Extra days in Rome

Once it was known that we'd have these two extra days in Rome, the Navona Nice Rooms weren't available to us.  In starting to look up where we could stay, it came to mind that we could hope that trip delay insurance could cover us for these days, and we thought of nicer places to book, starting  with the Hotel Mozart where we'd booked last year but didn't go when the trip was postponed.  I reserved on their site, it appeared to be confirmed, but there wasn't an email confirmation.  I called on Sunday about it, and they said to check later; I'd get confirmation once the card was charged.  There was still nothing on Monday morning, when we would be getting ready to move there.  I called and they said they didn't have room for us, they'd emailed that but I never got it.

We were left scrambling for where to stay; I was finding good deals on Hotwire and Priceline, where we wouldn't be given the property name until we committed to it, but Margaret wanted to search for known places, and it was useful to search for B&Bs and apartments in our familiar neighborhood.  As we focused on one, availability for a regular room went away, and they just had a 2-bedroom apartment.  We went ahead and took that.

It was too close to our old place to get a taxi, and one walk with all our luggage was going to be difficult, so we made two trips to our new location, Gonfalone 6.  We had a friendly greeting and marveled at the size of the apartment, although it wasn't quite ready.

It was nice to keep staying in our familiar neighborhood and mix recognizing familiar places and having new discoveries.  We had lunch at Osteria della Moretta, which I'd walked by during my years of school but never tried or heard of others going there; it had likely changed its style since then, but it was nice.

In the evening we crossed the river to return to Da Giovanni, getting a nice view during the crossing.

In the morning, Margaret chose to stay home; I wondered about using the time and chose to go someplace where I doubted Margaret would want to go, the MAXXI or Museum of 21st Century Art, something newish that I thought I should see although it was of more interest for the architecture than the collection.

Many of the galleries inside were closed for setting up new exhibits; there was some mildly interesting photography.

I had used Google Maps to find the right bus routes there; for the return they suggested walking one direction to start, and I was distracted first by the church of Santa Croce in Via Flaminia (1913), then by the Palazzetto dello Sport, built for the 1960 Olympics and which I knew since childhood as of interest for incorporating geometric shapes, now looking grimy.

While stopping to look, I'd missed the bus that Google Maps had first advised, and started on their advice to go the other way for another bus.  I was on the way to missing that, went back in the original direction, and caught that bus.  I'd bought tickets at a newsstand to validate on the bus (confusing to put them in the right way) and there are other ways of getting bus tickets now.

We had lunch from groceries we bought yesterday, did a little more neighborhood walking, to get us to dinner where I'd chosen Giulietta Vino e Cucina.  It wasn't such a traditional restaurant, something of a salon setup with cushioned chairs, but it was a nice final meal in Rome.  We have our return flight tomorrow.