Mass, Brunch, and a Little Bit of Futbol

Last Sunday brought a wave of heat and a lot of adventures. Ceira, Katie, Corinne and I got up early, got dressed up, and made our way up to Palazzo Quirinale with the intention of going inside and touring what we could. We had heard that on Sunday mornings, parts of the Palazzo was opened to the public and at times one of the rooms held concerts. When we got there and tried to go inside, we were stopped by an amused guard who informed us that the Palazzo was only open to the public on Sunday mornings in September. Since we were already up and dressed we decided to go to mass at a church designed by Boromini that was just down the street that we had visited on a previous tour. The church is one of the smaller ones that we have toured and has a beautiful interior despite lacking the massive amounts of embelishment that is usual. When mass began there were 10 people filling our side of the pews and 15 clergymen filling the other side. This was absolutly my favorite mass that I have been to while in Italy. The acoustics in the church were amazing and as the service went on the clergymen began to sing the hymns in harmony with the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar.

When mass was over, the four of us walked the few blocks to Palazzo Esposizioni which houses a museum picture gallery, bookshop, and resturant of the famous Italian chef Antonello Colonna. The resturant is upstairs in a huge open space of which three walls and the ceiling are glass. The glass buts up to what looks like it could be the exterior of an old classical palazzo so the corithean columns on the palazzo wall are in the resturant space. It was decorated with modern furniture and the buffet was set up in the center of the space. After 30 euro and four of five rounds of easily the best food that Ive had since we got here and we all left feeling very full and very satisfied.

Luckily we had the long walk home to work off the food and buy an Italian flag for the Euro Cup game later that night. For the game we went to Circo Massimo. The space is usually just left as an open field for people to run around or walk their dogs. For this occasion the calm grassy field was transformed with several huge tv screens broadcasting the game and literally thousands of Italians waving flags and flares around. It was the absolute perfect place to watch the game and even though Italy lost to Spain, it was a great experience to be able to be in Rome for the game. All in all, a very very good Sunday.