Return to Villa Ada

 Above, runners around the artificial lake (host to summer outdoor concerts), and Dianne looking at signboards indicating the plethora of activities in the park.

Rome's second largest and historically unloved northern park, Villa Ada, was once the official residence of the royal Savoia family who left when the country voted out the monarchy in 1946. 

We've found it usually unkempt, with tall weeds where there should be playfields and picnic areas. Last year we were pleasantly surprised to see a fair amount of it had been mowed, that it was in use by many people--runners, children, and organizations, and that its signs had mostly been restored--a long way from what it was when we walked to it in 2018 (post here) and many times before and after.

Above, the artificial lake at the northern end of the park. The circuit around it is popular with runners, and it's a lovely setting for outdoor concerts. We've been to a few there, including a stunning Paola Turci concert in 2012.

Above, amazing!  mowed grass!

But not everything is pristine, witness the bench below

One of our Italian friends noted she liked to run in the "wild" part of the park, and wild much of the southern portion is--though you can also encounter horse facilities, and the stables we assume once belonged to the King. (Wild enough it has been home to wild boars; see Bill's 2022 post here.)

Egypt now owns what was once the King's residence--and you can't get near it. But you can frolic in the outbuildings, once gardens, now the denizen of graffiti artists.

At one time, you also could tour the bunker under the villa, where Mussolini and the King hid out until they could be spirited away from Rome after the fall of the Duce. We posted on our 2017 tour here. We've never been able to find the entrance on our own - it's deep in the vegetation -  and we now understand the tours are "suspended." 

If you are looking to get away from tourists, explore some history, exercise, or just enjoy a day in the park, Villa Ada is an excellent choice.

We once enjoyed coffees and lunch at the outdoor "park" cafe, Bar Panama (first photo below). When we went back last year, it was closed. Apparently it was abusivo--not operating legally on park land One of those abusivi we like!  We settled for the rather tony Parioli Bar Lima.

Dianne

Trouble in Via Panama: What's a car to do?

 There's trouble on via Panama. Congestion. Delays. Honking horns. And most of it was   avoidable.

The street is located on the edge of the swank Parioli neighborhood. It may have been intended to be used mostly by locals, but instead it's a busy thoroughfare, running along the south end of Villa Ada (a massive park). Because it connects two main roads/places—the notorious via Salaria and the very popular, heart of Parioli, Piazza Ungheria—some motorists would be tempted to use it to bypass always hectic viale Liegi, with its buses and trams. 

Last year, the city decided to reconfigure about half of via Panama, adding a wide new lane for bicycles, turning the existing bike lane into a pedestrian sidewalk, and adding cut-outs for buses. Already a one-way street heading south, vehicular traffic on via Panama was smushed into one lane. Locals don't like it.

As it turned out (reading the papers the next day), we arrived to inspect the damage just after a protest demonstration occupied the still-under-construction street. We found a remnant of the manifestazione: a chalked sign on the street, reading "Con le stampelle/Niente Bici/Serve Auto!!!" ("With the divisions, no bicycles, cars are needed")

In our humble opinion, there's just too much build-out, too much concrete (especially to provide space for people to wait for buses), and too little space for cars and trucks and scooters. 

The photos that follow (and the one above) are more or less in order, beginning at the "top" of via Panama (at Piazza Ungheria) and continuing down the street, to the point where the reconstruction ends. The photos were taken in October, 2025.

In many cities, including ones with nasty winters like our own Buffalo, New York, municipal authorities are bending over backwards to provide bicycle lanes, as if the bicycle is the solution to to the automobiles that clog our streets. It's beginning to happen in Rome.

The idea that bicycles can materially replace cars in Rome is questionable, at least, and the reconstruction of via Panama demonstrates that it can be taken to an unhelpful extreme. There is already talk of redoing the project, of cutting it back. That won't be cheap.

Bill 

Luigi Moretti's Il Girasole: a House Divided

 

Il Girasole. From this angle especially, easy to pass up, to walk by, as if were just another building.

We're walkers, but we don't recommend walking viale Bruno Buozzi (in the Parioli quartiere), unless there's a reason to do so. (Though it's named for an influential union leader murdered by the Nazis towards the end of World War II.) It's a long and curvy street, more or less connecting viale Parioli with via Flaminia, with few attractions and minimal commerce. Not all that interesting. 

