Shopping again in Rome - a feast for the eyes

Part of the sweets counter at our favorite coffee bar/pasticceria (pastry shop) off Piazza Mazzini.
Do you believe all those jells and marzipan, not to mention the mini cakes?

My number came up at "Piccolo Forno" (which means "small oven" or
in essence a baked goods shop).

Back to shopping.  This time not signs, but sights - some of the ones that make us drool, make us buy, make us look, make us crazy.

In addition to the delectable-looking sweets above, we enjoyed scanning the many breads and other foods in this not-so-small Piccolo Forno (photo left), which had just about any kind of prepared food (stuffed tomatoes? pasta? salami?), along with breads and rolls. It attracted a crowd, as you can see.  We had to figure out how to take a number and wait our turn (not the easiest thing to do among Italians). Only about 1/3 of the counter space is shown in this photo.  The forno was in a large indoor public market.

Hoverboard shopper checking out at our local
(when we lived in the Salaria neighborhood)
small-sized Carrefour market. Notable and
customary - the cashier sits rather than stands;
you bag your own groceries; you pay for the bag
 (as now in New York and Los Angeles).
Re the customer - he's on a board that lights up.

Besides vistas of incredibly tasting looking offerings, there are strange sights, like the shopper at left on a "hoverboard."  In trying to figure out if this was even legal in Rome (it shouldn't be; we pedestrians need to survive), I learned that, although the vendors have gone out of business where we live in Los Angeles, the state of California allows these devices. And in London apparently one can buy them, but they are banned under the 1835 Highways Act, which states people cannot use the footway (sidewalk? marciapiedi?) to “lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description” which list apparently includes hoverboards.

One of the crowded aisles in a "casalinghi"
store.

We typically spread our food shopping among large (not in the US sense) markets, small markets, chains, family-run places, and mini markets (the last about which we've written before - many run by Egyptians and Bangladeshi). One of our go-to places for non-food items is the "casalinghi" or "housewares" store. In Rome, these are almost all run by Chinese immigrants, and carry very inexpensive (as well as pretty flimsy) goods of all types - think Dollar Stores (photo right).  The aisles are always crammed and narrow, and often you have to ask one of the store employees (who speak varying levels of Italian) where something is.  And someone in the store can find in a nook or cranny somewhere that child's potty chair, those hangers, or that candle. Bill and I still recall being in a casalinghi and asking for candles. The woman at the register yelled at the top of her lungs "candele!, candele!", and out popped another employee leading us to the candles "section" of the store.

And, finally (for this shopping installment), below is a sight from the Centro - the center of old Rome where there are still artisan shops. Here the proprietor is advertising and showing off his or her goods by hanging them outside, in front of the store, on an "Ape" truck (we've written about the "ape" - or "bee" truck previously - it sounds like a bee with its tiny motor and 3 wheels).

You might also note here the bicycle tucked into a parking space behind a scooter, and the Ape tucked into a space supposedly limited to scooter parking, taking up an area that would hold 4-6 scooters (when you drive a scooter
- and have to park it - you notice these things).

Dianne

Truck Shopping in Rome

The 'shop'  name is "Melandra...Moving Shop." The "ape" or "bee" is a
3-wheel commercial vehicle, based on the Vespa scooter and produced,
as is the Vespa ("wasp"), by Piaggio.  I once said we mainly saw them in
the countryside, but maybe not!

The joys of shopping in Rome, for us, are mainly the visuals.  We love looking at the multitude of ways in which petty capitalism operates in this city of 3 million people. A method new to us this year was the mobile clothes store.  Yes, we have pop-ups in the U.S., but the Italians as usual, take it one step further.



We had seen vendors selling batteries (see photo towards the end of this post), glasses, flowers, fruits and vegetables out of trucks.  But a mini clothing store? That was new.


The "ape" trucks  above and below were parked in and close by the large Piazza Mazzini near our apartment this Spring, and came around periodically to sell their wares - and the Italians were buying.

Quite a combination of Italian and English words here, plus a take off : "Fruit of the Loom" (right), then "Fruit on the Road" (left). We didn't check  to see if the goods were authentic or knock-offs, but we can guess.

Below, not a shopping truck per se, but likely a delivery truck for a Sicilian (mostly) take-out restaurant in Prati (near where we lived).  Unfortunately, we never got there, but the arancini look amazing! (To say "arancini" are stuffed rice balls doesn't do them justice.)

The paintings are of Orlando and Rinaldo dueling for Angelica's heart in the classic "Orlando Furioso"
tale.  The story resonates with Sicily and the Sicilian puppet tradition, emphasizing these arancini
are going to be Sicilian to their rice core. The restaurant name is MondoArancina - with an "a" at the end,
 apparently the Sicilian spelling. The truck enlivens an otherwise rather soulless piazza in della Vittoria.

And then there's the use of a Fiat 500 to sell vinegars--again, just down from our apartment.

"Wine without sulfites...Wine and apple vinegar..." etc.
And, apparently, he doubles as a clown at night.

This van houses an Orologeria, a store that sells watch-bands and watch batteries.
A piazza in San Paolo.  Eager customers, including me. 

And, left, not exactly shopping from or out of a truck, but shoe sellers who use their truck to carry all the shoes and the stands and tents they put up to sell - they do this every day of the week - up in the morning, down in the evening.

