December 8th.  La festa dell’Immacolata Concezione/the feast of the Immaculate Conception marks the beginning of the Christmas season.  The Pope comes into Rome and puts a wreath on the statue on the Imacolata in Piazza Spagna.  It is a national holiday and there were lots of happy Italian tourists visiting Trastevere.

I met my friend Ashley, who is in Rome doing research, for coffee at The Big Star Bar. We had a great visit!

Ken and I decided to go the the Inge Morath photo show at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere.  Morath was the first woman photo journalist to break into the ranks of Magnum, the premier agency of the 20th century. 

Her works show a really unique point of view and the large black and whites, lovingly developed and printed, are a treasure.  Born in Austria, she traveled and wrote extensively; she married Arthur Miller and lived most of her adult life in New York and Connecticut.  We enjoyed the show very much. Upstairs there were other exhibitions to which we gave only cursory attention. There is this copy of the Boca della Verita on the stairway:

From there it was not far to cross another culinary objective off my list.  Trapizzino is a Roman Street food created around 7 years ago by Stefano Callegari, in Testaccio.  The word trapizzino is a cross of tramezzino (the triangle shaped sandwich) and pizza.  The Trastevere shop did not disappoint.  We were lucky to find a  little table; most people seem to get their sandwiches to go and eat them on the street.  The fillings were so flavorful—mine Umbrian pork and Ken’s chicken cacciatore with not a tomato in sight.  We also shared a potato croquette which had broccoli. provolone and nutmeg in it.  They only sell wines from Lazio (this region) in the shop and we each tried a glass of unremarkable bubbly.  What a great lunch!

We strolled around Trastevere some more.  A group of young African nuns was parading through the streets holding flowers and singing joyful songs.  I asked someone what was happening and she told me they had just made their vows and were celebrating.

Here’s a typical street scene I shot after lunch:

Our evening walk was up and South of us, towards the Sciara Park.  We walked up the Scalea del Tamburino (our legs are really strong now) and took in the distant views:

We came back a different way and it was totally dark by then.

I made us a really nice dinner of the agnolotti with romanesco broccoli, but I undercooked the agnolotti a bit.  O well.