L'Aquila: A lesson in Italy's failure to rebuild after the 2009 earthquake.

Post-earthquake reconstruction?  Six years later, this is L'Aquila.

The most recent devastating earthquake in Italy hit in the Marche province on October 26, followed by aftershocks. An August 24 quake not far away killed almost 300 people. 

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is promising complete restoration.  We are - sadly - skeptical.  As a poignant piece of evidence, we give you L'Aquila, where a 2009 earthquake in this large, historic center in the Abruzzo region that neighbors Marche, resulted in 309 deaths.

We had been in L'Aquila many years ago.  This classic medieval city, capital of the Abruzzo province, is less than 75 miles from Rome, but 75 miles that can seem like centuries, and that took several days to cover in Margaret Fuller's time.  The city sits at the foot of the Gran Sasso mountains we intended to (and did) climb; they reach over 10,000 feet, the highest Italian mountains south of the Alps.

Last year, 6 years after the quake, we decided to see what had been accomplished after the earthquake.  We had heard of the slowness of the rebuilding, mafia involvement, scandals, and the like.  But nothing prepared us for the ghost town L'Aquila still was - 6 years later.  The photo above of one street is, unfortunately, typical of most of the streets of L'Aquila. Buildings shored up, at best, but unreconstructed and uninhabitable.

A closer view of the cracking produced by the 2009 earthquake.

Here one can see efforts to protect the older, classic building windows and doors.
Again, this is the best the 'reconstruction' seems to offer.

Businesses stopped in their tracks.  And not re-opened, of course.  This was a
unisex hair salon.

We'll get back to the destruction.  But we must take a couple sentences to describe the highly unusual setting in which - without planning on our part - we found L'Aquila in May 2015: it was the annual national 3-day "raduno" or "adunata" - a gathering of the Italian Army's Alpini units - gatherings that attract several hundred thousand men and a few women.  And this year, in an attempt to bring life and attention to the devastated city, they were meeting in L'Aquila, even though there were only a handful of rooms available to them in the city itself.  Many took 1-2 hour long train rides into L'Aquila daily; others set up tents and slept in vans. 

The Alpini were formed as a northern mountain unit of the Italian army.  One finds Alpini almost everywhere in Italy these days.  They still are a significant branch of the army.  And, since my family is from the north (15 km south of the Swiss border), all the men belonged to the Alpini (see a photo of my great-grandfather below).  The Alpini would recognize L'Aquila, and its location in the Gran Sasso, as part of the mountain regions that Alpini love.

Our first shot of the Alpini, recognizable by a black feather in their caps
(officers get a white feather) was of them being tourists.  Here they are at L'Aquila's
famed 13th century "Fountain of the 99 Spouts" (Fontana delle 99 Cannelle)

The poster for the 2015 Adunata.  Note the emphasis on the mountains and the black feathers.

Here's how the Alpini managed their gathering in L'Aquila - they brought in their own pop-up restaurants and beer tents;
this one set up right next to the scaffolded building.

The Alpini gathered in St. Peter's Square at their 1929 adunata.
One of the empty L'Aquila buildings had a small exhibit of prior Alpini "adunate,"
which is where we found this, among many other photos and artifacts.

The Alpini here were singing a traditional song.  To the left is the hotel in
 which we stayed many years ago.  This is in a newer part of the city, 
where there was less devastation because of better building practices.
  The Gran Sasso can be seen in back.

Back to the destruction.  

The sign scrawled on this wall says "L'Aquila  will be arise (be reborn) from the Mafia."

It's not clear these buildings will be rebuilt.

The blocked-off streets are in the "red zone," where one cannot even walk.

This banner in the main square says:
"One finds a red zone everywhere and the issue is a national one."

Outside an obviously newer but poorly built "Students' House," photos
of some of the more than 100 "angels" who died there in the earthquake.
 Arrests followed the collapse of the building.

Housing built for displaced residents - but not near any work.  From the train,
we saw these on the outskirts of Paganica, about 15 km from L'Aquila.  

A view of L'Aquila from a distance.  The cranes are there, but where are the workers and the work?  Snow-capped (in May)
Gran Sasso in the distance.

Elizabeth Povoledo wrote about L'Aquila in the New York Times a few weeks ago. Remarkably, her photos don't look any different from ours of 2015.

There were a few signs of hope.

A bar on the central square, run by the Fratelli Nuria, was open. It was
 not simply an Alpini pop-up. Signs announced it as the first business
 to reopen after the quake. The family also made its own, excellent torrone  
(which we bought and ate). You can see a couple Alpini among the patrons.

This surprising restored house, with a woman watering her plants, was the lone
exception we saw.

Our hotel receptionist rode with us on the train from L'Aquila to Paganica where many people were housed (photo above).  She told us that 6 years later her house was not habitable but that she had to continue paying her mortgage, and continue living in Paganica, about 15 km away.   We wrote last December about a church, built into rock, in Paganica.

And below is Giovanni Mambretti, my Italian grandmother's father, standing at left, with his Alpini.

