All Roads Lead to Rome This Spring

I’ve never traveled during the spring. 

My family always vacationed in the summer when I was growing up, and when I was in college I didn’t really get a spring break. 

We had a week off from classes but were required to stay on campus for a conference. Back then all I could do was dream about the beach and wait for summer.

So I suppose that's why March doesn't strike me as vacation time, but next week I’m leaving for Rome.

I’m joining author Elizabeth Minchilli and her daughter Sophie who are hosting a food-centric tour of Rome.

When I discovered this trip last summer I didn’t realize Elizabeth’s book Eating Rome, had been sitting on my bookshelf for more than a year. 

I bought it when Amazon suggested I add it to my order to qualify for free shipping, even though I didn't plan to visit Rome. But I changed my mind after leafing through Elizabeth's beautiful photos of her lovely Italian lifestyle.

Now I'll be stepping into its pages, living as the Romans do {for a few days anyway} in a neighborhood apartment, visiting eateries and sampling food.

I’ll also be taking a day trip to Orvieto, one of the most beautiful medieval cities in central Italy with a spectacular cathedral.

Where I’ll also be visiting a goat farm. Again.

It just doesn't seem that long ago that I was visiting with some goats in Georgia so I'm wondering how this city girl keeps ending up on goat farms.

This will be my third visit with goats and really, I'm not that fond of them. 

The Rome itinerary advised us to wear clothes and shoes we don’t mind getting mud or goat kisses on. 

Which as you can imagine sent me into a tizzy. None of my shoes seemed goat-farm-hardy so I bought a pair of very unattractive low-heeled sort of loafers. 

{Even writing the word loafer makes my high-heeled heart cringe a little.} 

But Sophie Minchilli cheerily wrote me that she couldn’t wait to introduce me to her goats. So to take my mind off my shoes, I bought a jacket with lots of pockets that I thought might come in handy for holding little treats for the goats {or maybe a granola bar for me}. 

I'm calling it my goat coat.

And all I could think was, here we goat again. 

{And yes, of course there will be more goat puns!}

Then there's the food, since this is a foodie tour, after all.

Our agenda has us shopping at a local market for ingredients and then spending an afternoon cooking a Roman meal.

I’ll be visiting the oldest bakery in Rome, stopping by a neighborhood pizzeria for fried zucchini blossoms and stuffed olives and tasting Roman cheese, along with gelato and espressos. 

{Did somebody say Italian coffee?!}

I’ve got tickets to see the tourist sites of Rome, too. 

I'm staying a few extra days to tour the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, the Colesseum and Forum and I’ve booked a tour of the palace of Livia Drusilla, the wife of Caesar Augustus.

It's recently been opened to the public after years of work by archeologists and preservationists. 

It's hard to believe frescoes on the walls date from the first century.

Just a few months ago, for the first time I heard Brad Gray, a teaching pastor and historian speak for an hour on this one phrase in Luke’s gospel: “In the days of Caesar Augustus.” 

I sat on the edge of my seat as he described the historical, cultural and geographical aspects of Roman rule and its impact on the people during the time of Jesus' birth. 

It was fascinating and so much different than I'd imagined and now I can't wait to see it.

My grandfather, Louis, is standing far left and my grandmother, Victoria, is standing, second from right.

But most of all, on this second trip to Italy, I’ll also be thinking about my Italian grandparents and great-grandparents. 

In Rome, I'll be a little closer to the southern areas they came from than when I was in Milan two years ago. 

I’ll listen to the language they must have spoken, eat foods that must have been so familiar to them, and see the land where they came from.

I’ve got my camera ready. I have fresh notebooks to jot down my thoughts. 

And I'm hoping for a fresh spring breeze to blow across my wintery, worn out spirit. 

I want to see God everywhere I look in that ancient city because he is everywhere, especially in the same city where the apostles Peter and Paul walked so many centuries ago.

So I'm ready for a spring break.

And I can’t wait to share it all with you when I get back! 

Arrivederci!

I'm having coffee with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart.