and grey, but thankfully no rain, and a few degrees warmer than
Tampere but still very cold. Shops were just opening as it had just turned
10:00. Many were decorated for Christmas, and there were many trees with lights
in the streets. On our way back to the station later we saw workers hanging
large wire-frame baubles with lights on cables above the street.

After turning the gentle corner into the park and walking down that a bit we
decided it was more interesting to walk along the street shopfronts. M. stopped
at a patisserie and we got some snacks. She got a gingerbread pastry and I had
one with lingonberries. Both were delicious. We continued walking to the end of
the park, where there was an open plaza on the waterfront, with several market
stalls selling wooden and fabric crafts, souvenirs, clothing, and so on. There
were some stalls selling hot food, and these had small marquees erected with
tables and chairs inside so people could eat out of the cold. I went into one to
have a look and it was warm inside. One stall was selling salmon soup, which M.
said was a Finnish specialty and that I should try it somewhere, but we were
full from the pastries, so I didn’t, even though it sounds good.

It started to rain lightly and we put our umbrellas up. We walked back along the
other side of the street, stopping in a souvenir shop to get out of the cold for
a bit. Among the usual sort of souvenir stuff they had a display full of amber
jewellery, and also some amber dice. They looked cool, and not too expensive, so
I bought half a dozen to use for games. M. stopped in a craft shop to look
around and bought some small souvenir items to give to people back home. The
whole time we were in that shop, several minutes, there was a lady serving a
customer, sitting in front of a mirror, with multiple layers of cloth of
different colours laid over her shoulders. The assistant was talking rapidly in
Finnish, presumably about the colour matching with the customer’s complexion and
eyes and hair or whatever, and then switching the coloured fabrics to show how
they coordinated.

Further along we stopped at a cafe for M. to get some coffee. It was busy with
people having late breakfasts and there was a huge buffet of stuff. We realised
this cafe was part of a hotel. We went to use the toilets one at a time, and
finding them a maze of navigation, going along some corridors, downstairs, and
through more twisty corridors. After finishing her coffee, we left to walk back
to the station and reclaim our luggage. Then we just had to work out how to get
to the airport.

We found some green ticket machines, and I searched for the airport as a
destination, only for the machine to tell me that tickets to the airport could
be bought from the blue ticket machines. The green machines are for long
distance trains and the blue ones for commuter services. The problem was there
were no blue machines anywhere in sight. We had to search for them, and found
some out near the platforms. We got tickets and then walked out to the platform
for the next train to the airport. It stopped at several stops on the way,
taking just over half an hour to get there.

At the airport we went straight in through the security check, which had no
queues. Then we stopped at a cafe that had some nice looking sandwiches and
other things. M. got a rye sandwich with cheese and egg and salad, while I had a
spicy falafel bowl, which included some fruit salad on the side. When I bought
them, the woman behind the counter asked if I’d like dressing for the falafel
bowl. I said yes and she said they had peanut butter, tahini, or lemon dressing.
I chose the tahini, and she poured some from a container into a fancy porcelain
milk jug for me. In fact, the whole decor of the cafe was a bit grandmother’s
living room, with my falafel salad in a fancy porcelain bowl, and lots of
flowers and frilly things around. They also had some amazing looking cakes, with
mounds of pink icing and stuff like that.

To pass the time we both went off individually to look around for a bit.
Eventually we moved over to the departure gate for our flight to Rome. The plane
was parked outside the windows and it looked even smaller than the one we’d come
to Helsinki on. It’s an Embraer ERJ-190. On the previous flight we had seats in
row 40-something, most of the way down the back. This time we are in row 13, and
I thought we’d be right up the front of the plane, but it turns out we’re about
halfway back. Once again we enjoyed the complimentary blueberry juice on board,
and had a pack of Pringles that we’d brought all the way from Australia to snack
on during flights.

The sun went down as the plane crossed Europe towards Italy. We landed, exited
the airport, and once again got tickets for the Leonardo Express to Termini
Station – after wrestling with a recalcitrant ticket machine in the airport
terminal that refused to give two people in front of us tickets, and also
refused to accept my credit card for payment. I tried again at a machine closer
to the station and that worked smoothly. The train to Termini ran pretty slowly,
and arrived something like 15 minutes later than it should have.

This time, at Termini we went down to the Metro lines and caught a train three
more stops to Spagna, the closest stop to our new accommodation. From here we
walked down Via dei Condotti towards our apartment for the next week. We tried
to book the same apartment that we stayed in when in Rome in 2012, but it didn’t
seem to be available any more. But I managed to find another one just a block or
two away, in the area north of the Pantheon.

We located the door on a small, dark alley, and had to use the torch on our
phones to see the labels on the door buzzer to find which one would let us in.
Inside was pitch dark until we located the light switch, again using the torch.
At the apartment door was a lock box with the key inside, and I entered the
combination in our check-in email and after some fiddling with the metal gate
that is in front of the wooden door, managed to get us inside. The apartment is
nice. A little rustic, but in a nice antique sort of way, rather than tired and
run down. There’s an ornamental electric fireplace that just looks pretty and
apparently doesn’t provide any heat at all.

