Cocktails in Rome {Bar San Calisto}

February 21, 2014

Cocktails in Rome {Bar San Calisto}

Now I love a fancy cocktail in a swanky bar. Top shelf booze and artisan bitters well mixed by passionate experts and then poured with flourish into beautiful glasses, that's my idea of a very good thing. Add a comfy place to lounge and good snacks and I am in my happy place. That said, sometimes a cold beer in a slightly dingy spot is just right.

Last Saturday afternoon, after days and days (and days) of rain, the sun was shining and it felt like spring. In February. We walked across the river to Trastevere to pay a visit to the Basilica de Santa Cecilia. Cecilia was a powerful Roman noblewoman who was martyred for her christian beliefs around 300 AD. Now she is widely known as the patron saint of music. The teenager has a big audition in London this week for a college application and a major performance for his IB exams coming up so we decided a pilgrimage to visit Santa Cecilia was a good idea. After we lit candles, admired the extraordinary and heartbreaking likeness carved by 17th century artist Stefano Maderno and toured the magnificently restored (with funds donated by Estee Lauder) crypt below the basilica, it was time to enjoy the twilight in a pretty piazza.

Bar Calisto is a well known Trastevere spot and is loved by locals, students and tourists alike. It has not been spiffed up with a new coat of paint and expensive light fixtures like so many Roman bars have. There are battered tables and linoleum floors and curled photographs of football and boxing stars tacked onto the walls. It is one of my favorite places in Rome. The beer is cold and cheap and the people watching is outstanding.

Grab a table outside or stand in the piazza with a bottle of Peroni or Menabrea, a bag of potato chips and watch the theater that is Rome.