One beautiful evening in Rome, our group made the twenty minute walk to Trastevere, which is a neighborhood in the ancient portion of Rome. Personally, I thought all of Rome was ancient!!, but I\’m just sharing with you what I have learned.
Trastevere, pronounced trahs-TAY-veh-ray and remember to roll your r\’s, lies on the banks of the Tiber River and is a bustling neighborhood of restaurants, apartments, and businesses. The streets are very narrow and twist and wind around, but we quickly found our initial meeting point to start our Trastevere Food Tour.
I would strongly recommend the Eating Italy Food Tours. Our tour guide, Jasmine, led us on a food and wine adventure enjoying the tastes and sounds of Trastevere. We walked to a half dozen or more restaurants and shops and enjoyed everything from wine, of course, to Roman artichokes, cheese, cookies from a bakery called Innocenti(not so innocent!), pizza and pasta.
We learned about slow cooking from Spirito Di Vino, which is exactly the opposite of fast food. This restaurant uses locally grown ingredients for the food they serve and the proof was definitely in the pudding.
We ventured down into their wine cellar and tasted lentils, and other appetizers. We were told there were ghosts in the cellar and I believe Bill actually saw a ghost by the look on his face. By the way, a big thank you to Kelly McMillan who provided many of the photos.
For the tour, I made all the arrangements and prepaid prior to leaving Arizona. One never really knows how these tours are going to turn out, but this one fantastic. I would highly recommend this company. You can find them at www.eatingitalyfoodtours.com. Our group was joined by a husband and wife from the States who were celebrating an anniversary, and a mother and daughter from Canada who were celebrating the daughter\’s 40th birthday.
We ended the tour with a sit down pasta dinner and sat in the open patio section. The night was beautiful. We started salmon bruschetta. For those that know me well, know I love Salmon. We were then served, family-style, with a number of pasta dishes. And, of course, more wine. A final toast was given to Jasmine from our tour group.
But Jasmine had a surprise for us. She was able to secure a private tour of a Farmacia that has been closed since 1954. What made this pharmacy so special is that it was a homeopathic pharmacy that had been in existence for a hundred years until its closure in 1954 due to the restrictions of the pharmaceutical industry. It has been preserved in the exact state it was in when closed and is maintained by the monks. It was full of urns, herbs, potions, and even a newt! It was especially meaningful to our new friend from Canada as she is a pharmaceutical representative. This place, while well known to the locals, is a little tucked away secret for those who are lucky enough to have Jasmine as their tour guide.