The Rome Cavalieri

[canyonwalker]

Italy Travelog #4
Rome Cavalieri hotel - Saturday, 24 May 2025, 4pm

Around 3pm today we arrived at the Rome Cavalieri. It's a Waldorf Astoria hotel, so we had reasonably high expectations. Recall that our other W-A experience was the Waldorf Astoria Pedregal in Los Cabos, MX— where we had an amazing arrival experience, a very bougie lunch, and later, a touching "Happy Retirement Ms. Hawk" card.



Compared to the Pedregal hotel, which was an over-the-top, 5-star experience, the Rome Cavalieri is merely a solid 4.5 star hotel. Everything is appropriately swank— including the prices in the restaurants 😱— but, for example, we had to *gasp* wait in line at the front desk to check in. (At the 5 star hotel, staff opened the car door for us, greeted us by name, and escorted us to a private table with cocktails where the concierge came to us to deliver our keys.)



Our room is suitably luxurious, and spacious, though again without the over-the-top-ness of the W-A Pedregal. Here the balcony with a private pool and a beach vidw is replaced by a balcony with... -out a private pool or a beach view. 😅

Not that there's even a beach, anyway. We're in Rome. Though this hotel is right up the hill from Vatican City. If we were on a higher floor we'd be able to see it from our balcony.

As we explored the hotel grounds a bit this afternoon we found a hawk.



Yup, there's a hawk sitting on a railing on the terrace overlooking the pool area. As you can see from the jess to the left of the bird's feet, though, it's not a random hawk; it's kept by a falconer. The falconer wasn't around this afternoon so we spent some time admiring the bird by ourselves without knowing what species of hawk or falcon it is. Hawk noted that our iPhones will identify what we're taking a picture of, if they can. Her iPhone told her, "bird". Thanks, Apple, we were confused for a moment there that it might be a flower. Apparently that AI feature was implemented by the same team that created the original icon for Apple Maps showing a route of jumping off a bridge into busy interstate highway 280 traffic.

Comments

[some_other_dave]

Mom and Ella stayed at the Cavalieri in 2009 and really enjoyed it. Not the (then) 38 Euros for a bowl of minestrone soup, but the views and the experience. And the executive floor access for the food.

I probably already mentioned the "funky chicken" (La Gallina Bianca, the white chicken) restaurant which they really loved. Might be worth a look.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/La+Gallina+Bianca/@41.899594,12.4949827,672m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x132f61a5ae96f20f:0x36290e0bb1a17e94!8m2!3d41.89959!4d12.497563!16s%2Fg%2F1tfn556k?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDUyMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[canyonwalker]

Thanks for the map link, that helps me place it relative to things in the city. We were further south than that neighborhood today. After visiting the Colosseum and the Roman Forum we walked southwest to the Jewish ghetto and ate there. Imagine how good Nonna's homemade pasta is when she's your Jewish grandmother! If we're closer to the Funky Chicken tomorrow we might give it a try.

[some_other_dave]

Ella recommends the fried zucchini blossoms there. They may have prosciutto, so the Bird might not want them, but Ella loved them.

I had them when I was in Rome about a half-century ago (literally!!) but I don't know which restaurant we were in. I liked them a lot, though! Deep fried and savory. I tried to recreate them at one point about 10-15 years ago; they were good but not as good as the ones I remembered.