Out With Erin

We had a small snack in our room this morning before walking over to the neighborhood of Testaccio for a walking food tour. Testaccio is primarily a working class neighborhood that has history and artefacts found that date back to 12 BC. It was the main settlement in Rome initially because of its easy accessible port to allow for the trading for food, and the numerous warehouses where they could store the huge ceramic containers of food. In the centre of the piazza where we met, you can see a statue dedicated to the food vessels.

Meeting our guide, we walked to our first stop, Pacifico Passi. This is a family run bakery that has been run by the Passi family since 1975. Here we had pizza for breakfast! The first was a marinara and the second was a potato.

We continued our tour to a place called Masto. This is a small, trendy bar where we had a Veneto wine and tasted some cheese and meats. The tray we received consisted of a cheese that was a young, 20 day aged cheese with walnuts, a bologna meat with pistachio, a bassiano prosciutto, and a bruschetta. We also had some sea salt chocolate.

Next, we walked over to Mastro Donato, local pizzeria that specializes in Roman street food. We had fried potato, eggplant, zucchini, and apple with sugar on top.

From here, we continued on to the Testaccio market. The market was newly built in 2012, and as the site was being constructed, they found a whole, ancient, Roman road system beneath it.

Once we went into the market, we tasted some amazing homemade bruschetta, Rome’s best buffalo mozzarella, the infamous supplí, and some craft beer.

By this time, we were completely stuffed and over half way finished our tour. Our guide took us to the old slaughter house in the area which was fully running from 1890-1975. The men that worked there were paid with cuts of meat. They would go home to their wives with the daily cut, and from here the lovely ladies created amazing and local Roman recipes that still exist today!

Across from the slaughter house is an ancient man-made hill. Back in the day, the food containers that held olive oil would slowly be broken down, and essentially become useless to the workers. They would break them apart and started to create a hill, almost like a landfill. Due to the smell, they covered them with lime, which actually made them cement together. Years later, they discovered that this ceramic hill kept a constant temperature of 17 Celsius, and thus was used as a wine cellar. Restaurants and cellars were formed into the hill.

This led us to our next stop, an award winning restaurant built into the side of Monte Testaccio called Flavio al Velavevodetto. Here, we tasted the infamous carbonara (much different from ours and made with pig’s cheek), cacio e pepe (simply cheese and pepper), and amatriciana (a tomato and pork).

Just when we were thinking that we couldn’t possibly eat anymore, we were taken to Giolitti, a bar serving some of the best gelato in the city in 1914. Here I ordered the fig and lemon, and Daniel got the Zabaione (local special of egg yolk and wine) and pistachio.

Once our tour was finished, and we were beyond satisfied, we headed back to our place to freshen up. From there, we continued on our own site seeing journey. The first stop was the pantheon. This place is so massive! I can’t even describe the size of the columns.

We continued north to the Trevi Fountain. Here we sat along the ledge, threw in some coins, and made our own little wish.

We carried on to see the gorgeous Spanish steps. The view from the top was quite spectacular.

In this plaza, there is a place called Pompi which has been serving the best Tiramisù since 1960. I wouldn’t argue with that!

Finally, we continued back into the Trastevere neighborhood for a pizza dinner. We stopped at a local place called Ivo, and hour later finally received our meal. It was delicious!

Today marked our 1 month of being married and I could not have imagined a better month together! Between the craziness of the wedding and all our guests, and the amazing adventure we’ve been having in Italy, it’s been such a memorable and fun time together. I couldn’t imagine a first month of being married any better than this. Love you babez!