I thought the arrangement of shoe boxes could have stumped a Rubik's cube expert.

Dianne

Bill has also written about some of Rome's trucks and vans:
https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2012/02/tiny-trucks-of-rome.html
https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2011/08/white-vans-of-rome.html

The Ponte della Musica: Update, 2015

Ponte della Musica, much busier than usual on a soccer night.  The Stadio Olimpico is close by.  Monte Mario in the background.  View from our apartment.  Skateboarding space below left.  

The Ponte della Musica (2011) sits astride the Tevere at the big bulge of the Flaminio quartiere, with Monte Mario (straight ahead), Olympic Stadium (up river) and Prati (down river).  We wrote about the bridge two years ago, ambivalently, praising the elegance of its white, skeletal, curving plasticity while questioning its originality, noting its resemblance to two much older bridges, the Bac da Roda bridge in Barcelona (1987) and the Valencia bridge (1995), both by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.  Although we found the bridge more useful than did some critics, we subtitled that first piece "the bridge to nowhere."

Today we offer a different "angle" on the bridge, both figuratively and literally.  In June of this year we lived on the 6th floor of one of four 1930s-era apartment houses on Piazza Gentile da Fabriano, with an enormous terrace that overlooked the Ponte.  No one in Rome lives closer to the bridge, or has a better view.

The city, and the Alban Hills beyond, at dusk from Lo Zodiaco on Monte Mario.  The white triangle, center right in the distance, is Calatrava's unfinished swimming pool. 

French military cemetery.

From that position--unusual and privileged, we understand--we thoroughly enjoyed the access the bridge offered.  We hiked up Monte Mario (400 feet vertical) at least four times, enjoying the views of St. Peter's, the stunning views from the bar Lo Zodiaco, then dipping into the pleasures of new neighborhoods (Balduina and Trionfale) while discovering new sites (the amazing French military cemetery, Piazza Walter Rossi) and new paths on the mountain. All because of the Ponte.

We had cacio e pepe at Cacio e Pepe.

We also made several forays into Prati, whose northern end begins just downriver across the bridge. Piazza Mazzini, with its lovely fountain, came into our orbit, as did the jazz club Alexanderplatz and a guided tour of "liberty" architecture--all within walking distance of "our" bridge, and we enjoyed a well-known area restaurant, Cacio e Pepe (Dianne reviewed it not too positively for Tripadvisor), and two Lungotevere bars, one just across the Ponte, the other a long block south.  At the latter, and out for just a drink, we found live music and a free spread of food.

One of many brooding buildings in Prati.

That said, Prati--probed from the north, anyway--is not the most interesting or welcoming area.
Enormous, gloomy apartment houses--most built without provision for the commercial establishments that breathe life into a neighborhood--abound on Prati's north end, and its center is laced with block-long, deadening military establishments.  The southern end of Prati is lively and inviting, but it's also full of tourists--and it's a long walk (about 2 miles) from the Ponte della Musica.

Gymnast doing backflips for the camera.  

From our 6th-floor perch we also learned that the bridge is important for the activities it fosters, which take place on the bridge and under it.  Because the bridge is (for now) closed to motorized vehicles, and lies outside the regular tourist areas, it's open to a wider range of activities than the city's other pedestrian-only bridges.  It's used for photo shoots--some of them, at least, with a professional air--featuring groups of men with cameras taking pictures of dressed-up young women. One day we witnessed a small crew filming a gymnast doing backflips.

Exercise class. 

The wooden side walkways attract individuals and couples, reading, talking, contemplating, relaxing as they look out over the Tevere.  The wood walkways are also frequently used for yoga-like exercising, both by individuals and large, leader-led and organized groups. Joggers are frequent.

Dude dancing on the bridge.

The Ponte is also a performance space.  On one occasion, three young women posed for a male companion while standing on the end-of-bridge stanchions.  On another, we observed an aging
hipster, fresh from a physical confrontation with a nearby bar owner over an unpaid bill, break out into a strutting Michael Jackson-like moon dance.

Skateboarders--and graffiti

Below the main deck, skateboarders practice their skills on the large, flat concrete surface at the Ponte's Flaminio end, leaping on and off sleek granite benches that were likely not intended for that purpose.

Glass, broken cables, and a homeless man trying to sleep.

We enjoyed watching the skateboarders, but not everyone thinks they're a positive addition. In a letter published in La Repubblica, one citizen linked the skateboarders to the graffiti that mars the bridge, especially down below. Whether there's a connection or not we can't say, but there's no doubt that graffiti--and more generally, the destructive behavior of young people--is a problem below the deck, where ugly tagging mars the walls and broken beer bottles litter the stairways.  A homeless man was sleeping under the bridge.  Some of the wire cables that form the sides of the stairways were broken.  Graffiti has begun to appear on the vertical bridge supports on the upper level, though someone--most likely the city--painted over it during our June stay (in a color that didn't quite match).

Scooter on the Ponte della Musica, a pedestrian bridge.

The serenity of the bridge's main deck was interrupted on two occasions that we observed, when motorscooters violated the law and
used the bridge to cross the Tevere.  On one occasion, a young man of about 14, dressed in what might be described as the uniform of a junior police officer--or some kind of boy scout--upbraided the offending moto rider--who, apparently nonplussed, proceeded across the bridge.


And so it goes, at the Ponte della Musica.

Bill

Evening romance on the Ponte della Musica.