After dropping our things, we ventured out for dinner, it being just after 20:00
by now. It turns out that one of the restaurants we grabbed a business card from
earlier in the week, thinking we should go there one night, is literally just
around the corner from where we are staying! So we tried that first, Ristorante
Laganà, but got rejected without a reservation. So we continued the half block
or so to Ristorante Pizzeria La Segrete. Here we got a table right away in the
tiny dining room – they also had many tables set up on the street outside.

We ordered some bruschetta semplice (i.e. garlic bread), a pizza margherita for
M., and a pizza “La Segrete” for me, which had Italian sausage and mixed
vegetables on it, mainly zucchini, eggplant, red capsicum, and mushrooms. The
pizzas were pretty good, with paper thin crusts. After paying the bill we went
for a walk to Gelateria della Palma. I got a cup which I assumed would hold two
flavours, but the guy serving me kept asking me for more flavours until I had
four: sesame and honey, crunchy black cherry, hazelnut, and pistachio.

From here we walked back slowly to our apartment. Passing by Laganà again, I
popped in and made a dinner booking for us for Tuesday night. Once back in the
apartment we prepped for sleep. We’ve moved an hour back in time zones again, so
it feels later than it is, and perhaps we’re likely to wake up early tomorrow,
although we feel very tired so hopefully we can use the time to grab an extra
hour of sleep!

Oh, and the weather in Rome is thankfully warmer and more humid than in Tampere!
My nose feels much better.

Posted on 2023-11-12Categories Daily updateTags travel1 Comment on Europe diary,
day 8: travel day, Tampere to Helsinki to Rome


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 7: MUSEUMS AND BREWERY

Friday 10 November

We woke up around 04:00 but went back to sleep. I was wake about 07:00 but M.
snoozed until almost 08:00. I got up and had breakfast before heading out to
this morning’s meeting session. The weather had changed overnight, getting a
couple of degrees warmer with a light rain and some wind. Still chillingly cold
though!

The meeting began with technical sessions on low light camera performance,
digital camera specifications (a revision to update definitions of pixel-related
terms), ISO DNG, and autofocus repeatability. After these we moved on to the
closing administrative material, discussing the exact dates of the next meeting
on Tokyo. This was complicated by the desire to have an International Colour
Consortium meeting in conjunction the days prior to the ISO meeting, which
pushed things into the Emperor’s Birthday holiday in Japan, making the Japanese
delegates very upset. So there was some schedule juggling to be done. Then it
was into summaries of all the ad hoc discussions, action items, and editing and
adoption of meeting resolutions.

The meeting paused for lunch and I just grabbed a cheese sandwich on a type of
rye bread roll from the restaurant downstairs in the conference building –
something light because I knew I’d be meeting M. soon afterwards and we’d go to
the Tampere Market Hall so I could experience it, and try some of the snacks on
offer there. Also I didn’t fancy venturing outside today in the rain.

For dinner tonight I tried booking the brewery Plevna, which only accepted
bookings by phone or email. They emailed back and said they only had a 20:00
slot available, which was a bit late for us. So I fell back to our other
possible choice, the bistro Kattila, and booked that online for 19:00.

The meeting wrapped up a bit before 14:00. I headed back to the apartment, via
the shoe repair guy. Again I used Google Translate to prepare a message for him,
saying that my other shoe had suffered the same fate and that I thought it must
be the cold weather doing it, because it never gets this cold in Sydney. He
nodded sagely and took my shoe to repair while I waited. As I sat, with one bare
sock on my right foot, a man walked in and started talking to the owner in
Finnish as the owner worked on my shoe. He paused his work to come and speak to
the man, who took of his own right shoe and showed him. His sole was peeling off
just like mine! The shoe man took the shoe and told the customer to sit on the
seat next to me, then returned to finish working on my shoe. The other customer
spoke to me in English, saying that the owner had told him I was from Australia.
So we chatted for a few minutes until the cobbler reappeared with my fixed shoe.
Today he charged me 15 euro, probably because after I gave him my shoe he
applied minimal effort and the entire sole peeled away, resulting in an even
worse state than yesterday’s shoe. Anyway, now at least my shoes are fixed and
should hopefully survive to the end of the trip.

M. met me at the apartment and we walked off together through the light rain to
the Tampere Market Hall, where M. showed me around, pointing out her favourite
stalls where she had bought snacks and meals in the past three days. One of the
stallholders recognised her and M. said she’d brought me to try some of the
things. I was hungry because I only had a light lunch. I chose a small
potato-filled pastry, a rounded bun filled with meat and rice, and a kind of
cross between a Danish and a bagel, filled with quark cheese and apple jam. I
ate the savouries, then we wandered around the whole market hall so I could see
everything, and then we paused to eat the sweet pastry, and M. grabbed one with
just apple jam as well from a different stall. The place had dozens of food
stalls, selling bread, pastries, cakes, chocolates, fruit, vegetables, meat,
fish, cheese. And there were also small cafes and restaurants scattered among
them. It was a nice place and you could easily spend an afternoon there grazing
on things.

