Bar Names, Part III

RST collects bar names.  Why, we're not sure.  Maybe because bars are so obviously at the center of Italian--and Roman--culture: places to eat, drink (espresso, beer, wine, you name it), talk, watch the street, play cards, read the newspapers, gamble, pass the time, and observe the Americans (that's us) pulling up on their scooter, leaving with backpacks and hiking poles in hand, returning hours later to share a large, cold bottle of Moretti at a table outside.  

Here's the latest bunch (links to the first two parts at the end of the post):   

Europa is a somewhat common bar name.  This one specializes in sandwiches, drinks, and porchetta--the latter a pork concoction especially popular in the Alban Hills.  This bar is located in Lariano, on the southwest slope of the Hills.

Cute but depressing.  Bar Snoopy is in  the small hill town of Monticelio, northeast of Guidonia.  

Á suburban establishment.  Unique, and odd, given that JFK died in 1963 and brother Bobby in 1968, and it's unlikely
this one's named after Ted.  Nice outdoor space.  

Caffe' Cleopatra, a roadhouse bar (situated on a busy thoroughfare outside the city proper), probably
(can't recall) on the way to Cinecitta', where the film Cleopatra was made.

Bar Centrale.  Most of the towns in the Roman countryside have a Bar Centrale.  

Bar del Pino (Pine Tree Bar) is named after that huge pine in the background, which sits in
the middle of via Ozanam, on the side of Piazza San Giovanni di Dio.

Bill
For Bar Names Parts I and II, click on these links: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2016/08/bar-names-part-i-il-mio-bar-and.html
http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2017/02/bar-names-part-ii.html

Red Garlic from Sulmona--by the Cartload

a.m. cart is full

Every Roman street market--and there are more than a hundred--has its itinerant garlic peddlars, usually smallish guys who cruise the market, offering 3 bulbs for a Euro--okay if you need garlic. 
What I'd never seen, until one day at Piazza San Giovanni di Dio, was the sale of garlic from a cart.  The merchant, who had positioned himself just outside the market proper, where he couldn't be so easily accused of competing with those who had paid money to rent regular stalls, seemed to have found a niche in the market: red garlic from Sulmona (if the Italians don't know where it comes from, they won't buy it).  A bit of research revealed that red garlic is considered quite special: it comes only from the Sulmona basin and the Peligna Valley in the Abruzzo, and it's highly prized for its flavor (sweet, delicate, not bitter) and medicinal properties.  E3 per treccia (braid) or, ordered from the UK, L2.75 plus shipping.    Bill

early p.m. front of cart is empty

Men in Coats: Looking Good in Piazza San Giovanni di Dio

I have fond memories of Saturday mornings more than a half century ago, when my father would take me "downtown"--downtown, that is, in the sleepy suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois.  We would go to the hardware store and the bank, where he seemed to know everyone.  In that dignified way he had, he wore a sport coat. 










I see something of him, that desire to present oneself well, to look good even on a Saturday morning, in the older men of Piazza San Giovanni di Dio, far from the center.  We were renting close by, on via Palasciano, and I couldn't help but notice the attire of these older, doubtless retired men: sport coats to be sure, less often a suit, commonly a tie, now and then a dressy cap, sometimes, today, a trifle corrupted with jeans and tennis shoes.  The age of mannerly dress, now long gone for most Romans, kept alive by these elderly gentlemen.  Bill

Taking Photos in Rome? Watch Out!

The photos on this page have no common subject matter, but they are related: all were taken within 48 hours, and--more important--all produced criticism, or concern, from people around us, whether they were in the frame or not. 




The first photo was taken in Pigneto, during a public event called Citta' Aperta (Open City).  In this instance, I was photographing a street sign on which street artists had done some work.  As I was taking it, a woman in the distance--about 100 feet away--got up from a bench, waved her arms and yelled "no foto, no foto."  I explained that I was photographing the sign, not her, and she calmed down. 

The second photo was taken across the street from our apartment in via Palasciano, near Piazza San Giovanni di Dio.  The subject was a large banner/sign of Jesus that covered most of the back wall of a small car-washing business.  As I took the photograph, the proprietor or employee emerged, concerned about what I was doing.  Dianne explained, but his unease remained.




