A Cultural Weekend in Rome

An Amazing Weekend in the Eternal City!

A Beautiful Roman Gallery Ready for Christmas

The Tandem Spirits love going to Rome, but we usually just go for the day, taking an early morning train in and a late afternoon train back to Foligno. Our last visit was different. We decided to splurge and spent the weekend there. It was fabulous, as always.

We stayed at the Best Western Universo Hotel which is very close to Rome Termini station. It was a very good hotel, and the bartender there makes a wicked Negroni.

Our agenda was to meet with some friends, see some exhibits, eat some great food, and do some shopping. We managed to to fit it all in.

Three Fabulous Exhibits: The Inferno, All About Banksy and Klimt The Italian Sessions

The Inferno

We saw three exhibits. The first was at the Scuderie del Quirinale. We’ve seen a number of great exhibits there. This one, Inferno, https://www.scuderiequirinale.it/mostra/inferno-000 was no exception. It was a collection of paintings and sketches based on Dante’s Inferno. A number of themes were explored, such as the depiction of hell, of the devil, sins and temptations, Dante himself, specific depictions of scenes from the inferno, and a powerful room with the theme of hell on earth.

Lucifer – Franz VonStuck

The Vision of Tundale – Hyeronimus Bosch

Steelworks in Indret – Francois Bonhomme

The small camp of Buchenwald – Boris Taslitzky

All About Banksy

Prior to the show, we didn’t know a lot about Banksy, aside from the fact that he is a well known street artist, and some of his works have become iconic. This show thoroughly explores his work from 1999 to 2020. We found his work to be thought provoking and quite insightful. Sometimes ironic, sometimes irreverent, sometimes sardonic, and sometimes touching. His works provide a thoughtful commentary on various social issues such as war, refugees, consumerism, the militarization of the police, the monarchy, and many others.

ALL ABOUT BANKSY: EXHIBITION 2

CINDERELLA

TROLLEYS

COSETTE

LOVE IS IN THE AIR – FLOWER THROWER

GAME CHANGER

Klimt - The Italian Sessions

The third exhibit was at the Museo di Roma in Piazza Navona, Klimt. La Secessione e l’Italia. We first learned about Klimt a few years ago when we were in Innsbruck and saw some of his works at a museum there. This exhibit has works by Klimt and a number of other painters who were part of the new and somewhat shocking Viennese style. His relationship to Italy and its influence on him is also explored.

Portrait of a Lady

Philosophy

Part of the Bethoven Frieze

Madonna – Vlastimil Hofman

Judith and the Head of Holofernes

We Ate Some Great Food!

No trip to Rome would be complete without good restaurant experiences. We enjoyed all our meals, but two places were exceptional. On Friday we had lunch at Piccolo Arancio (little orange). They have a lovely menu and we were trying to decide which yummy option to order when the waitress said that they just had their fish delivery come in and they had fresh Sea bream that they were serving with potatoes. Normally we each order something different so we can try a number of things, but we both had the fish. It was excellent, and our waitress did a masterful job of deboning it for us at the table. We also had a Roman style artichoke, stuffed zucchini flowers, and chicory.

Lunch at Piccolo Arancio (the little orange)

Our waitress serving the fresh Orata!

Appetizers: Artichoke and Fried Zucchini Flowers

Chicory

Dinner at Maestro Bistro & Cocktails

We also had an outstanding dinnerat a place near our hotel called Maestro Bistro & Cocktails. It is a small restaurant with an elegant, but not overpriced menu. We shared a marinated salmon appetizer. For our main course, James had pork ribs and Virginia had duck breast. We had a bottle of Valpolicella Ca Fiui, which went beautifully with both meals. We finished with a ricotta tartlet.

Salmon Appetizer

Duck Breast

Pork Ribs

Ricotta Torta

In the evenings we strolled the streets, did some shopping and enjoyed seeing the city at night. We discovered that one of the biggest Apple stores in the world is in Rome. Like most Italian towns, Rome is dressed up for the holidays.

Eataly

On our final day, we headed to the big Eataly store in Rome. https://www.eataly.net/eu_en/stores/rome We had lunch in one of their restaurants, the Birreria and we were pleasantly surprised. We started out with plates of fried anchovies with mayonnaise and spicy chicken nuggets (real chicken, nothing processed there). Then we had meatball sandwiches prepared 2 different ways. Of course we also each enjoyed a flight of beer.

We finished the day by wandering around the massive Eataly complex and enjoying the Christmas vibe. We took the metro back to our hotel, checked out, and relaxed on the train back to Foligno.