We decided to set off to a museum to spend the rest of the afternoon. I’d
located what looked like a complex of six different museums in one area and
thought that would be good. We walked north and over a new bridge across the
river, this one showing off a torrent as water spilled from the lake to the
north of the city down some rapids towards the lower river near the bridge
further south. Across here we found the Museokeskus Vapriikki, which turned out
to be multiple small “museums” in one building, covered by a single entrance
fee. Normally it cost 15 euro, but on Fridays after 15:00 entry was free! And
since it was about 15:20 when we arrived, this was great!

We left our coats and hats and gloves and scarves and umbrellas in the coat room
area, putting the smaller things in a free locker which had Marilyn Monroe on
the door. Most of the lockers were plain, but about one in every twenty or so
had an interesting picture on it. We made our way through the various exhibits,
the first being the Postal Museum, a historical museum tracing the development
of the Finnish postal service, from runners and horse-drawn carts, through boats
that crossed the Gulf of Bothnia from Finland to Sweden by a combination of sled
runners across the sea ice and sailing where the ice broke up, to modern day
postal services.

Next was the Finnish Museum of Games, which concentrated on the history of video
games, but also included board games. One room held about 20 vintage arcade game
cabinets such as Pong, Defender, Donkey Kong, all rigged up for free play, plus
a couple of pinball machines. I played some Defender and a pinball machine.
There were several displays of Finnish origin games, including Mordheim,
Eclipse, and the roleplaying game Lamentations of the Flame Princess. There were
dozens of other video games including hand-held games and console games, all
rigged up for play. There were also a series of rooms decorated like teenager
bedrooms in various decades, with decade-appropriate video games set up in them
– these were pretty cool.

Upstairs on the 3rd floor was the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame, which contained
lots of ice hockey memorabilia, including three World Championship trophies that
Finland had won, and several Finnish national championship trophies. There were
a lot of uniforms and gear from famous players. And there was an area walled off
with plexiglass which you could go inside and play a virtual ice hockey
challenge. There were sticks and a puck, and a screen with video of a goal and
goalkeeper that you had to try and hit the puck into to score. In five attempts,
I didn’t score any goals! Next was target challenge, where you tried to hit a
target on the screen. M. had one of the shots and managed to hit the target! But
I failed in all four of my attempts. And finally there was a single shot speed
check, where you had to try to hit the puck as fast as you could. I scored 38
miles per hour, which is probably measly compared to anyone who had ever held an
ice hockey stick for the first time more than 3 minutes earlier like me.

Next was Finlayson 200, a history of the Finlayson company which produced
textiles and fabrics in a factory in this area of Tampere from 1820. It showed
many samples of patterns and textiles produced there, plus historical weaving
machines and a very cool scale model of the factory building, through the small
windows of which you could see models of the workers and machines and video
projections of some of the workers moving around doing their jobs.

Downstairs again to the second floor and the Natural History Museum, a small
series of displays of wildlife from the region. Next to this was a small exhibit
called Fantastic Failure, which was mostly about the Nokia N-Gage, a failed
attempt by Nokia to market a hand-held gaming device to rival Nintendo’s
offerings around 2003. This was pretty col in a seriously retro way. And the
last exhibit was about the history of radio and audio, from crystal sets to
podcasts.

Done with this fascinating museum, we decided to head to the Plevna brewery
where we’d tried but failed to make a dinner booking for tonight. M. was keen to
try their blackcurrant cider, while I wanted to try Finlands most awarded beer,
their Siperia stout. We walked in and grabbed a small table near the bar which
was designated for self-bar-service, as opposed to the waited tables elsewhere.
I grabbed the drinks, and also a bowl of peanuts to snack on as we drank. Both
of the drinks were very good. We relaxed and passed the time until it was close
to 19:00, and time to walk over to dinner.

Our booking was at Kattila, a stylish and cozy bistro, across the street from
the cafe Kaffila where we’d had hot chocolate and cake last night. The ambience
was a little bit French, but M. went Italian with a limoncello spritz and
pappardelle pasta with pumpkin puree and seeds, while I had some French Syrah
wine and the reindeer shank with root vegetables and potato mash with gruyere
cheese. We also started with some focaccia sticks with beetroot dip and creme
fraiche. The food was excellent.

After eating we walked home in the steady drizzle and turned in for the night.
We pack in the morning and check out before heading to Helsinki for our flight
back to Rome.

Posted on 2023-11-11Categories Daily update2 Comments on Europe diary, day 7:
Museums and brewery


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 6: TECHNICAL TOPICS AND IMAGING DEMOS

Thursday 9 November

I have terrible luck with shoes overseas. Yesterday the pair I brought here
developed one sole in the process of peeling off from the heel. It’s been making
a rubbery flapping noise every time I take a step, and was slowly getting worse
as the sole progressively peels away from the rest of the shoe. This exact thing
has happened at least twice on other overseas trips.

