Neo-fascism comes to picturesque small-town Italy

 

Men outside Caffè Europa in the Roman hill town of Rocca di Papa.

We've always enjoyed watching the men (it's always men) in local bars, sitting around, playing cards, talking. It seems very communal, a good place for these apparently retired Italians. We were consequently horrified to see the small town where the photo above was taken, our favorite small town in the Alban Hills outside of Rome, identified by the New York Times this past week as a hot bed of neo-Fascism.

We had become inured to the fact that Giorgia Meloni, head of the Fratelli d'Italia party ("Brothers of Italy"), would become prime minister. For months the polls had shown her leading, even if her party received only about one-quarter of the vote. She made a pact with some other devils, including Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, on her way to the top post in Italy. Salvini was rewarded with the position of Deputy Prime Minister and - get this and don't choke - Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility (no wonder Italian Facebook went nuts over this Brave-New-World-speak).

We've also been keenly aware of the posters and graffiti around Rome that even decades ago promoted neo-Fascism. We wrote about some of these in our posts on posters and right-wing "heroes." (See here and here.)

What appalled us (and we can hear all our Roman friends going, "DUH!") was that our charming, special, sweet town voted 38% for Meloni's party, knowing they were reviving Fascism.

Are those men above likely Fascists? The New York Times featured the bar across the way, Bar Centrale. But my guess is, yes, you're looking at the right-wing there playing cards.

We had noted in a 2014 post a building we thought likely had been Fascist headquarters until after World War II. It's got the bulky look of buildings of that era, it's now a municipal building, and the date is obvious:  "A.D. 1935." One of our loyal readers, Marco, questioned that interpretation, saying: 

"I find it unlikely that the building in the photo may have been once the Party's HQ - not only the style is not Fascist in appearance, but the Fascist Era (Anno XIII E.F.) mark is nowhere to be seen on the building's façade, as are any remnants of chipped-away fasces one'd expect to find on such buildings."

He makes some good points, and perhaps we were wrong about the past (if there were some other factors we had taken into account there, I don't recall them), but there's no question about the present for Rocca di Papa.

One reason we favor the town is that it's the starting point for one of our best hikes, up Monte Cavo. In fact the photo we took, right, of Monte Cavo from the town, was taken from the now infamous (to us) Bar Centrale.

It's not hard to find men hanging out outside the bars or in the very large square that dominates the lower part of the town. (See photo below.)

From now on, we will have to listen more carefully to their conversations, though maybe we won't like what we hear.

Caffè Europa  is dear to our hearts because it's not only where we've always started (coffee) our hikes, it's also where we've ended (beer) them, and parked our scooter. The photo below was taken with our 2nd of three scooters (historically, not all at once), the foregrounded Malaguti, while the guys play cards, per usual.

That the town is picturesque is an understatement, and it's beautifully sited below Monte Cavo (see photo at end of this post). Its "shield" features the "rocca" or fortress - on the fountain that graces the top of the large square in the photo below. And the "Papa" is for a 12th century Pope who lived there (Eugenio III).

Another view below is from the cemetery, and in the distance the ruins of ancient Tusculum, a Roman town. Everything in Rocca di Papa, including the cemetery (and that 1935 building above) is on a slant, given its position on the steeply sloping hillside.

More in a later post on Mussolini and the rise of neo-Fascism.

Dianne

The town of Rocca di Papa, seen from the main piazza. The first phase of the hike to Monte
Cavo is getting to the top of Rocca di Papa via picturesque city streets. The mountain itself is straight ahead but is not visible in the photo. 

Logging the forests near Rome: We know only the "overstory"

 

Above, at the foot of Monte Cavo (north side), practically on top of the via Sacra, 2019

Italians - like people everywhere - have been cutting down forests for centuries, if not millenia. As hikers, we have our own irritations with logging (described below). More important to us is the ecological damage of continually cutting down an essential natural resource. Italy is not exactly the Rainforest, but it has been a land of trees for centuries, and now it isn't so much. 

Besides reading about the disastrous burning of the Brazilian Rainforest, we've read other recent pieces that have brought to the fore the destruction of this natural resource. One we recommend is Richard Power's "The Overstory," a 2018 award-winning novel that fictionalizes Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Her thesis, illustrated in Powers' book and in a recent New York Times Magazine cover story, "The Social Life of Forests," is that trees communicate underground, and therefore have an "understory." What we see and live in is only the "overstory." 

The cutting of old growth trees - and any forest trying to establish itself - becomes a tragedy to Simard, both the real professor and the novel's central character. 

Quaresima Legnami is a timber- and wood-sales company;
Facebook page here. "Legnami" meaning "timber."

It's difficult to hike in the forests closest to Rome and not feel the  pain of this tragedy. At the top of this post is a photo of a not-very-old forest we saw being mostly denuded the last time we hiked Monte Cavo in the Colli Albani outside Rome. We were on the 2,000 year-old via Sacra when the path dumped us out into this horrific (to us) scene. A bulldozer was in action, and the operator got out and tried to wave us away from the destruction - as if he didn't want us to see what they were doing. The Colli Albani are rightly well-known for their timber, especially the area between Monte Cavo and Velletri (the "Velletri ridge"), where there are plenty of designated hiking and biking trails.

You can see the bulldozer on the right, back, in the photo above, and closer in this photo below:

The guy in the cab of this bulldozer is the one who got out to let us know we were unwanted.     

And here's where we ended up - from via Sacra (left) to these lovely bushes (below, right). My guess is - though I can't prove it - that the company bulldozed right over the via Sacra. (We featured a couple of these photos in a 2019 post on our favorite hike in the Colli Albani, complete with lunch spot.)

One can argue that the loggers are at least leaving a lot of trees standing - to form a new forest in a few years. Even someone as uneducated as I am in these matters can raise several questions. One is that the loggers are cutting timber that already is not very old. The second is that they are not providing essential bio-diversity (according to the writings cited above); and third, they don't tend to the trees left standing, which can become endangered. Evidence of that is these remaining trees that we saw in a nearby area from an earlier cutting: they are overgrown with vines that eventually will kill them (photo below).

2017, Colli Albani

One can also argue that, because logging is a centuries-old practice, it should continue. We still have plenty of forests in which to walk. Right is a photo of Monte Cavo from 2016 (couldn't resist what we like to call the "fauna") that shows trunks growing out of one space - in other words, from a tree that had been cut down earlier.

And, logging in Italy also takes us back to the carbonari - the carbon-workers, who logged trees to burn them and turn them into (then) valuable carbon.  We wrote about this in our post on Mussolini's bunker on Monte Soratte, about 25 miles (40+ kilometers) north of Rome. Left is our photo of a mock-up of a charcoal kiln on a "didactic" side trail we took on Monte Soratte. It
explained the "carbonari."  The practice apparently dates back 3,000 years, and is active in a few spots in Italy even today (see here for a nostalgic view and here for amazing photojournalism - scroll down for the photos).

I'm not in fact interested in the nostalgia, per se. I'm interested in what we humans in the 21st century - having learned a lot in the past 50 years - are doing to the planet. Our photos above of logged areas and logging are from just a couple of the times we've encountered vast expanses of totally logged areas of the once-gorgeous woods near Rome. We hope there's some effort to control this practice.

(A postscript below with some photos of my life with trees and logging. My Dad took me backpacking in the Cascades in Washington State, among old growth forests. I didn't know how lucky I was. He grew up at the foot of those mountains, in the small town of Snoqualmie - photo below of him with his two best friends and business partners in those mountains, clearly surrounded by those trees. My paternal grandfather worked for Weyerhaeuser outside of Snoqualmie, and had his own, private sawmill [photo below]. An uncle on my Mom's side [my Italian side], also photo below, grew up in a valley near those mountains, and was a lumberjack in these forests.)

Dianne

Dale Bennett (the tall one in back) with Joe Proctor and Bill Norstrom, on their way to Deep
Lake, 1949.

My Grandma and Grandpa Bennett, me, and my Dad, at
my Grandpa's private sawmill (looks like a lot of logging
had taken place behind this spot).

Dino Andrealli and Dianne (woodhouse
for the family farmhouse behind);
he later became a lumberjack,
 a hazardous occupation that
ruined his health.

Roman roads pave the way to prosperity in the 21st century

The old via Prenestina, a Roman road we "ran across" in the Roman countryside,
this near Gallicano nel Lazio, during our mostly-successful search for aqueducts.

At RST we're fascinated by the new in Rome, and how it often ties into the old. We've also spent a fair amount of time in and outside of Rome, "discovering" ancient Roman roads, including one in the woods that we couldn't believe dated back two centuries (see photo at right).

Via Sacra ("Holy road") on Monte Cavo
on the way to what once was probably
a temple to the goddess Diana.

At its peak (second century CE), the Roman road system covered Europe and parts of the Middle East and Africa. The tie between the old Roman roads and contemporary life is the thesis of a recent study by Danish economists that links today's European centers of healthy economic activity with infrastructure created 2,000 years ago - the Roman road system.

Looking at the Roman roads in 117 CE, the four economists conclude "greater Roman road density goes along with (a) greater modern road density, (b) greater settlement formation in 500 CE, and (c) greater economic activity in 2010." Underscoring this conclusion is their finding that this tie is weakened to the point of insignificance "where the use of wheeled vehicles was abandoned from the first millennium CE until the late modern period" - that is, in the Middle East and North Africa.  They also found market towns flourishing from the medieval period to modern times along those Roman roads.

Ancient Roman roads (light yellow) superimposed on 2010 satellite imagery of nighttime lighting in Europe. (Washington Post illustration using data from NOAA Earth Observatory, Natural Earth and Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization)

How did the economists figure this out?  Among other tools, they used contemporary population and road density and night-time satellite imagery of light. (See photo above.) The Danes piggybacked on Harvard University's research and mapping project - its Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations - which we plan to feature in a future post.

This article from the Washington Post, here, summarizes nicely the Danish research and has some illustrative maps.

The original paper is here:http://web.econ.ku.dk/pabloselaya/papers/RomanRoads.pdf

Talk about the need for infrastructure?  Could the US take a lesson here?

Dianne

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:

 . 

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

Best Hike in the Colli Albani: Monte Cavo, twice, with gourmet lunch

We included an itinerary for climbing Monte Cavo in our book, Rome the Second Time: 15 Itineraries that Don't Go to the Coliseum.  Now, years later, we've got a new one that requires more hiking and offers an excellent pasta pranzo (lunch) at a trattoria known only to locals. 

Here are the basics: you start at a main (lower) piazza in Rocca di Papa; ascend Monte Cavo.  Descend Monte Cavo--on the other side, where you have lunch; ascend Monte Cavo and return to Rocca di Papa.  About 4 1/2 hours, including lunch.  Total elevation, about 2000 feet with some steep (but nothing dangerous--you could bring the kids) sections, so don't do this hike if you're not in decent condition.  Hiking poles recommended.

I called this an "itinerary," but the directions that follow are less than fully precise, because we didn't keep close track.  Still, it's hard to go wrong or very wrong, and it's fun to find your way without being told where to go every fifty feet.

If you drive, you'll emerge from a curving road into the town's main piazza, which at 11:30 a.m. or so will be full of older men talking.  Park in the piazza and have a second coffee (we assume you had your first one in Rome) at Bar Europa.

Late morning in the piazza.  I counted 30 older men (not all in the photo).  

Begin your trek by going uphill on the town's main drag: the road to the left as you look up toward the mountain.  This could be the steepest section of the walk.  You'll pass by a church in the classical style and head up to the right on a street with "permanent" poster art every 100 feet or so.

You should go by this wall coming and going (here, on the descent)

  Above, gorgeous views and some old signs that say "Monte Cavo" with an arrow.  Follow them.

Sign for Monte Cavo (and woman hanging her washing)

You'll eventually arrive at a piazza at the top of the town, where you'll see signs for Monte Cavo heading up the mountain.  Soon you'll reach an intersection, unsigned, where one road goes right and the other left.  Take the left fork.  This road will turn into the Monte Cavo trail, which becomes via Sacra, the sacred road up to the top of the mountain, which once had a temple to Diana. This is as good as Roman roads get, and you don't have to fight tourists or face barriers to walk on it.

When you arrive at the blue sanctuary to Santa Rita (and Mary), go up left on the stones of the via Sacra.

The sanctuary, ahead

the via Sacra - 2,000+ years old

Ahead, there's a splendid lookout over lakes Albano and Nemi (here, left).

Trail through the woods to the "top" (here,
on the descent)

Then the trail goes left, toward and around a green gate.  Parts of the top are closed for military purposes, but you can get as far as you can go by taking a dirt use trail (as in, not official, but clearly people have made a trail by walking up this way)--close to the green gate--up right and through the woods and around the corner to an old hotel "under construction" (it's been under construction for the decades we've been hiking up here) and, when we were there, a barking, unleashed dog. The top of Monte Cavo unfortunately is chock-full of cell towers now, with no trace of Diana's temple. (You also can take the asphalt road that's close to the gate up and around to the top instead of the dirt trail).




