The Auto Repair Garages of Rome

While walking in Rome, don't neglect the garages--the places where Romans get their cars and scooters repaired, or washed. Unlike many businesses, they are usually open to public view from the street. And they are in a variety of ways revealing--revealing of the interests and inclinations of the proprietors, who are invariably men. (We've seen a lot of women doing physical work in Rome--sweeping the streets, collecting garbage, delivering mail--but we have yet to see a female mechanic.)

Rome's a soccer town, and city-center Romans tend to be fans of the AS Roma team. 

Lots of AS Roma stuff, and a shout-out to the military, at left.

More sedate. Just a Totti jersey. Tools organized.

Sometimes you have to wonder how the mechanic can find anything. Not sure I would take my car here (below).

Garages represent the last bastion of sexism. Pin-ups are less common than they were, say, 20 years ago, but they're still around, here and there (far left and elsewhere in the photo below). This garage in the photo below (taken in 2018) is in Tiburtina. [And see the garage pin-ups Bill discovered in 2012 at the end of this post.]

Very organized, clean, highly decorated. 

Scooter repair shops often have a more subdued vibe:

This gommista (tire place) was closed when we went by, but the seranda was "revealing." 

Another tire place had created a waiting area for customers. Very "Los Angeles" we thought. 

It's not uncommon for auto repairs shops to do much of the work on the street. One could quibble about the use of "public property," but the activity is fun to watch. 

Steps from Piazza dei Re di Roma

This garage is interesting because of its location. It's cut into the Aurelian wall, in San Lorenzo. We saw it first on one of our "Wall Walks" in 2014, written up here.

And this garage is interesting because of what's inside and for sale: a 1965 1500L Fiat.  

We'll close with a couple of car-wash places. The first is an Auto Lavaggio a Mano--a hand car wash, probably do-it-yourself (fai da te). The attraction here is a large picture of Jesus (and a smaller one upper right, not too prominent).   

Christian car wash

And finally, from avant-garde Pigneto, a suggestion of who might be washing your car (as long as it's a Mercedes).

Bill (who else?)

A PS - In 2012, we found a set of pinups in a garage, and Bill declared it was the only one he had found to that point.  His post titled "Garage Art: the Pinup in Rome" is here.

Where Francesco Totti learned his Trade

Legend has it that Francesco Totti, for almost two decades the star of A.S. Roma, one of two premier-level soccer teams in the city (and the one preferred by a more working-class fan base), learned to play on a field in the quartiere of San Giovanni, where he grew up in a large public housing project.  We learned about the field a couple of years ago, when there was concern that the hallowed pitch, sandwiched somewhere between via Sannio and via Amba Aradam, and behind the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, would be sacrificed to a new Metro line.  Oh, no!

Market carts, all with the same rubber-trimmed iron
wheels.  Behind, the wall Bill considered scaling.

Our search for the field began just outside the city wall, in the large and active market that runs down via Sannio (and one characterized, we think, by especially aggressive merchants - tho' the prices are right, if you bargain, adds Dianne).

We thought we had found the field around the back of the market, in the alley called via Locri, where the old market carts are stored.  Bill imagined scaling the wall in back for a peak at the historic site, but he would have been not only foolhardy but wrong.  At the next turn in, we asked a gatekeeper for permission to have look at Totti's "stadium," which we assumed was right there, within his purview to show us.  Wrong again, but he sent us on our way with directions, while noting that what we were looking for hardly qualified as a "stadium."  "Campo", or "field," he corrected us.

Clubhouse bar

A few meters further on, as via Sannio became via Farsalo, there it was, and guarded--if, indeed, he was a guard--only by one man reading a book in front of a closed clubhouse bar. 

The field.  In the distance, the statues on the facade
of San Giovanni in Laterano

The playing surface is now artificial turf--not what Totti would have learned on, 25 years ago, but evidence, we think, that the field will be spared, saved from the Metro. 

The "stadium," such as it is.

And from the other side

And yes, there is no "stadium," but the small building that shelters the field and houses seats for spectators is a special one, designed and built in the Fascist era. Signs point to a $500,000 upgrade in process. (The paint squares on the side of the stands apparently are samples from which the final color will be selected.)

Nearby, a sidewalk traffic barrier, painted in Roma's colors, marks Totti's presence in the neighborhood. 

Bill

(For more neighborhood decoration for A.S. Roma and Totti, see this earlier post.)

Painting the Town Red (and Yellow) for Roma

The soccer team AS Roma, captained for years by local hero Francesco Totti (born and raised in the Appio Latino quartiere, near Porta Metronia), is the object of affection for many Romans. Despite being the Buffalo Bills of Italy's Serie A, finishing second 6 of the last 8 seasons, the team has deeply loyal followers everywhere in the city, and especially in neighborhoods populated by Rome's working- and middle classes and in those where political opinion tends to the left.

Garbatella, an early 20th-century planned community built on hills and curving streets, made up of Fascist-era public housing projects on an epic scale, is one of those places, a hotbed of AS Roma sentiment. Here it's not enough to hang Rome's banner out
the window.

Garbatella, and some of the sites in this post, are featured on the first walk in our new book: Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler. More on the book is at the end of this post.

 In Garbatella the real die-hards paint their houses (or their neighbor's house, or a shuttered store, or an institution) in the team colors, or fashion a mural for the apartment complex, or draw the team's symbol, a wolf, on a wall.

AS Roma had a difficult season, its hopes for a championship once again dashed, this time on the final day of the campaign. Totti succumbed to the pressure and frustration the week before, when he kicked an opposing player in the head and brought down another in the penalty area, with intent, and was expelled. We doubt these events will have much impact on how Garbatellians view Totti or his team. They'll just keep on painting the town.

Bill

Our new print AND eBook,  Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler features tours of the "garden" suburb of Garbatella; the 20th-century suburb of EUR, designed by the Fascists; the 21st-century music and art center of Flaminio, along with Mussolini's Foro Italico, also the site of the 1960 summer Olympics; and a stairways walk in Trastevere.

This 4-walk book is available in all print and eBook formats The eBook is $1.99 through amazon.com and all other eBook sellers.  See the various formats at smashwords.com. 

Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler now is also available in print, at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, independent bookstores, and other retailers; retail price $5.99.