I woke up a bit early this morning, but not as bad as yesterday. M. got a better
sleep. We got up just after 07:00 and had breakfast. At 08:30 we left, me
heading for my meetings and M. for a cafe for her morning coffee.

Today’s meeting was packed with diverse technical sessions, after yesterday’s
marathon on HDR images. Today we discussed image information capacity (using
Shannon information theory to measure the signal to noise ratio across an
image), depth metrology (characterising depth image cameras), angle-dependent
image flare (measuring lens flare caused by light sources outside the field of
view of the camera), removable memory (revising a current standard to deal with
the fact that camera technology has moved on from removable memory), and
vocabulary (revising the list of technical camera-related definitions to update
old definitions and add new ones as technology changes).

For the lunch break, I went back to the same Turkish place as yesterday since it
was so good. The woman remembered me from yesterday and welcomed me back with a
hearty greeting. This time I had the falafel plate instead of the chicken, and
it was just as good.

Despite the load of topics, the meeting wrapped up just before 15:00 today,
because we had a special event planned for the afternoon. We had to make our way
to the Finlayson neighbourhood, which is all old warehouses and industrial
buildings, converted into restaurants and tech companies. One was hosting a mini
imaging industry event, to which we were all invited.

But on the way back to the apartment to pick up M. I stopped off at a shoe
repair place that I’d found by searching online. It was right next door to the
restaurant where we’d picked up the key to the apartment, and so on the way. I
had some stereotypical idea of an old Finnish cobbler who didn’t speak English,
so I prepared by translating a few sentences explaining my predicament into
Finnish using Google Translate. It was fortunate that I did, because the shop
was indeed run by an old Finnish man who didn’t speak English. I showed him the
translation on my phone, which explained that these were the only pair of shoes
I had with me on this trip, so I needed either to buy some glue or to get a
quick repair done while I waited. He examined my shoe and held up two fingers,
saying “two minutes”. It ruined out to take maybe 10 minutes as I waited,
thinking we were going to be late for the industry event. He did a bang-up job
on the shoe though, for 10 euro.

I collected M. from the apartment and we headed to the event. We got a little
lost in the building, climbing the stairs from the ground floor to what we
thought was the first floor, but turned out to be the second. So we rode back
down a floor in the lift. I think ended up on a kind of mezzanine level, half a
floor above the ground level. From there we were confused as to where to go
until we spotted signs pointing to an imaging event, which sounded right.
Following these we entered a conference room area, where women at the door asked
us to sign in on a list if invitees. I couldn’t find my name there, and we had
to explain that we were ISO delegates invited by Ari to this event. This got an
“ah!” of understanding and they handed us a blank sheet to write our names and
affiliations on.

I hadn’t quite known what this event was going to be, and was a little surprised
at all this. We entered room with about a hundred people sitting watching a
presentation, and hovered near the back until someone brought us a couple of
high stool chairs to sit on. The presentation was a series of 5-10 minute
presentations given by people from various local imaging tech companies and
university institutes here in Tampere. Most had brought demos of their
technology, which were set up in a series of small rooms off the main room, and
where we could go play with the demos after the talks were over.

But when the talks were done they first had some entertainment! An improv comedy
group named Okay 10 performed for about half an hour, doing a series of 6 or 7
different improv pieces. The group was two men and a woman, with one man playing
guitar for a few of the skits. He did a whole improv song, using title and word
prompts from the audience – the song was named “Nimble Swimming” and when they
requested a musical style someone yelled out “jazz!”, so the guy said, ah yes,
he’d do it “in the well-known jazz guitar style”. He started singing and the
woman occasionally called out audience words that she’d collected while the
singer wasn’t listening. He was really good and the song was hilarious. This was
the highlight of several good sketches.

After the comedy, we had a stand up buffet dinner, with mixed vegetables, potato
rösti, braised beef cheek, braised pork, and falafel patties with spicy tomato
sauce, along with beers and wines. The food was pretty good, with the beef
cheeks delicious and tender. We filled up, and also went and tried a Microsoft
HoloLens at one of the demos, which was fun.

Full of free food, we departed to head back to the apartment. But M. suggested
stopping at a cafe for cakes and hot chocolate. It was still very early, just
after 18:00, as the buffet had started at 17:00. M. led us to the cafe Kaffila.
We passed three or four other cafes on the way which I pointed out, but M. said
they didn’t “look cozy”. I saw what she meant when we arrived at Kaffila, which
definitely had that “cozy” vibe. I ordered M. a large hot chocolate and asked
the woman behind the counter about the cakes. I had my eye on what looked like a
lemon cheesecake, but the adjacent cake with layers of cream looked intriguing
too. She said the first was a pear cheesecake, which sounded good and I wanted
to try it, right up until she said the other was a carrot cake and “that’s my
favourite”. Well, the staff favourite had to be tried, so that’s what I had. It
was indeed a very good carrot cake, with layers of cream filling.

Now truly stuffed, we headed back to the apartment for the night. The only issue
outstanding is that when in the shoe repair place the man asked about my other
shoe and I assured him it was fine. But… as I was leaving with my newly fixed
left shoe, I noticed the heel on my right shoe starting to peel off… M. cracked
up laughing when I told her this and said I’d have to go back and get the guy to
fix the other shoe tomorrow.

