the best kind of lemonade {Villa Borghese Gardens}

my plan for Monday was modest: to walk ten minutes to the Castel Sant'Angelo (the ancient fortress Hadrian built for his mausoleum, later used by royalty and popes) to let the girls play at the small playground there. according to my exhaustive Google street-view searching, this playground did, in fact, have a swing set (Greta was still nursing her disappointment over the lack of swings at the Trastevere playground). i was feeling quite at home, walking down the hill with the bare minimum in the diaper bag (including a change of clothes for Cece but no snacks since we would be home by lunch time). oh, nothing to see here, just a mom and her two kids walking to their local playground, no grazie i do not need skip-the-line tickets to the Vatican, no grazie i do not want a bottle of water for 1 euro. (actually, my RBF must be getting more intimidating, because the street vendors don't try to engage me as much as they did when we first arrived.) 

i was feeling pretty pleased with the whole situation as we walked up to the castle grounds. i mean, taking my kids to play at a playground that is ten feet away from a real life castle wall?! (#BestMomEver) and then we saw the metal fence enclosing the playground and surrounding grassy area. i just stood there looking at it for a minute, trying to find a gate or some other point of entry. an older Italian man was kicking a ball back and forth with a little boy, perhaps his grandson, on our side of the fence. i asked him in a combination of broken Italian, English, and hand gestures, if it was possible to get to the playground. he shrugged but pointed around to the other side of the castle, where i could see steps leading down from the road to the playground level. we thanked him and walked around. as we got closer, i could see that that entrance was fenced off, too. maybe the castle was closed on Mondays? (later research would show this to be false -- i still have no idea why the playground was fenced off.) 

so, it was time for plan B. i'd been wanting to take the girls to explore the Villa Borghese, which is the third largest park in Rome. i wasn't sure that there would even be a playground here, much less if there would be swings, but at least i figured it would be beautiful and the girls could run around. Greta agreed to the new plan and we set off on the two-kilometer walk up and across the river. along the way we met a very nice couple who helped me carry the stroller up and down a little flight of steps close to the Piazza del Popolo (our stroller is so light that it's no problem to carry it myself, but they wouldn't hear of it!). we paused to take in the grand fountains and sculptures of the Piazza del Popolo. 

this Egyptian obelisk was brought to Rome in 10 B.C. and originally erected in Circus Maximus

can you spot Romulus and Remus nursing from their mother wolf?
(above the fountain, you can see the Pincio overlook)

then we climbed up the hill to survey the city from the Pincio overlook, which also serves as one entrance to the Villa Borghese park.  

thankfully, there was a large sign with a map of the park, and i spotted not one, but two children's play areas relatively close by. (this park is huge -- 197 acres!) reiterating to Greta that i still didn't know if these playgrounds had swings, i set off on the beautiful wooded roads, alongside families pedaling surreys and kids pedaling go-karts. after getting turned around a few times, we finally saw the statue of Goethe that heralded the path to the playground and there it was! swings and everything! Greta was possibly the most excited i've ever seen her. 

a little carousel hidden behind the trees

why hello, Goethe

after a while, we backtracked the way we'd come to find a bathroom (it was marked on the map, but not clear that it was actually inside the little cafe -- thankfully, they let us use it without making a purchase) and discovered another small play area made of wooden houses. in our circumambulatory route to the WC, we found yet a third playground (also with swings) as well as a beautiful small lake with rowboats. the breeze blowing through the umbrella pines had just a hint of autumnal crispness without any of its chill. a harpist sat below one of the trees, her soft music filtering through the air as the alabaster sculptures looked on. if we had had a picnic lunch, we would have happily stayed all day.   

as it was approaching 2 PM and Cecilia was getting hangry, we finally had to leave. the map showed a metro stop not too far away from a different entrance to the park, so with the assistance of Google Maps (which tracks your location even without wifi!) we managed to successfully get to the Santissima Trinita dei Monti, the beautiful church overlooking the Spanish steps. 

then it was just a quick ride on the metro to Ottaviano, and a fifteen-minute walk back home. by this time it was after 3, so we had a quick lunch and Cecilia and i both took naps. :)

dinner that evening was one of the best so far: Elizabeth Minchilli's recipe for pollo alla Romana. i happened to have pancetta on hand so i used that instead of prosciutto, but it was still "scrumptious" as Greta proclaimed. i'm continually amazed by how a recipe with just a few ingredients can be so flavorful!