A walk in Rome

This Saturday Will and I went to the Vatican State on the other side of the Tiber to mail a letter at the Vatican State Post Office.
They have better service than the Italian Post Office at least it is faster.

So we took the no. 62 bus from Porta Pia all the way down and across to the Vatican. Not a very long ride considering you are crossing Rome, only goes to show that this is a very compact city. Then we went to this little restaurant run by two elderly brothers on Via Borgo which is a little street that runs along the long defensive wall between the Palace of the Pope and Castel San Angelo. They have the best Spaghetti Carbonara in all Rome, without exaggeration, I think this is because it is a family restaurant and it is made by another relative of the brothers who wait tables. We also had a secundi, (second dish) I had liver and chicory and Will had Veal Saltimboca alla Romana with roasted potatoes in rosemary.

After lunch we walked back across the Tiber to Rome and crossed at the Castel San Angelo Bridge which was originally built to connect Rome on one side with the gigantic tomb mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian on the other. Then we took Via Dei Coronari,
The street was open in 1475, by Pope Sisto IV, with the name of “ via Recta ” that is to say “straight”, to allow pilgrims to reach the old Saint Peter Basilica without passing through the labyrinth of alleys; it partially repeated the line of an ancient roman street which in the imperial epoch connected “ Via Lata” to a bridge “Ponte Nerone”.

It is nearly 500 meters long and ends at Piazza Navona, it is lined by 15th and 16th century beautiful buildings. At number 156/7 you see the XV century house of Fiammetta Michaelis, Cesare Borgia's preferred mistress.

The present name of the street derives from the many merchants who sold here sacred images and crowns (in Italian “ corone ”) to pilgrims until the 19th century. After Corso Vittorio Emmanuelle II was opened, the street became deserted, but in the 1950's it became a center of little antique shops, restorers and artisans of many specialization. Many beautiful shops line the street today. At one point you arrive at an arch way standing 5 meter below today's street level, it was the main entrance to the Stadium of Emperor Domitian which is known today as Piazza Navona.