Posted on 2023-11-10Categories Daily updateTags standards, travel1 Comment on
Europe diary, day 6: technical topics and imaging demos


EUROPE DIARY, DAY 5: ISO MEETING BEGINS

Wednesday 8 November

Again we had a bit of trouble sleeping fully through the night and were awake
around 05:00. We got up just after 06:00 and had breakfast – the muesli we
bought last night.

With time to spare, we decided to take a walk together over to the Tampere
Market Hall, a covered market with various food stalls. M. was planning to visit
later, perhaps for lunch, and wanted to get her bearings and figure out where it
was relative to our apartment. We rugged up heavily for the cold outside, with
our newly purchased thermal underclothes, then regular clothes, a heavy coat,
scarves, beanie, and thick gloves. We ventured out at 07:45, still almost half
an hour before sunrise, though the sky was lightening with twilight behind thick
overcast. There were several other people walking around, also rugged up against
the cold.

We crossed the swift-flowing and extremely cold-looking river, walking across a
bridge that looks like it extends into a main street of the city, with many
shops lining the sides. The Market Hall was just a couple of blocks past the
bridge. Having found it, we backtracked the same way so M. could remember the
route.

After stopping back at the apartment, I grabbed my backpack with laptop and
headed off to the Tampere Technopolis conference centre for the first day of my
ISO Photography meetings. It’s just a few blocks away, and I passed a nice old
church that I paused to take photos of along the way. The Technopolis is right
next to the huge Nokia Arena ice hockey stadium. And we actually have a great
view of the stadium right out the window of our meeting room, which is up on the
top (8th) floor of the conference centre.

There were about 30 delegates at the meeting, from Japan, USA, Germany, Finland,
China, and me from Australia. We kicked off with the usual administrative
session, going over previous meeting minutes and action items, then future
meeting planning. I gave a report on the planning for the October 2024 meeting
which I’ll be hosting in Sydney. Then we had liaison reports from associated
standards and industry bodies. This led us up to lunch, which we took early to
provide additional time for the afternoon technical sessions, which would
potentially run long with a lot of discussion.

For lunch I took a short walk outside, a couple of blocks to a nearby shopping
centre. Inside was a Turkish street food place named Baba’s, where I got a
chicken kebab plate, sitting on tall table with stools outside the small shop,
inside the mall with a view over the central atrium. The food was good! Also
inside this mall was a climbing facility, with dozens of climbing walls with
different themes and challenges. It looked cool, but was closed and nobody was
climbing there.

Back at the meeting, the afternoon sessions were devoted to discussions of the
two HDR standards the group is working on. The HDR format which was developed
quickly into a Technical Specification is going to be upgraded to an
International Standard. But the bulk of the discussion was on the new proposal
for HDR gain map definitions, to allow mapping to SDR and other displays. This
is a topic with a lot of technical details, and input from multiple people. The
session went a bit long, past the scheduled 18:00 closing time, which itself was
later than our usual 17:00 close, to try to squeeze in an extra hour for this
topic.

I walked back to the apartment to collect M. and then we went out for dinner to
a place we’d passed this morning, a brewpub called Pyynikin Brewhouse by the
river that looked good. I’d checked it out online and booked a table for 18:45.
We ordered some garlic bread, which turned out to be fingers of dark rye bread,
served with a spicy tomato dipping sauce. What a great idea, making garlic bread
out of rye bread! Why haven’t I seen that anywhere else? It was delicious. For
mains M. had the vegetable burger, while I had to try the sautéed reindeer,
served with mashed potatoes and beer-marinaded cranberries. The reindeer was
sliced thin and was tender and tasty, with a slightly gamey flavour unlike any
other meat. I also tried the Pyynikin stout beer to wash it down, and that was
good too.

M. filled me on on what she’d been doing during the day while I was at the
meeting. She checked out the Market Hall, grabbing some snacks from various
stalls. Then she spent the day wandering around the shopping area, staying
indoors a lot to avoid the cold. She found an artisan market called Stable
Yards, consisting of a collection of small wooden buildings that she said was
very interesting.

As we finished dinner, I overheard some familiar voices at a table across the
room, behind a partition. Sure enough, five of the ISO delegates were there
having dinner. We figured we must have made a good choice as one of them was the
local Tampere meeting host and would have known where to take the others for a
good meal.

We headed back to the apartment for the night, had showers, and rested up a bit
before bed. Hopefully we’ll have a better night’s sleep tonight, as we’re both
getting very tired by dinner time as our bodies slowly adjust to the time zone.

Posted on 2023-11-09Categories Daily updateTags standards, travel1 Comment on
Europe diary, day 5: ISO meeting begins


EUROPE DIARY, DAYS 3 & 4: A BIG ROMAN WALK, AND TRAVEL TO TAMPERE

Monday 6 November

We slept in fits through the night, waking up on a few occasions, but managing
to go back to sleep. We finally gave up about 06:30 and decided to get up for
the day.

