D'Angelo, Via Della Croce, Rome

D'Angelo, Via Della Croce, Rome
Saturday 9 September, 2006

Our first morning in Rome and we were keen to hit the shops and cafes. We caught the Metro to Spagna (the Spanish Steps) and were so impressed with how easy and straight forward it was - especially the fact that they had air conditioning on board (it was over 30 degrees outside). We followed the stream of locals, tourists etc down a cobbled street lined with gelati bars and delis with amazing parma hams hanging from the walls and ceilings. The smells and sights were just as I remembered from my first trip to Italy in 2001.

Our mission this morning was to find coffee. An easy task in Rome but we wanted to sit down and take in some fabulous people watching. We stumbled across the perfect location on Via della Croce - D'Angelo. This is a street lined with boutiques, cafes and beautiful people. Just what we wanted. We paid 5 Euros for the privilege of sitting outside, but we didn't care - the atmosphere was exceptional.

D'Angelo is primarily a pastry shop and as it's website boldly states, "the high specialisation of the pastry shop, which makes it one of the most qualified in the centre of Rome deserves the best intentions for other specialities as well, such as the variety and richness of salty snacks as well. For this reason D'Angelo is a must, not only for the greedy ones but for those wanting a fast meal."

With our minimal Italian, we ordered cappuccino's - 'duo cappuccino, por favour' but as much as we tried we realised that plenty of people speak English. The other patrons around us were locals which was excellent as we didn't want to drink/ dine at too many tourist traps.

On the people watching front - my initial observations were:

1) everyone smokes - god, we are lucky in Australia to have such progressive smoking laws!
2) the men love wearing bold, vibrant colours - the photo attached illustrates how comfortable the Italian men are with wearing colour, bold colour and expressing themselves
3) the women have not heard of flat shoes - they navigate the uneven cobbled streets in stiletto heals with ease!
4) customer service is not necessary - if someone actually wants to buy something from your shop they will just have to wait until you finish your phone conversation. We decided that no Italians owned a telephone at home, so they spent all their time calling their friends and family from work. I cannot emphasise enough how entertaining it was to watch a gentleman in a small boutique opposite D'Angelo blatantly ignore every customer that entered his shop as he animatedly continued his conversation

The coffee was fantastic at D'Angelo and set a high standard for our holiday.

D'Angelo - Via Della Croce 30, Rome - 066782556

http://www.gruppodonchisciotte.com/