Day 26- Palazzo Colonna

Day 26- Rest day (sort of)

Today we started out with a bang- we got to meet up with Carolina d'Ayala Valva, who will be coming to my studio in October to teach a class in grottesca using egg tempera. Really great to finally meet her in person- we've been Facebook friends for some time now. She took us to a wonderful old bakery nearby where we sampled some killer pastries, then she showed us a sample of what she will be doing for the class. Very exciting! If anyone reading this is considering coming to it (or even if you're just learning about it now,) I guarantee this will be an amazing class. The sample is gorgeous, and it will be a technique very few people have used. 

Window display at the panificcio

Carolina also shared with us that she has been contacted by the owners of Zuber wallpapers to create a 12 meter long panoramic paper for them. This is a gigantic honor in case you don't know! Zuber is one of the oldest French paper printers, and their panoramic papers are in the finest homes in the world, including the White House. They have given her carte blanche to create this new paper. I am quite jealous!! 

Nice bit of grottesca ornamental panel from Carolina d'Ayala Valva

Carolina also directed us to the Palazzo Colonna, an old house very near the center of town that has a very good painting collection, including a great Carracci of a guy eating a bowl of beans, which was a very uncommon thing to paint in the 16th century. My camera ran out of battery near the end of our tour, so we hiked back up the hill to the hovel to eat some lunch, then we kind of had quiet time as is the practice around these parts. Another late afternoon thunder shower brought some welcome relief from the heat, which has been building the last few days. 

Main hall of the Palazzo Colonna, in the heart of Rome.

After the weather cleared up we headed back down to the Pantheon and S Maria sopra Minerva, both about to close, then wandered until we found Dolci Nonna Vicenza, where they make amazing canolli, which we partook of, slowly meandering back up the hill as the dusk fell and the shadows lengthened.

Delicious Sicilian style cannolli

We will be leaving the Casa del Formaggio tomorrow without regrets, heading down to Pompeii, Oplontis, and Herculaneum. I'm psyched, although there's still so much we'd like to see in Roma. We met a nice young couple today at the pastry shop, and they said they'd been here two months and were just beginning to feel like they'd seen all the sights, though they hadn't yet heard of the Villa Torlonia! So my guess is you could be here quite some time before it got routine. In my case, probably forever!

Badly designed Molotov cocktail recipe!