Later, on a walk in the neighborhood, we turned down what turned out to be a dead-end street, passing an older man walking a Dalmatian-like dog on a leash.  Working our way back to the main street, I took the third photograph, of a building whose rounded balconies I found intriguing.  The dog-walker was upset, asking what I was doing, and he was not mollified by my explanation that I found the building's curves compelling.  As his dog barked and snarled, he said with vehemence and obvious irritation that we couldn't

Looks like an "abusivo"--an illegal addition--on the
third level

take such photographs.  When I asked him if it was against the law, he said yes, of course it was, and he twice asked us, still irritated and rubbing in whatever authority he (and his dog) possessed, if we understood what he was saying. 

The next day, while reading La Repubblica over morning coffee, I discovered that Ermanno Polla, a professor of architecture, had similar experiences while carrying out a study of Rome's buildings.  Polla's project was to photograph, chart, and draw every façade of every building within the city's walls, which he did over a 17-year period.  "So many negative comments," he said in the interview with a reporter.  "People said to me, 'What are you doing here?  Why are you taking photographs?"  Although the chair of his department had written a letter for Polla explaining his purpose and reinforcing that he wasn't an impostor--and Polla had made thousands of copies to distribute--"only a few trusted me and invited me into the entrances halls or courtyards." 

Much suspicion.  Too much. 
Bill

May Day Irony

May Day, the 1st day of May, is rapidly approaching. Italians love their holidays, and May Day, which in its modern form celebrates work, labor, unions, and socialism, is one of their favorites.

The problem, we found out last year, is that it can be hard to get around on May Day, hard to attend the concerts and celebrations and marches, because, well, nobody's working. And "nobody," to our surprise, includes the people who operate Rome's public transport system.

We were living in Monteverde Nuovo, a couple of blocks from the Gianicolense and the tram that runs down to Trastevere and then across the river. We don't have a car, and the scooter was indisposed. So like many others in the neighborhood, we counted on the tram or buses to get us into the Centro.

Guess not! We arrived at the tram stop at Piazza San Giovanni di Dio at about 1 in the afternoon. An hour later we were still there. No tram, no buses.


Maybe we were just stupid foreigners. Maybe, but there were plenty of forlorn Italians waiting for Godot, exchanging local myths about what had happened to the tram and when the next bus would arrive. We took this photograph of those with whom we shared the afternoon.

Bill

RST Top 40. #26: Best Market in Rome...Piazza....

Romans (and tourists) are fiercely proud of and defensive about their locals markets, so in choosing a "best" market for Rome the Second Time's Top 40, we fully expect to be attacked and censured rather than applauded. Bring it on. There are dozens of markets in Rome, even excluding the ones that deal primarily in antiques, and we have personally experienced only about ten. Even so, because we've lived in a variety of areas, we claim more authority in this area than most Romans, for whom a change in neighborhoods, and in markets, would be like committing adultery.

In making our #1 selection, we eliminated Porta Portese, Rome's most famous market; too well known, too big to be intimate, too much all the same stuff (although those with sufficient stamina may find distinctive pockets), too much a Rome-the-first-time experience.

With a certain regret, we said no to indoor markets, like SPQR Mercato, a Fascist-era project on via Catania near Piazza Bologna (on Itinerary 7 in Rome the Second Time), which is a trifle cavernous;
the similar market serving Flaminio, on via Guido Reni (nice enough, but no cigar); or the recently-opened market off Piazza Vittorio, which needs a few years of wear and tear to acquire the requisite patina.

Indeed, we rejected all the new (and inevitably, covered) markets, from the oddly configured,
confusing, community-defying edifice at Ponte Milvio (left), to the monstrous mistake coming to Testaccio (lower left), which from the artists' rendering resembles an American big-box store. Thanks for playing.

Of those that remain, and that we know about, we have some fondness for the open-air markets in the Piazza Re di Roma vicinity (running uphill off via Taranto, if it's still there), where we learned many years ago not to touch the fruit; and the one out near the Ponte Lungo metro stop, just southwest of via Appia Nuova, which snakes through the streets and around corners. The old market at Testaccio has its diehard fans, and we don't doubt that it's special, but a) we haven't seen it recently and b) the victim of "progress," it's about to be replaced. You can hear the death rattle.

