a pizza without cheese is still a pizza. a pizza consumed in rome is more pizza-ey than pizza itself. this past weekend’s visit to rome was intriguing. my s.o. and i went without expectations except to eat some delectable meals. unfortunately, the food wasn’t all that great. the stellar pizza pictured above was at a small pizzeria down the hill from the vatican museum entrance where we had lunch on our last day. by this time we had pretty much given up on the dream of great italian food; i was even ready to eat at an indian restaurant that afternoon. please don’t think i didn’t love the trip, but just be prepared to hunt a bit more than we did to find a great restaurant in rome.

january is rome’s off season but the town was still teeming with tourists. the locals zip raucously through the narrow streets and alleys on scooters and mini coopers (old and new) and mini buses. faded paint peels off the buildings and carved latin inscriptions remind one that rome thrived BC and not just AD. christian symbols in the form of crosses and framed saintly figures adorn the outsides of buildings. i don’t think i’ve ever seen as many nuns per capita as i did in rome.

il colosseo (pictured above) was dark and dank while waiting in line under the lowest level of arches, but once we got inside the sky cleared up. it was smaller in size but taller in height than i had imagined. we went largely without any guidebooks or history in hand, mostly so i could shoot as many photos as possible, but also i think it’s nice to wonder what things are and learn about them later. the small piles of seemingly discarded capitals from columns found in various places throughout the city look more like architectural salvage lots than archeology sites.

i understood a lot more italian than i ever expected, probably due to the excessive study of operatic scores i undertook while working on my conservatory degree. thanks gluck, you helped me order pizza without cheese.