The Travels of Eric and Lorna

Today we visited the neighborhood of Testaccio. In the 19th century this was the butcher's district, and it is still known for restaurants serving dishes made from the "5th quarter" of the animal (i.e. innards, etc.). While having lunch I had some lamb innards, and they were quite good. This was an interesting part of Rome to visit. It is very off the usual tourist route, and we really didn't see any other tourists, or at least very few. It was really cool seeing a neighborhood of 'real Rome'. One of the things we came to see was the market held every Saturday in the area. This was a genuine locals market, and I didn't see anyone else that looked like a tourist there. They sold everything from shoes to knick knacks, but it is primarily a food market. Items for sale included the horse meat (carne equina) stand shown below. I read that horse meat has become more popular since the mad cow scare of a few years ago. One of the other things we came to s

This is the column of Marcus Aurelius. On Thursday we did a tour called Rome Underground. We went to three different underground areas. The picture below is of a fresco wall from a Republican era Roman house. It was under a church. Here's a nice picture of the Parthenon, one of the coolest attractions in Rome. I would post more pictures, but the internet connection at the hotel is painfully slow. I'll post a bunch when I get back home.

So we got to Rome this morning and it's raining. That's OK, though, because we're still in Rome. Today it was a new holiday-the first year celebrating it, we were told. It is the celebration of the unification of Italy. If I had to guess, I would say schools are out, because it seemed like every teenager in Italy was in Rome today. Via Fori Imperia, usually a very busy street, was completely pedestrian today, which was rather bizzare. On the plus side, museums and attractions are free, so we took advantage of that to go see the forum again. This time you could actually go down into the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, so that was pretty cool. For supper we went to a fantastic pizzeria called Dar Poeta . Holy crap was it good. Well, I am tired and need to sleep. I'll post more on subsequent days when I am not so dead from flying. Eric