I found a nearby pasticciera using Google Maps, which opened at 07:00, Panificio
Biscotteria Roscioni. We walked the two blocks over there to find a small bakery
selling biscuits, cakes, and pastries. They had cornetti with Nutella filling,
custard, and pistachio cream, but none with jam which was what M. wanted. I
asked the man in Italian (as it seemed he spoke very little English) if they had
any with jam but he said no, the fresh croissants were too hot to cut and fill
just yet. So we got a plain one for M. and I tried a pistachio cream, which was
less like the custard I expected and more like a pistachio Nutella, very sweet
and sugary. After eating these we looked at some fo the other delicious looking
things in the displays and M. selected a biscuit that looked like the Napolis we
get from the Italian bakery at home. The man warmed it up for us in a microwave
and cut it in half. It was indeed a Napoli and the filling was rich and intense
with cocoa, not too sweet, which was nice after the pistachio cornetto!

We went back to the hotel to prepare for the day out. We decided to visit
Trastevere, since we could just wander around and look at the various things
there. I thought we could go there via the Colosseum, so we headed out in that
direction. We got there quite early and walked around the huge structure, taking
several photos in the morning sunlight. The weather was good despite a forecast
of possible rain. Around the Colosseum we passed by the Arch of Constantine and
then walked past the Palatine Hill archaeological site to the Circus Maximus.
From there we passed the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, which houses the
famous Bocca della Verità. We wanted to see if we could go in and see it close
up, but we were there at 09:00 and the church didn’t open until 09:30. Rather
than wait, we crossed the Ponte Palatino into Trastevere.

We walked down Via dei Vascellari, stopping early on for a drink at a place
called Terra Satis. It said it was a wine bar, but in the morning it was simply
serving coffee and pastries like any other coffee bar. M. had a cappuccino and I
had a spremuta orange juice. We then used the toilet before departing.

We continued down the street for several blocks, enjoying the quieter back
street ambience before crossing over to the main Viale di Trastevere with its
traffic and trams. At Via Emilio Morosini we turned west and then north into the
maze of small streets that gives Trastevere its charm. We stumbled across a
small produce market in Piazza di San Cosimato and bought a couple of small
bananas, an apple for me, and some almonds for snacks. Next to the Piazza was a
food store selling all sorts of Italian groceries and ingredients, which was
fascinating to browse through. M. had a coffee in Bar Picchiotto on the western
side the piazza and then we continued exploring.

We explored some of this area last time we were in Rome and accidentally managed
to find and have lunch in one of the best pizza places to be found (Ivo
Pizzeria). I was hoping we could find it again, but I remembered neither the
name nor where it was, and we had no luck. But we found a decent looking place
and stopped for lunch at Hosteria del Moro. We had an insulate caprese to start,
followed by pizza margherita for M. and a pizza diavola for me, with spicy
salami. We were also given a basket of hot bread slices with olive oil and
balsamic vinegar, which was really delicious – very nice bread. The salad and
the pizzas were very good too.

After eating we decided to walk past the Vatican, so headed north. When we got
there, there was some sort of service thing happening on the giant video screens
in front of St Peter’s Basilica, but I couldn’t see where the video was being
captured from, so maybe it was just a recording or something. There were
hundreds of people shuffling along in a queue to get inside the basilica, but
having been in there a couple of times before we didn’t feel a need to go on
again.

Heading east back to the river we were stopped from reaching Castel Sant’Angelo
by some large construction work being done, which forced us to go back over the
Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, rather than walk to the Castel and cross Ponte
Sant’Angelo with its angel sculptures. We walked along the river as far as Ponte
Umberto I and then took a route inland along Via dell Orso. We passed a couple
of very nice looking restaurants and grabbed their business cards, since we’ll
be staying in this area next week and could use some good places for dinner
close by.

This eastward route took us into the high fashion shopping area of Rome, where
M. browsed in some shops and we slowly wended out way towards the Spanish Steps.
These we climbed up the hill so we could take the straightest route back to our
hotel along Via Sistina and Via delle Quattro Fontane. This completed a circuit
of Rome that completely enclosed the loop we did yesterday!

Back in the hotel we freshened up with showers and resting for a bit before
heading back out for dinner. We had dinner booked for our special anniversary
dinner at Il Convivio Troiani, a rather fancy place. But it required another
half hour’s walk back to almost where we were earlier near Via dell Orso!

The restaurant is a nondescript door in an old wall along a tiny alley. You have
to ring the doorbell to be let in, revealing an atmospherically lit dining room
with square columns and arched vaults. The wait staff consisted entirely of
gentlemen in immaculate suits and ties, who performed an amazingly choreographed
and intricate display of attending to the dinner guests. We were the first to
arrive and were shown to a table after they closeted my jacket in an and wooden
garderobe. M. tried to hang her jacket over her chair back but was politely
informed that that was not allowed, so she folded it and placed it on her
handbag, which was resting on a small, plushly padded footstool provided next to
the table.

