Calatrava's swimming pool: viewed from Rome's mountains

This post is about a swimming pool.  It's in the photo above, but you were probably looking at the Alban hills, or the moon, or the city at dusk.

Rome is circled by mountains on 3 sides: to the southwest, the Colli Albani--the Alban Hills--beckon with a set of charming small towns, including Frascati and Rocca di Papa, sitting below the highest mountain in the chain, Monte Cavo.  To the north and east, Tivoli provides  access to the higher mountains in the Monti Lucretili, a group that includes Monte Sterparo and, beyond it to the west, the highest of Rome's nearby mountains, Monte Gennaro. Then, much closer to the city--indeed, right in it--there's a low chain of mountains (hills, really) that includes Monte Mario (about 400 feet vertical from the river), with its close-up views of the Vatican and one of Rome's great bars, for its view: Lo Zodiaco.  And to the south of Monte Mario, and in the same chain, the Gianicolo.

We've been all over these mountains--walked every trail and been to every peak in the Colli Albani, done most of the major mountains in the Lucretili range, and walked the length of the Monte Mario complex more than once. Each hike has its pleasures (and, we should add, its irritations).

One of the minor pleasures is catching a glimpse, from any of the summits and many of the trails, of one of the outstanding architectural features of Rome's periphery: a swimming pool.

But not just any swimming pool.  To be seen from a distance, of course, the pool has to be a big one, and this one is.  Up close it's a soaring, curving, triangular hulk of a building, set in the far suburbs to Rome's east, near Tor Vergata, the newest of Rome's universities.  It was designed by starchitect Santiago Calatrava for the 2009 World Swimming Championships, and construction began in 2007.  But before it could be completed, Rome's right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, cancelled the project. Here's what it looked like a few years ago:

And here's how it looks as we journey around Rome's horn of hills and mountains, beginning with the Alban Hills and moving counterclockwise.  In the photo below, Monte Cavo is to the left--with antennas--and the pool can be seen on the right, just above a dark set of lower hills.  The photo was taken from a mountain to the north and east of Monte Cavo.

Frascati is only a few miles from Monte Cavo, and set lower in the Colli Albani.  Here's the pool from Frascati.  Surprisingly close:

Tivoli is on the edge of another range, the Monte Lucretili, further north.  Here's what the pool looks like from the hills above Tivoli (about 600 vertical feet from the town).  Charming Tivoli is in the foreground, the white triangle of the pool about 1/4 from the right edge and near the horizon.

Below, the cross on Monte Sterpara--about a two hour hike from Tivoli, which is out of the photo to the left.  The pool, near the horizon, is to the left.

Monte Gennaro is the tallest mountain in the Lucretili range, with a hike up of from 2,000 to 3500 feet, depending on where you start.  Because Gennaro is high and further away, the pool gets smaller.  Below, we've cropped and modified the photo to make the pool more visible (if barely, at far upper left).  Don't complain.  In the foreground is the concrete platform atop the mountain.

Now, as we move back into the city to its west, the pool gets closer and, thankfully, more visible--though not much.  Below, photographed from the path up Mont Mario (near the Foro Italico), the pool is at left, against a backdrop of the Colli Albani:

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We've raved before about the views from the top of Monte Mario, at the Lo Zodiaco bar.  Here's proof.  That's Rome, the Colli Albani, and the Calatrava pool, at dusk:

You don't have to climb even Monte Mario to see the pool.  The photo below is from the terrace of the American Academy in Rome, during its yearly open house showcasing the work of its fellows.  Put that June event on your calendar--if only to see the Calatrava pool.

Bill

Ariccia: For the Birds, and the Pigs

Ariccia may be our favorite town in the Colli Albani.  The entrance to it is simply spectacular: over
an elegant and long bridge, spanning a deep gorge, the city center just at the end, magnificent views of the coastal plain and the Mediterranean beyond.










The tranquil main square, with a bar and exterior seating, is the perfect place for a morning coffee.
Around the corner is "main street," narrow and inviting, shops and bars, locals sitting--and trimming green beans.











Then there's a whole "other" Ariccia, just through the town and down left: a spilling semicircle with perhaps a dozen restaurants and cafes, all featuring some version of pork, most with some sort of pig logo out front. (The bridge to the right of the photo on the right is the same one pictured in the older photo, below.)

Today, the restaurant area is to the right, and down.  View looking north/northwest.  

And trucks delivering Ariccia pig meat going by.

One time we chose Osteria del Borgo and pappardelle with...pork (wild boar)!  And a plateful of porchetta (photos above and left).  All pork all the time (we first wrote about Ariccia's porchetta in 2011).  On another visit we discovered a street of restaurants heading up the hill alongside the Parco dei Chigi.  Men and women hawking their restaurants even crossed the street to accost us.  Nonetheless, we chose one - Osteria da Angelo (da 1920, "hand made pasta" - those factors attracted us), and had a terrific porchetta "starter" followed by that pasta.  We've now discovered the difference between dry and moist porchetta.  You definitely want the latter.  And, you need to eat it with some of the crispy skin and fat for flavor.  Just do it.