But there is at least one reason to walk that walk: Luigi Moretti's "Il Girasole" (The Sunflower) house. 

Il Girasole, as it looked in 2012. That split in the middle is important.

Its architect is famous, and not only in Italy and Rome, his home town. Born in 1907, Moretti studied architecture at the Royal School of Architecture in Rome, then worked for several years with archeologist and art historian Corrado Ricci on aspects of Trajan's Market. In the 1930s he became one of Italian Fascism's favored architects, designing the fascist youth organization building in Trastevere (1933) and several buildings in the Foro Mussolini, including Mussolini's gymnasium (1936) and the Academy of Fencing (1936).

In the United States, he designed the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C., notorious for the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee Headquarters that precipitated the "Watergate scandal," and produced the political term "Watergate" and all the other "-gates" (scandals) that followed.

"Il Girasole" is a postwar work, designed in 1949 and built in 1950. It's considered an early example of postmodern architecture, a building architect and theorist Robert Venturi described as ambiguous, existing in a new space between tradition and innovation.

This photo, from an earlier period, shows off the structure's 
horizontal lines as well as its vertical division. 

This shot of the interior emphasizes Moretti's origins in modernism, though the
brickwork/window, jutting out (and interrupting) at left, has a post-modern valence. 

Swiss architectural theorist Stanislaus von Moss has argued that Venturi's Vanna House (1962-1964) "recalls the duality of the facade of Luigi Moretti's apartment house on the Via Parioli [sic: viale Bruno Buozzi] in Rome." We agree. And both the Vanna House and Il Girasole disrupt the flow of modernism. Hence modernism, with a post-modern touch.

Moretti also designed villas for wealthy patrons, including La Villa Saracena (1954), in the village of Santa Marinella, about an hour by car from the center of Rome. In 1958, he was one of several distinguished architects who designed Rome's Olympic Village in preparation for the 1960 games. 

The trees are larger in this 2017 photo (not good for the look of the building), and there's more foliage on the roof. 

Bill 

Walk to the Mosque and Villa Ada

Our regular readers will know that we (RST) are walkers.  Just give us a destination (or not) and we're off.  On a weekend in June, while living on via Salaria (in the Salario neighborhood), we struck out for Rome's signature mosque (co-designed by starchitect Paolo Portoghesi), which is tucked into  north Rome between Villa Ada--a huge park--and some sports facilities that line the banks of the Tevere.  Here are some of things we saw on our walk.

At piazza Santiago del Cile, on fashionable viale del Parioli, this very unusual traffic circle.  Unusual because the grass has actually been mowed and the bushes trimmed. That's what you get when you live in Parioli.

We took a bit of a side-trip east, up to Piazza delle Muse.  There's now an attractive bar up there on the bluff above the mosque, with good views.  And we saw this sign, which tells drivers of scooters and motorcycles that they have to walk their machines in this area.

Dropping down to via Ruggero, we hit a T at viale della Moschea ("mosque avenue").  Lanes have been closed because the road has so many potholes it's considered unsafe.

Bill liked this road sign--almost a work of art. Of course, drivers won't see it; it's in the trees.

That's the mosque on our left.  It's #24 on our RST Top 40 list; a fascinating building. When we wrote about it in 2010, it was Europe's largest mosque. It's open to visitors only certain times and days.

The only way to get to Villa Ada from here is this road: overgrown--not made for pedestrians--and a fair amount of traffic.

About a half mile ahead, a path leading into the recreational areas of Villa Ada.

Parts of Villa Ada have paths but are otherwise rather wild.  We like that.

In Villa Ada: graffiti, tree trimmings not removed.

Romans  playing and picnicking in the Villa

Around the lake at the northern end of the park.

Map of the park, now illegible.  I photographed this map because it comes close to what I understand and appreciate as "found art." 

History and archaeology of the park, now illegible.

A warning that the fenced-in area is off limits because of big holes and cave-ins.  At least you can read this.

Nice shaded area

Exercise equipment now unusable; ubiquitous yellow tape.

On our way home:  a small public playground with usable equipment.  But empty--they're all in Villa Ada.

Bill

Villa Glori: Interesting, if not Glorious.

A road ascending the Villa Glori hill 

If you've never heard of Villa Glori, you're not alone.  It's one of Rome's least known parks.  That's probably because it's much smaller than Villa Borghese or Villa Ada.  Or because it's poorly maintained.  Or because it's located quite far from the city center, in the northwest corner of Parioli.  Still, it's not far (less than a mile, perhaps) from a couple of Rome's new or newish attractions--the Parco della Musica and the modern art museum known as MAXXI--so if you're in that area, find your way up the hill (the park occupies one of Rome's steepest hills) to Villa Glori.





For centuries that hill was known mostly for its vineyards and for hunting.  Between 1908 and about 1950 its lower reaches were the site of a horse-racing track.  In 1923, the property--then belonging to the Boncompagni family--became a public park, dedicated to the Italians killed in the Great War.












It was then called the Parco della Rimembranza, and perhaps still is, by some.  A large stone monument to those war dead is still there, though it's seen better days.  One of the stones (below) lists the battle sites, including Gorizia and Vittorio Veneto.

In 1929 3 pavilions were built at the summit of the hill, to house summer camps for boys who were poor or at risk of tuberculosis.  In 1988 the buildings were redeveloped into a center for the treatment of AIDS.  We did not see the buildings (or maybe we did and failed to take notice).  Tell us if you find them.

More interesting:  in 1997 the city and Italian art critic Daniela Fonti developed an artistic loop in the park, showing off some contemporary sculpture; it was updated in 2001.  The photo below appears to be one of the sculptures.  We didn't see any others.

A stop on the sculpture percorso. 

Monument to Cairoli, the fallen, and
the expedition.  One of Rome's weirder
monuments.

More excitement to follow.  Villa Glori is undoubtedly best known for a battle that took place there in October, 1867.  At the time, Rome remained outside the confines of an (almost) unified Italy.  It was controlled by the French and the Papacy.  About 70 volunteers, part of Garibaldi's legion and led by Enrico Cairoli, marched from Terni in an attempt to liberate Rome.  They crossed the Tevere near the confluence with the Aniene and made their way to Villa Glori, where they occupied a large house on what was then known as Monte Parioli.  A large force of Swiss carabinieri and elements of the Papal army attacked the would-be liberators.  A hour of combat ensued, including two bayonet charges by the Garibaldini.   Enrico Cairoli died, as did his wounded brother Giovanni, two years later.  A column, erected in 1895 and still standing (in what now seems to be an asphalt parking lot), commemorates the Cairoli brothers and their fellow soldiers.  The Cairoli expendition is known as the Campagna dell'Agro Romano per la liberazione di Roma (the campaign of the countryside for the liberation of Rome).



The house occupied by the Garibaldini in 1867 is reputed to be still standing, though we can't confirm that.  What we can confirm is that the park is a place where Romans jog.  There is also a small but popular children's playground.  Londoners accustomed to the large, elaborate, and well-maintained children's park in Greenwich will not be impressed.  But Romans seem to like it.

Children's playground in Villa Glori.  The swings appear to be new.  

Bill 

Soviet-style architecture--in Rome!

We found this covered structure--the entrance to a driveway--in Parioli, not far from Piazza Euclide and the church Dianne doesn't like [Sacro Cuore Immacolato di Maria, architect Armando Brasini, erected 1923-51; he also designed a failed church in Buffalo].  The structure is a curious bit of architecture, unlike anything else we've seen in Rome--even, perhaps, unique to Rome.  It belongs to architecture's difficult, and now and then, awkward, stage, one that begins in about 1955 and runs through, say, 1980.


But it's not the awkwardness that attracted us.  We were immediately reminded of the Soviet bus stops featured in Christopher Herwig's delightful book, Soviet Bus Stops (Fuel, 2015), and those taken by our friend Corbin Smith on a recent sojourn in Central Asia. The "K" could stand for Kremlin.

The bus stops--in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Lithuania, Armenia, and 10 other provinces--were built from the late 1960s to the 1980s--what one scholar has called "a time of monotony in architecture."  Even so, there was some room for creativity, for a playfulness that allowed for new angles and approaches --and, inevitably, for occasional awkwardness.  Note the optimistic turn upward in all of the structures, including the one in Rome.

Maybe one of those Soviet architects--one with plenty of rubles--found a way to Parioli.


Bill