I struggle to appreciate the beloved Italian firewater called grappa. Finishing dinner at Rome’s Ristorante da Fortunato with a glass, my friend Stefano (who runs Hotel Oceania) explains that his greatest joy is grappa ‘ specifically, a chilled grappa with a Tuscan cigar on his sailboat halfway to Corsica.
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Trains have bad acoustics, and big-city commuter trains in Italy must have about the worst. Still, street musicians perform, jiggling as they fiddle. We intended to shoot an “on camera” on the train here, where I would look into the camera and say something like “While Pompeii is great, it’s a three-hour train ride south from Rome. But Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient seaport, rivals the ruins of Pompeii, and it’s just a quick 30-minute train ride away.” But the police busted us, and we couldn’t shoot on the train. So, here we are passing a few minutes musically ‘ without filming ‘ on the quick train ride from Rome out to Ostia.
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Bernini’s Apollo Chasing Daphne (in Rome’s Borghese Gallery) is my favorite statue in the history of European art. View the video below, and hopefully you’ll see why.
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If you’re looking for sumptuous art, head to the Gallery Borghese, which gets my vote for the best interior of any palace in Europe. Every inch is richly decorated, and, from the perspective of Baroque sensibilities, it works. We were filming there for three hours on a Monday, when it was closed to the public. Delightful experience. Join me for a quick little walk with Cardinal Borghese, Canova, and, of course, the father of the Baroque movement, Bernini.
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I love eating in Italy, as do pigeons. I’ve been here for over six weeks, and, except for two döner kebab dinners in Florence, I’ve only eaten Italian. I doubt there’s another country in Europe (except France) that could hold my palate’s interest so easily. Here in Rome’s Jewish Ghetto, I came upon a group of pigeons furiously eating their lunch and, noticing how good the meal looked (on a pigeon’s scale), I just had to share the curbside banquet with you.
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