Bernini's Church of the Assunta - he was inspired by the Pantheon dome, as he was reconstructing the Pantheon into a church.
The small fountain to the left in this picture is the Fontana delle Tre Cannelli (Fountain of the Three Spouts).  The fountain
also sports the Chigi symbols - the mounds topped by a star.

A tasty town, yes, but the most remarkable aspect of this small community is that it has two monumental buildings by the distinguished 17th-century architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  We think that's two more than any other town in the Colli Albani (but we could be wrong).  The Bernini buildings are on the central square, facing each other.  The entire square, with the palazzo on one side and the church on the other, was designed by Bernini for Chigi Pope Alexander VII, and that is one reason we were so impressed by the view of the town as we came over the bridge.  The bridge, a 19th-century addition to the town, was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt after.

View of "lower" Ariccia (the dome of Bernini's church is visible), part of the immense park, and, beyond, the Mediterranean.  The nets at the side of the bridge are there to catch would-be suicides.  

Across the street from the church, the long white building is Bernini's (and Carlo Fontana's--a Bernini pupil) Palazzo Savelli Chigi (photo of entrance above). The two rebuilt an earlier structure in baroque style in the 1660s.  The palazzo belonged to the

Chigi Pope Alexander VII (we think), eyed by Dianne.

Chigi family for more than 300 years, finally ceded to the Commune only in 1988.

It was a setting for the 1963 Luchino Visconti film, Il Gattopardo ("The Leopard"), starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon, and now hosts exhibitions and events.

From the terrace.

The rather plain facade belies a complex and rich decorated interior.  A balcony/deck overlooks the gorge and park below--what used to be Chigi property - and fascinating enough to us that Dianne is writing it up as a separate post (all Ariccia all the time!).

In the Palazzo Savelli Chigi, we especially enjoyed the "admissions" room, with a ceiling delightfully painted in birds--and an animal we couldn't identify, devouring a mouse.   So don't forget to look up!

Bill and Dianne

Castel Gandolfo - Picturesque retreat for Pope Benedict XVI

Now former Pope Benedict XVI is ensconced in the Papal Summer home at Castel Gandolfo, a small hill town we visited last year - just to check it out - not knowing it would host a living, former Pope. We have a fondness for the Castelli Romani, also known as the Alban Hills (Colli Albani), the cluster of volcanic hill towns about 15 miles (of heavy traffic) from Rome.  We've been in Castel Gandolfo several times, but mostly to take hikes or scooter through.  We never went close to the Papal grounds until last year.

Picturesque Castel Gandolfo is; lively, well, no.  We stopped at a tourist kiosk, unusually (for Rome and environs) open, and the trying-to-be helpful woman inside told us that, frankly, there was not much to see in Castel Gandolfo, except the tiny main drag and the Pope, when he was in town (Castel Gandolfo has historically been the Pope's summer retreat, especially vital in the days before air conditioning). 

A public park outside the Papal walls could use some
attention

Ad and funeral notice

We wandered around a bit, and confirmed her take on the town. We saw - about one block off the Papal walls - a public park with unused (at 11 in the morning) playground equipment and knee-high grass.  We also discovered some ads of which no Pope would have approved.  We were taking the photo of a personal  funeral notice (common in Italian towns) because it featured Padre Pio, the controversial saint, and then realized the Padre was plastered on the same wall as a picture of a scantily clothed woman.

Swiss Guards in front of the entrance to the Papal palace
in Castel Gandolfo

The main drag, about 2 or 3 regular blocks long, ends at the Papal walls and features great side views of Lake Albano, the lake on whose volcanic rim the town sits.  Several restaurants have terraces opening to views of the lake.  There's also a train stop down the hill a ways.  We have often spotted nuns waiting there for the next train to Rome.  Although the lake is accessible from the town via paths and roads, the trek up is not the easiest--about 300 vertical feet.

Castel Gandolfo claims to have the first
mailbox in the world (1820) - this is it

The town can be sleepy when the Pope is not in residence.
This shop sign reads "Returning soon; we are at the bar."

Castel Gandolfo has its share of public
drinking spaces

The Barberini were here - note the bee symbol.  There were several Barberini Popes.

Looking out of the Papal walls towards the
plains; tourist kiosk at bottom of road

One of the restaurants with a terrazzo

Of pigs and pork in the hills outside Rome: when gourmet cooking meets us



Looking for porchetta in Ariccia



Found it!  Dianne watches her sandwich being made

We have to admit a craving for porchetta - that's the roast pork that is sold at road side stands, and also in shops around southern Italy.  But the classic porchetta is from a small town, Ariccia, in the hills outside Rome, the Colli Albani.

We heard from our friend, B, in the States, that even Gourmet Magazine had found its way to Ariccia.   Glad you finally made it, we say.

the view towards the Agra Pontina

Looking back at Ariccia from its bridge

Ariccia sits perched on the side of the hills with sweeping views of the plains that lead to the Mediterranean (the Agro Pontino - or Pontine Marshes, now densely inhabited after the Mussolini government's reclamation efforts).  It's a fun town to visit, with its tiny shops, many of them selling just porchetta. 

Ariccia is full of porchetta and pig references.  We rather like this anthropomorphic pig holding a piece of his own species (photo right).

