The Stomping Grounds

Ana and I found Pimm’s Good online.  We were looking for a place close to Ariel and my apartment where she could sip an afternoon glass of wine, and I could have a cold glass of  coffee or tea.  We approached the patio set up on the edge of a curvy, black cobblestone road; it felt like the place I had hoped to discover as a homebase for my independent study.  We sat in the hot afternoon sun, with people and cars passing in a constant rhythm.  The peach tea I ordered tasted like I had bitten into an actual peach, fresh off a sun-ripened tree.  My intuition had been confirmed; I knew I had found a great place where I could work during our month in Rome.  

I have since learned that Pimm’s also has excellent cappuccinos and delicious food.  

At the Boulangerie we discovered, the owner makes incredible breads leavened naturally; for 4 euro you can have a sandwich.  There are a modest list of ingredients; you name it, he’ll make it.  He spoke passionately about how ingredients like turkey, tomatoes, and mozzarella are fresh ingredients, perfect for eating on a hot day.  Salmon, not so much.  It was news to us.  We had a nice laugh about that later. Coming from the Pacific Northwest, salmon is a summer food, but then again, the heat in Rome is a whole other beast; it will humble you in a heartbeat.  

The first night we stayed in little hotel on the second floor of an old building around the corner from the Pantheon.  We turned the corner and there it was: a building built in 126 AD.  Talk about humbling...it was so beautiful, and yet more marvelous was the way people were around it.  Some leaned against it’s solid columns, others marveled and took pictures, all the while people from all over the world dined al fresco in restaurants lining the square submersed in the Pantheon’s shadows.  The layers upon layers of history here are truly astounding and I have not even scratched the surface.  I feel grateful to have a month on this journey.