Suspended above the centre of our table by a fine thread was the dried stems
from a bunch of grapes, holding eight or ten potato chips of different colours.
The waiter said we could eat the chips from the table decoration. He presented
us with menus in oversized cloth-covered folders. These contained the
degustation menu and an almost exclusively non-vegetarian a la carte selection.
I apologised for not warning them in advance that M. was vegetarian, saying that
I has looked at the menu online and saw several options, and could we please
know what the vegetarian options were. The waiter summoned the manager, who came
to speak with us and listed several variations they could make to dishes. M.
selected a fried zucchini flower appetiser, which had an anchovy sauce replaced
with a miso sauce, and a pappardelle pasta dish which had another substitution.
I chose a fried octopus appetiser and a spaghetti amatriciana with pork cheek.
We also ordered a serve of mixed vegetables as a side. The waiter asked, “Is
that all?” in a slight tone of voice that made me wonder if they expected us to
order more food. But as it turned out it was plenty.

After ordering food, they brought the wine list, which came in a ring binder of
well over 100 pages. There was one page of wine by the glass, plus another of
aged wine by the glass. Some of the latter were pretty expensive, topping 100
euro per glass. We chose a 2006 Sangiovese from the non-aged section. The
sommelier returned with a bottle and a gadget for extracting wine without
removing the cork. He had three glasses and first poured a sip for himself to
try, after which he gave an enthusiastic “Wow!” before pouring a taste for me. I
tried it and approved, and he poured our two glasses. The wine really was very
good, rich and full-bodied with plenty of interesting flavour development.

Food service began with an amuse-bouche. This consisted of a bite-sized rye
bread roll for me, with salted cod and crispy cod skin, (vegetable like
fennel?), and blueberries. M.’s vegetarian substitute was a tiny bowl of pumpkin
soup with chestnut pieces. These were accompanied by a small glass with about
three sips of spiced port wine mixed with some sort of juice or something (it
was difficult to remember the full verbal description given by the manager).
After this was a bite-size raspberry macaron filled with some sort of meat cream
for me, soft cheese for M., and studded with granulated nuts. This was
accompanied by another drink, a tropical juice with another liquor which he said
was “infused for 24 hours” with some herbs and spices.

After this they brought house-made sourdough in a small individual loaf sliced
into about 8 slices. It was still warm from the oven and delicious. The
appetisers came out and looked amazing! They were both delicious, with different
flavours and textures throughout. The pasta was also fantastic. The waiter
served M.’s pappardelle and poured a green sauce into the hollow tubes formed by
the pasta. He also said that the plate was only half of her serve of pasta and
they would bring a second plate when she finished the first, to make sure it
didn’t get cold as she ate (although I didn’t hear this at the time and thought
she was getting a rather small serving!). For the mixed vegetables we expected a
simple bowl of steamed carrots and zucchini or something, but what arrived was
an intricately plated mix of mushrooms, cauliflower florets in white, yellow,
and purple, semi-dried tomatoes, fried kale leaves, and dabs of orange and green
sauces made from other pureed vegetables.

We looked at the desserts but one of the two options contained tobacco, and the
other was a sweet penne pasta with various creamy and fruity things that didn’t
appeal to me. The first one actually sounded good apart from the tobacco. So we
passed on dessert and settled the bill. But on the walk back to the hotel we
passed Giolitti, and so stopped in for some gelato. I had a cup with banana and
black cherry flavours, and it was really good.

We were back at our hotel about 22:15 and prepared quickly for bed, since we set
alarms for 06:30 to be up and check out of the hotel so we could catch a train
to the airport tomorrow for our flight to Helsinki.

Tuesday 7 November

We are still getting used to the time zone shift, and were wide awake at 5:00,
although we slept fairly well before this. We sat up and read for a while and
then at 06:00 we decided to go to the station without out luggage and get an
early breakfast, then return to the hotel to brush our teeth, finish packing,
and check out.

We went back to the same place where M. had got her snack on arrival two days
ago, but the pasticciera wasn’t open yet, and the lady there pointed us at
another place opposite that served mostly sandwiches. But they had a few
cornetti, including ones with apricot jam, so we got one each and M. had a
cappuccino. After eating these we stopped at the station to buy tickets for the
express train to the airport. Then we went back to the hotel, packed our bags,
and checked out.

Back at Termini station ten minutes later we saw a Leonardo Express train
sitting at platform 23. So we walked out there but the train lights went off and
the doors wouldn’t open. We stopped to wait, thinking the train would be turned
back on again in a little while. But I decided to walk back down to the
indicator boards to see if there was any other information such as a departure
time. I saw that the next express to the airport was due to leave from platform
24 at 07:35, in ten minutes. So I walked back to M. and told her we had to
switch to the other platform. As we walked around, we stopped to inform several
other people also waiting on 23 with luggage that they needed to walk over to
platform 24. Hopefully they appreciated the advice! And indeed just as we made
it to 24 another train pulled in. Travellers got off and we walked up to the
front to get on.