Descend the way you came, until you again reach the blue sanctuary.  If you're exhausted (you've done about half the total elevation) return to town on the trail--straight ahead, past gorilla rock (photo above with Dianne leaning on the rock). (You really don't want to do this if you're hiking for your lunch.)  If you're still up for lunch, curve left around the sanctuary and descend on the 2,000-year old via Sacra, which will cross an asphalt road ahead. Apparently there was an effort around 2006 to clear the via Sacra and put in benches and picnic tables and signs.  A few of each of those, in dilapidated condition, remain.

Below, there's a problem.  The stones of the via Sacra will suddenly end, on the edge of a large open space that was being logged when we were there (May 2019).  At that time, one could choose to go left around the logged area or right.  We chose left, where there were some trail markings.  WRONG.  We ended up walking at least half a mile on a very dangerous, no-shoulder road.  Go right, on the logging road, several hundred yards to a trail that goes off to the right.

When you see this abomination, go right along the logging road until you see a trail off right..

You'll be on this for a few minutes.  Look for a trail that descends left at a right angle, and take it.  In about 5 minutes you should come out on the road, close to the Trattoria La Baita (just to your right).  Have the fettucine or the roast maiale or whatever else you like; the cook knows how to cook.  There is a nice outside space but also an inside dining room, if the weather is chilly.  You'll be welcome even in your hiking garb.

Only locals, clearly, in La Baita. There were 2 choices for each stage of lunch, listed
on a blackboard outside.  Pick any of them!  This is a half-portion of tagliatelle with funghi
porcini and crispy guanciale.  Amazing!

Return the way you came: up through the woods, right at the first "T," left when you hit the logging clearing, left again a few hundred yards up the logging road, onto the via Sacra), up the via Sacra to the blue sanctuary (no need to go back up to the top of Monte Cavo), then straight down the trail (abandoning the via Sacra) into town.

Rusty house and view of Colatrava's unused swimming pool, on the descent into town

You'll go by this basketball hoop both ways.

One of the all-time best hikes in the Colli Albani.

Bill

Hiking the Alban Hills from Rocca di Papa: Monte Cavo, Monti delle Faete, Colle Lano

A view from late in the hike: Rocca di Papa's cemetery in the foreground, ancient Tuscolo on the ridge behind

RST goes hiking in Rome's environs regularly, using our scooter.  We don't usually report on these expeditions because the trailheads can be difficult to access or locate without a scooter or automobile.
But yesterday, on the May 1 holiday, we found a lovely loop trail--you end where you began--that's reasonably accessible.  The trail begins and ends at Rocca di Papa in the Alban Hills. It more or less follows, counterclockwise, the rim of an ancient volcano, with a populated plain at its center, skirting the summits of Monte di Cavo, Monti delle Faete, and Colle Lano.  Although the area was logged, the new growth--now perhaps 20 years old--provides pleasant greenery and cover.


The map at the end of this post encompasses the itinerary.  Monte Cavo is at left, Monti delle Faete at lower right, Colle Lano upper right.  The red star covers the descent from Colle Lano.



Bring: lunch, 2 or 2 1/2 small bottles of water per person.  Wear: clothing for the season, and hiking boots (no sneakers).  Hats, hiking pole, sunscreen recommended.  We found a few bugs but none irritating.



Time and distance: takes about 4 hours (about 8 miles [12 km]), more if you're slow or stop often. Dislivello (total vertical): c. 1600 feet.  That's not insignificant, and two sections of the trail are steep enough to make hearts pound; so if you're without hiking experience, think twice.  It's likely you'll be on your own for most of this hike, especially after Monte Cavo.



Transportation: car, scooter, or take Metro A to the end (Anagnina), and at the big Cotral terminal, catch a bus for Rocca di Papa.  It makes numerous stops, including several in Grottaferatta and several in Rocca di Papa before reaching your destination, Piazza della Repubblica.  You'll need a Cotral ticket before you board the bus.  You should buy a round-trip or day pass.  The trip takes about 40 minutes once you catch the bus at the end of the Metro line (Anagnina to Rocca di Papa).  Our research indicates that the last bus out of Rocca di Papa for Rome leaves at 5:20 pm, and that it may depart from via Ariccia.

