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Getting lost is a sore subject with me. I do it easily and often. It causes me anxiety. So, what do you do when you find yourself someplace unfamiliar? What else -- you get lost. | |
| There is this chocolate shop in Rome that I adore. It's called Moriondo & Gariglio. I try to visit it every time I'm here. "Try" is the operative word. I say that because I cannot find that shop to save my life. I can only happen upon it. I know the neighborhood it is in. It is on a one-block Via called Pie' di Marmo -- marble foot. Named because there is a rather large sandled foot made of marble on the corner. But, like the street, I can't find that marble foot either. I don't know if it's Rome, or if it's because I'm directionally-challenged. Maybe while I'm on vacation, I lose my need to know where I am, and am willing to wander and experience not what I intend, but what I happen to find. The shop is city, no, world-renowned for its hand-crafted chocolates and its jelly fruit, gelatina di frutta. We're not talking Jujyfruits© here. The gelatina di frutta is the essence of the very fruit itself. The chocolates are beyond heavenly. This may not be a coincidence because the shop lies in the neighborhood where priests and nuns buy their costumes. Even the Pope shops here. |
The candy shop is tended by a grand Chocolate Matriarch and several handmaidens who wear pinafores and paper hats. You can ask for as many "samples" as you want. When you order your candies: ah, the ritual. “Scatola, signora? Box, m'am?” You pick the size, and let the dance begin. Out comes the foil, the tissue, the scissors. They not only handmake the chocolates, they craft each box. These are not mass-produced boxes of chocolate. The ladies cut the paper and rip the tissue to fit. Each chocolate or jellied fruit is gingerly plucked with tongs then delicately wrapped, each one, in foil. Placed oh-so-gently into the box. Covered with more ripped tissue and precisely cut foil. On goes the top. The box is finished off with a ribbon of satin or voile. It is complete. The entire process takes about 15 minutes. You hand them your 20 euros and walk out past the marble foot. You realize you've just experienced a little piece of heaven. Maybe that's why it's so difficult to find the shop. How much heaven can one girl take? |
Q - If you hate getting lost, why do you travel? A - Good question. Q&A ARCHIVES  Angels of Roma |