The train left a few minutes late and deposited us at Fiumicino Airport just
after 08:00. We checked with the Finnair check-in counter in case we needed to
do anything, or check any of our bags. The man there said as long as we had a
boarding pass on our phones (which we did) we could just go straight in through
security. He also said our bags were fine to take into the cabin. So we passed
through the security check, which only took a few minutes as there were
virtually no queues. Again we didn’t have to remove anything from our bags, and
there were large signs saying to leave everything, liquids, laptops, etc, in our
bags for scanning. They said (in Italian and English) that it was the security
screening of the future. I commented to M. that it was also the security
screening of the past.

We wanted to grab some food before the flight, because it’s a bit of a budget
flight and they only have snacks that you can buy on board. Upstairs in the
terminal is a large area with restaurants, cafes, and other food places. M.
grabbed a quick cornetto with Nutella from a coffee shop, and then we sat down
in a large seating area served by a cluster of food outlets nearby. One of them
had salads and vegetables, and I felt that would be good. I went to order a
chicken salad and a large cup of fruit salad for M., but the woman there
indicated that her station was closed, but I could order from the adjacent pizza
place. When I went there and asked for the salad the lady looked at me funny and
said to go next door. I told her that it was closed, and so she walked over to
the other woman and they had a brief conversation, and then she came back and
told me to go over there and grab what I wanted and bring it back here to pay.
It was all a bit weird, but I managed to get what I wanted.

After eating those M. wanted a coffee and suggested sitting in one of the
restaurants that had a coffee machine. I said I could still eat something else
as well, so we did that. The place M. liked the look of turned out to be some
sort fo weird Brazilian-Japanese fusion place. I ordered plantain chips with
wasabi mayonnaise and some shrimp gyoza kind of things which came with a spicy
banana dipping sauce. It was strange but decent.

Once done there it was almost 10:00 and our flight would be boarding soon. We
walked down to the gate and people were already queueing up. We joined in, just
before they started letting people into the queuing corral. We got seats in the
fourth back row of the plane, a small Airbus A321. The back door was open and I
could see it had started raining outside, and it got heavier before we took off.

In flight they crew sold snacks and provided complimentary water and blueberry
juice. We both tried the juice and it was nice. We’ve never had blueberry juice
before. The flight landed just 2:45 after take off, making our arrival in
Helsinki around 15:00. At the airport we stopped at a bakery to get a snack. M.
had a rye sandwich with cheese, lettuce, and cucumber, while I tried one of the
tempting looking cinnamon buns. M. also had a coffee.

Then we walked out to the railway station, which was deep underground below the
airport. We could feel the cold, as the temperature on arrival was 8°C. On the
platform were ticket machines, blue ones for local trains and a green one for
long distance trains. We used the green one to purchase two tickets to Tampere,
and it printed a local metro ticket for an 8 minute journey to Tikkurila and a
long distance ticket from Tikkurila to Tampere. The next train to Tikkurila was
only 4 minutes away so we didn’t have long to wait. At Tikkurila we switched
platforms to wait for the train to Tampere. The ticket machine had assigned us
seats in car 4, and we tried to find the right place on the platform to wait for
the correct car. As the train pulled in, we saw several of the Japanese ISO
delegates, who came over and greeted us with handshakes. They boarded elsewhere,
but one ended up in the same seating area as us a few seats behind. Our seats
were across the aisle from each other, as everyone else in the carriage seemed
to have single seats by the windows. But at the first stop the woman next to M.
got off and so I moved across to sit in that window seat so we could be
together.

The train arrived in Tampere a few minutes late, just before 18:00. It was dark,
the sun having gone down around 16:00, and colder than at the airport, around
4°C according to the Internet. A light misty drizzle was falling, but we could
see some drifts of old snow on roads and footpaths. We walked the couple of
blocks to the pizzeria Bianco, where we picked up the key to our accommodation.
It was just around the corner and we entered to find a nice apartment, a little
worn in places, but certainly fine for our needs for the next few nights.

After dropping our things we went out to get some dinner. I found a Spanish
place just a block away and we liked the sound of that so we went over to Bodega
Salud. There we followed the example of others before us in using the large
cloakroom to put our coats, hats, and gloves into a locker and take the key.
This is completely foreign to us, having to deal with cold weather clothing like
this. We were shown to a table in the nicely atmospheric decorated restaurant.
We ordered tapas: patatas bravas, codfish croquettes, garlic bread, and a dish
of spicy chick peas and spinach, together with glasses of Spanish Tempranillo
wine. The food was all good and filling enough to serve as dinner without
ordering more.

On the way home we stopped in at the supermarket next door to buy some supplies:
shampoo for the apartment, muesli and milk and yoghurt for breakfast, and we
threw in some fresh blueberries to go with that. I also grabbed a cheap tub of
chocolate mud ice cream to serve as dessert each night while we’re here, and M.
got some liquorice and chocolate. Then it was back to the apartment to have
showers and turn in for the night. Basically a full day of travel, which was
rather tiring!

Posted on 2023-11-08Categories Daily updateTags travel7 Comments on Europe
diary, days 3 & 4: A big Roman walk, and travel to Tampere


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