Note the image of the rocca on the fountain and high above,
remains of the actual castle

The hike begins at the main piazza of Rocca di Papa--Piazza della Repubblica-- below the old, medieval part of the city.  "Rocca" refers to the large castle at top of the town, once occupied by 12th-century Pope Eugenio III and the site of several scientific experiments by Guglielmo Marconi. The fine fountain in the center of the square bears the image of the tower.

May 1.  Big card game in front of the Caffe' Europa. The
Malaguti in foreground. 

Park here and, after a coffee at Caffe' Europa,  proceed uphill on the road that leads to the right at the upper end of the piazza.  Follow this road (be careful, the sidewalks, such as they are, are narrow and the traffic moves rapidly) for about 2 kilometers (1+ miles).

Magnificent house, on the road

At the gas station, keep right.  Once past a church on the left, look for a road up to Monte Cavo on the left--it's about two hundreds yards ahead.  Go up that road for ten minutes, more or less. Watch on the left for a path with a chain across it, marked by a large arrow pointing right.

On the via Sacra, walking where Romans walked

Take this trail up--it's steep but quite direct--and it will eventually spill you out on the via Sacra, a ceremonial stone road held dear by pagan Romans and then Christians.

Dianne, amid Monte Cavo's cell towers; a far cry from the Temple
to Diana that once stood here

You'll pass a shrine and come to a lookout with great views of Lago Albano and Lago di Nemi (the smaller one) and, beyond the lakes, the Agro Pontino and the sea.  Continue on the road and poke around among the towers at the top, once the site of a restaurant.



Here at the top of Monte Cavo you've completed about 1,000 feet of the 1600 total dislivello.

Retrace your steps to the asphalt parking lot/road.  Follow the asphalt road as it curves several times, then becomes straighter as it heads roughly southeast.

Nice woods between Monte Cavo and Monti delle Faete

After about 10/15 minutes on the road, be on the lookout for the entrance to a trail on the left (shortly after a road, on the left, with a sign noting that the road is for military access).


 You should see a sign giving time estimates to Monti Delle Faete (.55 hours, or about 30 plus minutes), and beyond that, to Colle Lano (another 50 minutes).


Take this well-used and red-and-white blazed trail east, along and about the ridge between Monte Cavo and our next destination, Monti delle Faete (more cell towers).  Enjoy the woods as you go.





The top of Monte delle Faete is enclosed with high fences, but along the fence to the left there is a place to eat and enjoy the views of the Campi di Annibale, where Hannibal is rumored to have quartered his troops during a futile effort to conquer Rome.

Shrine on the trail.  Avoid the trail that goes off to the
left (on this photo) here.

Retrace your steps a few meters and pick up the trail to Colle Lano.  It goes off left and a bit south (if we recall correctly) before rounding Monti delle Faete and  heading north/northeast, steeply downhill.  As your descent (about 800 feet) ends, you'll come upon a small, yellow-painted shrine and, to its right, a trail--don't take it.  Stay on the road here.

Follow the path with this kind of
fencing.

Just ahead there's a junction of several roads/paths.  Take the road to the right, characterized by
low pole fencing along its sides.  As you wind your way uphill (about 400 feet of ascent), follow the signs for the lookout (Colle Lano).  At some point you'll come to a major fork: take the left--and steeply uphill--branch here.

Monti delle Faete--that tuft of uncut trees--as seen from Colle Lano

As you approach the top there's what looks to be an almost cultivated field of (in early May) flowers.  There's no great place to eat here, but the views--of Monti delle Faete on the left/east, Monte Cavo on the right), are worthy.

Weird space

When you leave Colle Lano, continue on the road you came on, now going downhill and west and perhaps a bit north.  Rocca di Papa isn't far.  About 10 minutes out, you'll face a choice between a seldom-used trail/road straight ahead and a more traveled path to the left that descends sharply downhill, initially to the south. Take the path left, downhill.  You'll go through a weird space with broken down cars, a house, and something resembling a jungle gym.  Go through that space and take the more traveled path out of it, the one on the right.

Built 1935,  Likelyonce HQ for local
Fascists

That path will turn into a road, and that road will lead you into Rocca di Papa.


 Follow this road past a church with a huge white facade (on the right), around left and downhill (don't go up)
through the medieval section, past a school and ex-Fascist headquarters (marked 1935) on the left and, just ahead, the piazza where your journey began.

The view--of Monte Cavo--from Bar Centrale

Have a beer on the patio of the Bar Centrale (on your right) and enjoy the view of Monte Cavo. Love those towers.

Bill