themed city walks in Rome
If it is true that, as they say, all art aspires to the condition of music, Italian gardens aspire to the status of opera – with their love for grandeur, spectacle and full-throttled drama. This aspiration, however, does not burn with the same passion in all of Italy’s gardens. When, after the Renaissance, Italy fell…
We began our brief series of Roman walks where the city’s history began: on its legendary “seven hills”. Today, we will finish there as well, returning to the starting point of our journey but focusing on what has always been the odd one out of Rome’s seven hills The Aventino on the Eternal City’s southern…
Here is a quiz question for you. What is the only European country that has never possessed any kind of a railway network? Hands up everybody who said “the Vatican”. Wrong! (The correct answer is Andorra.) Don’t feel downhearted if you could not get it right, as the New York Times comforts those of its…
Our latest trip to Rome was the 4th time we visited the city. We went first in the mid-1980s when the world was a different place: the Iron Age of the modern world. Many things have changed since then, but the Eternal City is not one of them. Which, after all, is why it bears…
When you are in Rome for the first time, you should do what everybody else is doing: walk past the Roman ruins, visit the Vatican museums, jump into the Fontana Trevi. For the second time, rather than doing all of that again, you should try something else. Like jump into another fountain, so-to-speak. Extend your…
The Foro Italico manages to combine the ludicrous with the appalling. It is found in the north of Rome and is, in a way, the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Imagine a monument constructed by the Nazis for the glorification of Adolf Hitler and his achievements that for some reason survived WWII –…
A walk through the EUR district demonstrates that bad governments can have amazingly good taste. Rome is one of the few cities in the world that have never been entirely redone – unlike Paris and London, for example, both very old cities, too (although not quite as old as Rome) which today consist largely of…
Roman Holidays From Ostia Antica to Lido di Ostia Ostia was, and up to a point still is, Rome’s connection with the Mediterranean. Ostia is the Latin word for mouth, and this is what the ancient Romans called the place where the river Tiber met the sea. Due to silting, however, this place has moved…
Roman Holidays Is Castel Gandolfo Worth a Visit? The bad news first. While Lake Albano looks great from the train when you are approaching Castel Gandolfo station near Rome: lush, green, scenic and just the right size for an easy once-around (an estimated 10 km) that would still give you plenty of time to explore…
Roman Holidays: Walking Down the Road to Rome All roads lead to Rome. But this is not to say that it does not matter which one of these roads you are going to take. Clearly, there is one road to Rome which is more deeply woven into the city’s historical fabric than the others, more famous and…