Musician Jeremy Monteiro loves the Italian city for its varied artworksWho: Jeremy Monteiro, 53, home-grown jazz pianist.迷你倉尖沙咀 The Cultural Medallion recipient has an upcoming concert, A Jazzy Christmas, at the Esplanade Concert Hall on Dec 21. He has a son Varian, 29, who works as his tour manager.Favourite city: RomeWhy: I've been to Europe many times and seen great art, but the sheer quantity of great art in Rome just overwhelmed me. I was there last month for a performance and pre-production work on an album with Italian jazz organist Alberto Marsico, so I did not expect the trip to have such an artistic and spiritual impact on me.It reminded me of the silent space artists must go to to create great art. In order to be a good artist, one must fall in love with boredom and repetition, and it's easy to get distracted in our modern, buzzing world.Best place to stayThere are many four- and five-star hotels in Rome, but I like looking for old, boutique hotels in the heart of town that are not too expensive. Hotel Sant'Angelo (Via Marianna Dionigi, 16, Rome, tel: +39-06-324-2000) is one such hotel. Rooms cost around €44 (S$75) a night. It's a very old building, but well-maintained. There's a main building with around 20 rooms and an annexe, where we were, with around 50 rooms.The location of the hotel is excellent. It's less than a 15-minute walk to St Peter's Square, where the Pope makes his addresses, and a 10-minute walk to the Castel Sant'Angelo. It's also less than five minutes to Tiber River.Best way to get aroundYou can walk almost everywhere in Rome, except to the Colosseum, which is further out and would require a half-day bus journey. I love walking cities, such as Chicago and San Francisco, and it's especially easy to wander around in Rome.You could easily spend the whole day on foot, exploring the city and its side streets, but I would recommend staying off the side streets after 9pm for safety reasons. I've never felt unsafe there but it's probably wise not to walk alone or along small roads once it's that late.Favourite restaurantsMy drummer and I went to Italy determined to find the best pizza in the country. One of the best we had in Rome was at Ristorante dei Musei Vaticani (Via Sebastiano Veniero, 78, Vatican City, tel: +39-06-6821-0776).You would think that a restaurant right by the Vatican Museum would be really touristy and not serve good food, but it turned out to be a really authentic Italian experience. It brought out all sorts of things not on the menu and the Neapolitan pizza was delicious.After the meal, it also brought out digestifs of limoncello (Italian lemon liqueur) and grappa (grape liqueur). All in all, for two pizzas, big salads, a few pastas, a bottle of wine and the digestifs, we paid ?90 for six of us. It was a very good value feast.Anothermini storagemust-visit restaurant is Cacio e Pepe (Via Giuseppe Avezzana 11, Rome, tel:+39-06-321-7268). It serves home- cooked-style pasta and only three or four specific dishes a day. There is a semi-rude waiter who will yell at you if you try to order anything else.You know the place is going to be good when it's really crowded and 90 per cent of the crowd is Italian. The pasta is more cooked than I'm used to, but it has a distinct home-cooked taste.It's kind of in the middle of nowhere - about 10 minutes out of the city by taxi - but you have to make a reservation before you go. Even with a reservation, we had to wait 15 minutes for a table.We tried the carbonara and the cacio e pepe, the dish the restaurant is named for (pasta with cheese and pepper). Both were fantastic. We paid ?60 for three people, which is not that cheap, but it's worth it to eat the real stuff.Must-do cultural activityThe Vatican Museum (Viale Vaticano, Rome, tel: +39-06-6988-3332) is one of the most amazing museums in the world. You walk for two hours through all the halls and chambers before you get to the Sistine Chapel, and the art you see during that walk is just mind-boggling.There is a lot of art from two of the greatest Italian painters of the High Renaissance, Raphael and Michelangelo who, of course, painted the famous ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.The chapel was recently completely restored by Japanese artists and people either completely hate it or love it. Those who hate it feel the colours are too bright and vibrant, which I feel is not fair. The colours have faded over time because of soot from the candles burnt in the chapel, which gave the ceiling a blurred veneer.The Japanese company brought in to restore it brought it back to what it believes it looked like when Michelangelo had just finished it and I love it.I've never given that amount of time - three hours in total - to any other museum and would have stayed another hour if we didn't have to go somewhere else.Best hidden findThis is something probably only interesting to those who like jazz organs. While in Rome, I discovered the Hammond Italia, a hobbyist group of jazz organists who love the Hammond organ. This is an old electro-mechanical instrument that is no longer produced, but the hobbyist group in Italy has more than 1,400 members.I was invited to a jam session with them and got to play on a very old Hammond organ. I would never have found the group if not for an Italian friend and it was a great musical find.The group also has Hammond Appreciation Days once or twice a year, where people can go and watch its concerts. Go to the blog, .hammonditalia.blogspot.com, or e-mail hammondite@gmail.com for more details.I have not seen a critical mass of people who love Hammond organ-playing like this anywhere else in the world.jennanid@sph.com.sg迷你倉
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