The destination for the day was Frascati. A name constantly forgotten and messed up by all members of the group except for the two organizing it.
After getting off of the train, the first thing we noticed was the silence. We walked up the steps and looked around. Barely anybody. It was nine a.m. and there was literally just a few people walking. Quite different from the hustle and bustle of the inner city where by 8 a.m. the streets are filled with people trying to get to work, tourists and hobos.
Walking up the stairs, we took in the wonderful view. Palazzo Aldobrandini sits on a hill and on axis (yes, I'm going to talk like an arkie right now) is a fountain which I pictured here below. Gorgeous isn't it?
For about two hours we walked around and eventually made it to an incredible medieval tower... of which we were yelled at by some crazy lady through her window :s. It got a bit uncomfortable after about 5 minutes because a) she was yelling at us in Italian and b) her window was closed the whole time and she looked like what you imagine a witch looks like. I almost feel like she was trying to put a curse on us. Anyways, we left and walked around some more, Karen picked some illegal pomegranate and then we ended up having to pass the tower AGAIN. And as we expected, the lady was still waiting. Glaring at us. I don't think she moved in the 45 mins that we were gone. It was freaky as you can imagine. I really do think she was trying to put a curse on us.
Well enough about witches.
It was only 11 and none of the food stalls had opened yet, or more specifically the one I read up on and reallyyyy wanted to try so we explored some more and came upon a dog park. The dog park had a fountain with a statue of just legs. Seriously. Twas pretty funny. There were also lots of cute dogs.
After spending a little time there it was finally time for lunch (yessss). When I looked up Frascati the first link that popped up was a blog; and literally half the blog was about eating a pork sandwich from this place called Lena La Regina Della Porchetta or in English, "Lena the Queen of Pork." Of course, as the diligent youths that we are, we arrived promptly at 12 where Lena herself (or I'm guessing that was her from going off the blog) was setting up shop. We kept looking around for the pork because the Queen of Pork has to have a pig right? We waited awkwardly for about ten minutes before asking if they served pork there. Seems silly I know but hey, sometimes you gotta ask. Apparently, she was just about to bring out the pig and so as we waited another five minutes, I bought another thing that Frascati is apparently known for. Wine Cookies. Or just cookies made with wine. They are pretty good. Taste familiar... but I don't know like what.
As we munched on the wine cookies, the porker was brought out. And my O my, was she a beaut. Since we were there first, Lena of course gave us first dibs and we ordered a round of her famous pork sandwiches. I'm just going to put the pictures here at this point, because they speak louder than any of my poorly written sentences could. And you probably could smell it better if I did that. Ya I said smell it.
The inside of the pig was lined/stuff with an array of wonderful spices that just left sparks of yumminess bursting in your mouth with every bite. Being part Filipino of course, I must mention it's delectable skin. That was the part I looked forward to the most. It was nice, crisp and absolutely delicious. I'm glad I read up on her.
To walk off the food that we just consumed we decided to just go exploring some more. We walked up another hill and found ourselves in a lovely, green park. On the right end of the park there was an extremely large fountain which actually was built all the way up the hill. It was pretty nifty. The repetition of the arcades and it's flatness of the bottom facade just made the whole thing seem to fit in perfectly.
And just to the left of that fountain is a park. The most wonderful, relaxing, fun park that I've been to. The first thing that I did was jump on this jungle, spinny, climby thing (which is pictured below) and spin it. It was really cool. I'd never seen on of those before. I also went on the see-saw with Karen and the swings which I was just a little too big for. It was lots of fun and really relaxing. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
After playing in the park, we climbed the hill more to get to the top of the fountain. Walking up I found some pretty interesting purple flowers. They have a ring as the base and the petals grow upwards. I pressed a few of them in one of my journals.
All in all it was an excellent day. The weather was great, chilly, but very sunny and the vistas at several points were wonderful, especially since Frascati is on a hill so you can see the surrounding city which is really cool and jawdropping.
P.S.: We were supposed to scan our train tickets before boarding and yup, we didn't do that so my friends and I still have a free ride to Frascati up until Dec 7th. We're definitely going to put that 1.90 Euro tickets to good use.
Yum - can't wait to try the pork sandwiches. And your Filipina Lola would be proud!
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