You can get a sandwich to go - the best way to eat your porchetta.  You may not be used to the large piece of salty skin they throw in the sandwich.  And you can hit a bone now and then (Bill lost a piece of tooth to one years ago)- so caveat emptor.

Buon porchetta!

Dianne

RST Top 40. #13: The Path from Frascati to Tuscolo

waterway fountain in Villa Aldobrandini's
amazing back gardens - in Frascati

This path is loaded with so much history, architecture, views and nature, it easily makes our Top 40. 



The walk starts in the heavily bombed (in WWII) town of Frascati (now known for decent white wine: Frascati Superiore) and proceeds past Renaissance villas (see several photos below), and a hermitage selling honey for good measure, to the Roman ruins of Tuscolo - Tusculum to the Romans.  Myth has it that Tuscolo was founded by Ulysses and Circe - who could ask for more?  Prehistoric man, then Etruscans, then Romans - traces of many civilizations are here; you can see the substantial remains of an amphitheater in the ruins of Tuscolo, and a more modern cross on top of, of course,  "Monte Tuscolo". 





Is this Borromini's gate?  Even the
Borromini expert isn't sure - at Villa
Falconieri just outside Frascati



End your day (this makes a nice day trip from Rome) with wine and a porchetta sandwich at a "fraschetta," a casual place that sells wine and simple foods.  Frascati/Tuscolo was the playground of the rich and famous from prehistoric times until World War II - why not make it yours too?



You can easily travel from Rome to Frascati in the Alban Hills by train or Metro/bus.  All the directions are in Rome the Second Time's Itinerary 13 (now with the map overlaid on Google maps in the eBook versions!).   Dianne

Path behind Villas Falconieri and Mondragone



Rarely, the villas are open - usually special arts weekends
If they are, you will be treated to wonderful vistas and
interiors like this fresco of the eavesdropping monk





 

Genzano: Bread, Flowers and War

Genzano is one of several delightful hill towns along the via Appia, on the western edge of the Alban Hills (Colli Albani).  On one side of the town, though not visible from its main streets, is the volcanic Lago di Nemi; on the other side, the strikingly flat Valle Ariccia.  We've long identified Genzano as the source--perhaps not today, but some time ago--of Pane Genzano, a bread with a crusty exterior and reasonably soft (morbido) interior that is for us the best of the unsatisfactory breads available in Rome's bakeries.  Based on Pino Levi Cavaglioni's memoir, Guerriglia nei Castelli Romani (Guerilla in the Alban Hills) [1971], we also know that the Genzano area was a hotbed of anti-German, partisan activity in 1943 and in early 1944, before the German army was forced out of its defensive fortifications on the Caesar line, which ran across the southern spine of the Colli Albani, only a few kilometers to the southeast of Genzano.  The partisans' standard action was to throw three or four-pointed nails on the two-lane roads, wait for German jeeps and trucks to blow their tires and stop, then shoot as many Germans as they could. 



Dianne, looking across Lago di Nemi, toward Monte Cavo

Early this summer we scootered up to Genzano, parked the Malaguti in a small triangle of land off the via Appia, asked directions from the accomodating and--as it happened--precise proprietress of a nearby retaurant, and headed up the hill to the lip of the volcano, where we found the trail that circles Lago di Nemi.  Although we managed to lose the trail when it entered a series of new logging roads on the lake's northeast corner, we eventually found our way through a wash of suburban-like housing down (down, down, down) to the town of Nemi.

From there we continued the circuit, passing by huge caves that had been hollowed out of the soft, volcanic rock.  Back in town, we had our usual beer under an umbrella in the piazza, then watched with fascination as the city's young people initiated the annual Genzano flower festival by decorating a long, sloping street with colorful petals (see our post on the Genzano kids from this past June).

What we didn't know when as we walked around the lake, or sat contentedly in the shade with our Moretti,
was how much the people of Genzano had suffered during the war--as much from American bombing as from the German military occupation (though the former would not have occurred without the latter).  And we didn't know what those Lake Nemi caves were for.  We found an explanation in James Holland's remarkable book, Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-1945 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008):

The Caesar Line, 1944

"In the small town of Genzano in the Alban Hills...the population had soon found themselves within range of the American guns and so gradually people had begun moving to the banks of the nearby Lake Nemi.  The Alban Hills were volcanic and the townspeople discovered that once the top layer of rock at the lake's edge was dug away there were softer layers of solidified lava beneath that could be quite easily excavated into caves--caves in which more and more people began to live a troglodyte existence.  One cave was destroyed when a large Allied bomb scored a direct hit.  Once the front passed and they were able to dig out the rubble, the townspeople discovered more than thirty bodies, many of whom had been trapped alive when rubble had blocked the entrance.



Nemi caves, carved out of the lava

 By the time the front line had finally passed, many of the people of Genzano had been living in those caves for almost six months.  'To live in little caverns dug by us,' says Leonardo Bocale, one of the Genzano cave-dwellers, 'without any facilities for hygiene, without a life, without knowing what our future could be, tossed like animals...we were abandoned: culturally, materially, spiritually." 

Bill