Our LAST day in Rome and in Italy! Tomorrow we fly home. Time for some gluten free shopping! Luckily there is a Conad grocery store a block away from us so we popped in there and acquired a few gluten free items – Liz was purchasing for her next door neighbour who is a tween and has CD and I was basically just purchasing anything that looked interesting! I am not going to list what we purchased as that will give away some surpises however they ended up being both gluten free and regular items at the store.
Now, as this previously was forecasted to be a rainy day, and we were going to stay in, and it is now a LOVELY sunny day, Liz decided to accompany me on my “B” list item that I wanted to do – got to newer chain store in Rome called Celiac Laboratory (but in Italian). So off we went!
I knew that the subway stop near the Celiac Lab was accessible as it is one of the two stops near St. Peter’s and the Vatican that are advertised as such. However I did not notice that the stop nearest to where we were staying, on the same line, was NOT. So needless to say, Liz had to help me by carrying Hugo down some stairs while I used the railing to get down safely. After managing to buy tickets this time and scanning properly to take the train, we got onto a train and hoped we were going in the right direction – so we were and shortly we arrived at the correct stop. Now, where is the elevator that is supposed to be here? Nowhere to be found!
There are stairs going up to the next level and there at the top – a stair lift! How ingenious! Yet no way to call someone in the booth that I cannot see from down at the bottom of the stairs – so Liz had to go up and with the assistance of another lady, get the security guard to help me take the stair lift upstairs. Then we were on the main level underground and there was another set of stairs, with a lift, going up to the street. I went back and asked for assistance and was told the lift was broken. Okay, I get the picture – they did not want to help so in the end, Liz carried Hugo and I climbed the staircase, which was smaller than the one that I went down to get onto the subway near the convent and we were off to look for the Celiac store!
A short walk away we found it – thanks to Google Maps leading us there! What an experience it was! We do not have very many Celiac only stores in Vancouver anymore (in fact I think they have all closed now) and it is such a wonderful experience shopping at a store where you do not need to read all the ingredients and scrutinize them before putting them in your basket or cart. The store was a BIT small for my walker to get around however it was manageable. I did get some items – mainly tea cookies that I like and some small pasta that I can put in soup and then we were off and trying to figure out how to get home from there. At this point we were farther away from the convent than we had ever been!
So we started walking as I was NOT going to repeat the subway and busses were a no go for me. As we were near the Tiber river we walked to Castel S. Angelo which is a round building on the Vatican side of the Tiber River and had a break (that was so Lynda could have a cold drink) and then we kept walking towards the convent, where we ended up, funny enough at Volgia d Pizza Restaurant which is gluten free. There we had something different! A zucchini pizza along with my standard caprese salad. We also took home 2 Tiramisu`s for desert (and motivation to walk home). The pizza came with a sign on it indicating that it was made using celiac protocols. Very cool! It was a good pizza with a nice crispy crust.
Off we went walking again, through Trastevere, along to the Venetian piazza and around the Coliseum and up the hill to the convent! Wow – what an adventure we had today! Now it is time to pack and eat my desert! Well packing was SLOW and the desert went down FAST! I had not accumulated much on the trip however no matter how much you move things around, they never fit like they did when your originally packed them! Now it is time for bed as the morning is going to show up faster than I want it to!
