Rome: DAY 33 AY-UR AND BEETHOVEN

THIRTY-THIRD DAY

AY-UR AND BEETHOVEN

October 16 and 17

Our dinner Saturday night was a sample of the entire region of Umbria.  I ordered an Antipasti that was big enough for a group of four but included everything from eggs with truffles, three different kinds of meat, molded fish, some sort of vegetable with small little berries that were crunchy and tasty.  I followed that monster starter with the local lamb chops and Kimberly had some sort of huge mixed grill. We had a tasteful light red wine from the region and went to bed after a walk that did very little to make us feel thinner. 

In the morning as usual all over Italy, nothing was open  We had seen all the sights so we started back to Rome.  The traffic was not heavy until we got to the ring around Rome.  At that point, I must admit that I literally had a shouting contest with an Italian driver who thought I was cutting in the payment line at a toll booth.  No blows were exchanged, but the verbiage was colorful.  Kim handled it well, but was glad that no one understood English.  I proclaim my innocence as I did not cut the car line and he was a complete jerk. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Earlier in this journal I mentioned the city within the City of Rome called Eur, pronounced Ay-ur.  In its beginning during the 30’s, it was Mussolini’s homage to architectural fascism but later developed into a striking new town inside Rome.  The buildings are heroic in size and the residential property surrounding the town is comfortable and expensive.  Because Kim was not with me on my first trip, we decided to use our rental car to go again.  We only got off the ring two stops lat,e but we found it.  We stopped at a Chinese place for lunch.  It is the only kind of food besides Italian that we have seen in Rome.  While it did not compare well to Henry’s Hunam, still it was acceptable and tasted good to us.  Kimbo is convinced that there is a Thai restaurant in Rome, but we have not seen one.  Just what we came to Rome to do, eat Chinese. 

I can’t leave our day without mentioning our evening foray to the Parca Della Musica.  The Rome Symphony Orchestra had a Six PM concert at their new home next to the 1960 Nervi Olympic Stadium.  It’s a Renzo Piano building and the three pods that make up the complex look like Armadillos. It is a very attractive place. Our music was in the middle size pod. The symphony played the pieces superbly and the acoustics were wonderful.  The inside of the hall was handsome and finished with rather dark wood textures set off by bright red upholstered theatre seats.  It has the feeling of high design.  I would love to see Piano’s Genoa studios.  Several things that were of interest included the fact that members of the orchestra were so casually dressed that Jeans outnumbered Khakis, the crowd was your basic blue hair group and lots better dressed than the players.  The tickets were much cheaper then symphony music in the US.  Our best in the house seats were 14 Euro.  There was no written program, but the music was Cherubini first, a Schubert orchestral piece, a short intermission and a magnificent Beethoven Violin Concerto played by a young Asian woman and directed by an athletic and graceful Chinese conductor.  The violin is such a sensual instrument and the final movement literally brought tears to my eyes.  What a nice evening and we came home without making any driving errors.