Our winner, then, is a market of moderate age--it dates to about 1970--located in Piazza San Giovanni di Dio, up the hill via tram #8 from the Trastevere neighborhood, in the area known as Monteverde Nuovo. See pics top and lower right. It looks and feels authentic: no English, no tourists (except us), no antiques, no sunglasses. Although open-air, its corrugated iron and tin roofs meet
to provide shelter from the elements and a comfortable, contained feeling of density. About 100 stalls: mostly food--meats, breads, nuts, cheeses, olives, fish, fruits and vegetables, the ubiquitous itinerants hawking strands of garlic--but some clothing, housewares, purses and luggage, plants and flowers. And it's surrounded by coffee bars, serving weary shoppers or delivering trays of espresso to merchants in need of the mid-morning fix.

It's our choice for Best Market in Rome. Hope you're not too upset.

Bill

The Pope and Us - views from the bar

With Christmas coming, we think some mention of the Pope is in order.

The photo here, taken at Bar Tony, in Monteverde Nuovo, is a perfect example of the Italians' mix of ... well, just about everything.

As we walked into Tony's this day, the TV was showing the Pope giving an address (I can't recall on what just now). He was framed by two Bar signs: one listed "Happy Hour" (yes, in English - with the picture showing a cup of coffee and a croissant but the wording advertising a buffet and drink), and another listing other tasty items such as sandwiches filled with "Hamburg," along with "Pasta a Peso" - pasta by the weight (1 Euro per etto (about 2.2 ounces) "by Tony".

After snapping this photo, we took our glasses of wine to the side room of this small bar, enjoying a break from the rain showers, when a group of 4 men came in. They were speaking Spanish, ordering and enjoying their beers while they chatted. Then in came a group of mothers with children of various ages, clearly picked up after-school. Gelato was quickly ordered and the children spilled over the tiny tables next to us. And then there was us, trying to get love notes to each other on the TV show by texting into the cell phone #s listed on the screen. The convivial combination of people, ages, classes, languages, media, food, drink... is partly what defines modern Rome.

If you get up to Monteverde Nuovo, and the large street, Circonvallazione Gianicolense, walk just across from the market at Piazza San Giovanni di Dio and try Tony's, reputed for having the best vanilla ice cream (i.e. gelato and flavor/gusto - crema) in the city; sometimes through a window in that side room, you can see them making it.

Dianne

Imagining Failure: Rome's New Markets

We've always been interested in artists' renderings of buildings proposed or under construction. They're fantasies. Although artists' drawings are supposed to reflect the "reality" of what's about to be built, they inevitably expand and stretch that reality to make it more compelling and more comforting than the actual structure is likely to be, usually by including people--often, lots of people (that's a key part of the fantasy) walking around enjoying the new space.

So we were surprised to find, when we passed the billboard-size artist renderings of the new, under-construction Testaccio market, that the fantasy they projected was so lifeless, so sterile, so brittle.

As our readers may know, the old, semi-enclosed, outdoor markets of Rome, conglomerations of metal sheds, really--are rapidly being replaced by fully covered and enclosed structures in which merchants have their own interior shops and stands. This has already happened at Ponte Milvio, where the sheds have been replaced with a confusing brick building that isolates the merchants, and, to better effect, near Piazza Vittorio, where the new building's interior manages to retain something of the dynamics of movement, sound and community that are essential characteristics of the old markets. There are plans afoot, we're told, to replace the hundred or so stands of our own market at Piazza San Giovanni di Dio (see photo), in Monte Verde Nuovo, with something new. Many Italians, among them some of our friends, welcome the trend; they want markets that are clean, spacious, and attractive.

Elbow-to-elbow shopping among tattered and rusted metal sheds is not for everyone, we understand. But something is being lost, we think, when even the artists whose job it is to imagine the new markets--and make them objects of desire--seem unable to offer an enticing vision of the future, one that at the very least ought to combine the "modern" elements of the new markets with the energy and communal intensity of the old ones. All too often that doesn't happen--at Ponte Milvio and, as we look at the artists' renderings, in Testaccio. Bill