We just spent a long weekend in Rome, and to tell you the truth, I  feel like I am still processing it. Rome has been on my bucket list pretty much forever! It was wonderful.

I ended up with well over 200 “keeper” photos. To post them all to this blog would be overwhelming (and kind of boring). So, I’ll just post a few over the next several days, while I reminisce in my happy place. 🙂

Today’s subject: FOOD. And wine. We learned a few things about both on this trip, even though I didn’t get a ton of photos of my meals because the restaurants were kind of dark. And anyway, the food wasn’t there to be admired, it was there to be eaten. Right away!

If there is bad wine in Rome, we couldn’t find it. And we looked, trust me.

Most of the food is really good. Some is incredible. But you can actually get a mediocre meal, if, for example, it’s pouring down rain and you just go into the first nice-looking place you see on a major tourist route.  at that place, the house wine and the appetizer (roasted vegetables) were delicious, and the owner apologized profusely for the bad pasta carbonara and knocked it off the bill. Could have been worse.

On the other hand, a guy at the hotel referred us to a no-frills, wall-to-wall-tables place nearby that served us one of the best meals we have ever eaten and at a reasonable price. Fresh pasta with truffle sauce. Oh. My. God. We will be back.

Carciofi alla Romana (fried artichokes) are better than you might think.

People speak a lot of English in Rome, and most menus have an English version. But they could still use an editor. Specialties included “Italian Brains,” “Italian Fat on Bread” and my personal favorite, “Grandma Pie.” So, that’s another reason I really should be posted to Italy: to save poor Grandma!

Who wouldn’t want to sit at this cafe?

Cafe in a Piazza

Restaurant window near the Pantheon

Good wine bars serve a snack with the wine–both the wine and the bruschetta were wonderful

Great hole-in-the-wall restaurant

Cherry and pine nut tart, YUM

Really a lot of artichokes

Pizzeria window

The first Italian-language Guinness poster I have ever seen

This restaurant is an oasis on a busy street

Coffee is really, really important and really, really strong

Mandarin oranges in a sheltered courtyard at the Borghese Gardens

Food truck outside the Coliseum

Cafe at the Borghese Gardens