About a year and a half ago while strolling casually through the crooked cobbled streets near Piazza Navona, my husband and I discovered a fantastic little restaurant. The prices are moderate, there's outdoor seating year round (with heat lamps if needed), the rigatoni with egglplant and ricotta is to die for, and there's always room for dessert. This is one of those restaurants that you want to bring guests to. The only trouble is finding it again.
If you've been to Rome then one of the things that you've probably fallen in love with is getting lost in all of those narrow winding streets, so different from the checkerboard layout of our own cities. In your wanderings you came upon some fantastic bakery or gelateria or restaurant and you ducked inside, thinking how lucky to discover this little hidden corner of the city. It was definitely a once-in-a-vacation moment which you lived to the fullest, tasting everything and taking as many pictures as possible to show everyone back home. You weren't worried about finding that spot again because the next day you had plans to visit the Vatican and two days later you were flying home. I envy you.
After our first time at said restaurant we naïvely continued on our way, not remotely concerned with taking note of specific landmarks or street names. After all, we had come upon it so easily. And it's not like we were lost or anything. Of course we would easily be able to find it again. (sigh)
Obviously the day came that we were once again strolling through Rome and thought how lovely it would be to revisit that little spot for lunch. Certain that we remembered how to get there, we headed off. After an hour or so of following our instincts and turning down the narrowest and cobbliest streets possible until we were legitimately lost, we finally admitted defeat and ate somewhere else. But we were troubled. Even though our bellies were full, it had become our mission to find that restaurant. We thought hard and tried to retrace the steps that we might have taken that first fateful day, beginning from the north end of Piazza Navona. (Here I'd like to add that before looking at a map I was 100% convinced that the north end was actually the east end and that we had walked north, not west. So much for my sense of direction. Additionally I was convinced that when we exited the piazza in the supposed direction of the restaurant, we were walking parallel to the river and to Corso Vittorio Emanuele when in reality, if we continued straight, we would find them both smack in front of us. This type of error is common of one who is used to the grid-like pattern of the streets and avenues of Manhattan and to a river that doesn't curve. And this will f**k with one's sense of direction mercilessly...) Anyway, I don't know how, but we did eventually find the restaurant.
Which is why, when I had a friend visiting Rome for a few days, we (or at least I) felt certain that THIS time we could find the restaurant on purpose and on the first try. I confidently set off in the direction that had last proven successful. At each turn I exclaimed that whatever I was seeing was something we had definitely passed the last time we found it. The best part is, I believed it. But after at least half an hour of leading everyone through the hidden back streets of Rome, I had to swallow my pride and once again admit defeat. I was eventually forced to ask the waiter of another restaurant (who was out on his cigarette break) if he knew of a restaurant with more or less *this* name. (We didn't even remember the name of the restaurant. It was pretty pathetic.) Miraculously he seemed to know what we were talking about and gave us very good directions that led us exactly there....about 100 meters and one semi-parallel street over.
Though the proximity of the restaurant did help to redeem my self-confidence just the tiniest bit, after that evening we realized that we were going to have to practice finding this place... We also took a business card, the existence of which we had been previously unaware. The card even had a small map on the reverse side so we figured we were golden. If it had only gone as simply as that, but, unbelievably, the story is not over.
One beautiful day in late Autumn my husband and I were going for a stroll near home when he put his hand in the pocket of his freshly washed jeans. His fingers touched a fragile, soft piece of paper, which he pulled out, hoping to find forgotten money. We both bent over his hand curiously to examine the cloth-like bit of white pulp that he pulled out, when it hit me.
“I know exactly what that is.”
“Wha-.....Oh no!!!
Yes, it was the one and only business card that we had taken from the restaurant. Complete with name, street address, phone number, and...map. What could we do but laugh until we were practically crying at the irony of it all?
Clearly the universe had provided us with a challenge and was waiting to see if we were up to it. Let's just say that we're not quitters. We went into heavy training. Every chance we got we made it a point to see if we could find that restaurant, even if we weren't hungry and weren't planning on stopping for a meal, though often we were and we did. We began trying to find it coming from different directions and taking short cuts. We took turns blind folding each other and going to random points in Rome to see if the other could find it from an unknown starting point. (Okay, we didn't actually do that...but maybe we should have!) And finally we were ready.
Several months later, when another friend was visiting from the US, we got our chance to show off. We casually mentioned this great hidden little restaurant near Piazza Navona that we could go to for dinner. We set off, finding it without a hitch, and had a wonderful meal. Afterwards we led him through the windy streets to one of our favorite gelaterias. It was a lovely night and we were proud of ourselves for not only showing my friend a good time but for giving the impression that navigating that labyrinth of streets was second nature to us.
We have been back to that restaurant many times since, both by ourselves and with guests, and while I won't say that it's ever a disappointment, I think both of us to some degree miss the sense of adventure and treasure hunt that previously encompassed these outings. So now we're constantly on the look out for the next hidden gem, but we're not leaving it up to luck. We ALWAYS take a business card and, when possible, we program the exact geographic coordinates into my husband's hand held GPS navigator. Yes, maybe we're dorks and maybe it's cheating, but we're not taking any more chances.
*If you are the copyright holder of the photo used in this post please contact me if you wish for it to be removed.
No comments:
Post a Comment