9. Roma - The Trastevere area

We wandered over to the Trastevere area on Sunday, to see the island in the river Tiber and to find something interesting to eat, that wasn't pasta or pizza.

No matter how hard you try, it is difficult to find the beauty here along the banks of one of the great rivers of the world.  Even with magnificent old trees on either side, all you see is grot. Weeds, rubbish, graffiti, broken concrete and rock in the water, footpaths with gaping holes and gutters choked with leaf litter and garbage overflows.

The bridge here is an ancient footbridge, once associated with the fabric mills that operated here, making use of the strong river current. 

This is the second most important bridge over the Tiber, the Garabaldi bridge and it takes a heavy stream of traffic.

 That is a hospital, associated with the local church, that you can see on the island.

Lots of tourists, including us, were watching the stream of plastic flowing down the river.  All of Rome is literally awash with plastic water bottles, mostly from domestic not tourist consumption.
Very few plastic bags though - you have to pay for plastic bags at the supermarket and almost all are used to take household waste to the communal garbage bins. No recycling - everything to landfill or incineration.

The Trastevere area is very nice.  It is predominately artsy and foodie with some streets being touristy, some local.  This is the main square.

A little jazz.

A little bubble blowing.

A little belly dancing. 

Then we found lunch.  A hole in the wall called 'La Prosciutteria'.  

We had the mixed board - it was very good and the goat's cheese from the mountains (not sure which mountains) was excellent.  So was the vino.

Thwarted a pickpocket, with his hand on the zip of Paul's bag, on the bus on the way home.  Viv&Paul:1 The Rest:0