We hope to visit L'Aquila again, and that we will see significant progress the next time.  Should you wish to visit L'Aquila, our hotel was ideal.  It was in a newer building, below the city (you do have to walk up and down hills a lot in L'Aquila), and in 2015 it was fully open, including the excellent restaurant serving Abruzzi specialties.  It's the Hotel "99 Cannelle", because it's across the street from that famous fountain.

Dianne

Backstreet Rome: the Tevere side of Marconi

Ready for rehab

We don't recommend the Marconi district for tourists, whether first or second time.  It has its virtues: an active street life, a wine bar and good mix of coffee bars, a book store that holds readings now and then, an outdoor market, easy access to the Tevere. But it's one of the dirtiest sections of the city, is a trifle removed from the action for our tastes, and--in our opinion--has no worthy restaurants.  When we lived there some years ago, our 2-cycle scooter broke down frequently, and we found bus service into the center inadequate.  The Trastevere train station is a 15-minute, rather unpleasant walk from the heart of Marconi.  

We recently returned to to the quartiere, not to revisit our earlier haunts, but to explore the backside of the neighborhood, the area between its commercial core (a triangle of streets to the south of Piazzale della Radio--viale Marconi, via Grimaldi, and via Oderisi da Gubbio) and the Tevere, to the east of viale Marconi.  The area was once industrial, and it retains some of that character, in stages of preservation and decay.  A series of recent interventions has fashioned a pleasant post-industrial, post-modern space, full of surprises--enough that we recommend this itinerary (for intrepid Rome explorers).

Homeless camp

Our walk began across viale Marconi from Piazzale della Radio, at via Papareschi, walking east toward the river.  Passing a school with sanctioned graffiti by Alessandra Carloni (2015), we turned right on the Lungotevere di Papareschi.  Just ahead, a homeless encampment--no one present at mid-day, but plenty of evidence of human habitation.  

Beyond (walking south), on the right, a massive early 20th-century industrial complex, today anchored by the Teatro India, now in the process of being restored along with other buildings in the group.  Don't hold your breath.  

View from the tower, to the west.

At the southern end of the industrial complex, a long, narrow park appears at the right, heading toward Marconi proper. A short tower with stairs offers views of the river. A recent construction, the park, in standard Roman fashion, is already in a state of deterioration, brickwork crumbling, facing on the sides missing in spots, and graffiti, of course--in this case lacking official approval. 

Elevated walkway, looking east toward the Tevere.  Left, the gazometro
on the far bank.  Right, redeveloped buildings housing businesses.

 

Walkway graffiti, ironic mode

Urban vineyard.  Unusual in its proximity to high-rise
residences.   

Redeveloped apartments

The walkway ends about 200 meters on, in a piazza of smaller, redeveloped buildings in Roman red--apartments and offices--and, on the north side, a tiny vineyard (above).  

Hotel.  It reaches out to you.

Redeveloped offices or apartments

We turned back here, working our way below the elevated walkway and to the right, to the front of the H10 Roma Città hotel in late modernist non-style.  We can't imagine why any tourist (or for that matter, anyone) would stay in a sterile structure in the middle of nowhere, with taxis the only convenient outlet to civilization.  Even so, the tented patio--just to the left in the photo above right--looked inviting, even at mid-day.

All stairs

After snooping around inside, we walked south in front of the hotel and took the first left, onto via Blaserna.  To the right, what appears to be a rehabbed, modernized older building. Nothing special except an elaborate set of stairs on its north side.  

Santi Aquila e Priscilla

To the left, at the end of the block, one of Rome's modern churches: Santi Aquila e Priscilla, complete with bell tower and tall cross, covered in vines and resembling an anchor.  The stained-glass windows are exceptional, but they should be seen from the inside.  

Turning left (north) on the Lungotevere Papareschi, you'll see another modern building with a substantial glassed atrium--an interesting if not compelling feature--and, beyond it, one of Rome's newest bridges, the Ponte della Scienza, a walking bridge.  

Take the bridge--sweet views of the river, without the 50-foot brick embankments found in the Centro--and turn left on the bank opposite.  

The standard graffiti.  A wonderful, up-close look at the iconic gazometro--the shell of a gas storage system.  This was once a busy working waterfront, and some businesses remain active here. 

Still a working waterfront.  The cranes once moved goods from the river to processing buildings.

A concrete watertower on the right would normally not be worthy of mention, but a special effort has

A watertower reminder of the Mussolini regime

been made to reveal and emphasize a Fascist fasces, complete with dating (A VII, or 1929).  

From this point, you can continue your walk north to the next, much older, bridge, and turn left, or backtrack, cross the Ponte della Scienza, and turn right.    

Bill

Three centuries in one place: 6th Century BC Servian Wall, 1908 Palazzo, 2014 Hotel

Sixth Century Servian Wall in front of 1908 Palazzo Montemartini [more photos of the wall at the end of this post]

I thought I'd start with these two pictures - above, a 1908 palazzo in 18th-century style with the 6th- century BC Servian Wall in its courtyard, and below, the 2014 entry lobby of the Hotel Montemartini IN this palazzo.  Ah, Rome.  What a fabulous conflation of eras.

Registration Desk, Hotel Montemartini

We wanted to see this palazzo because the conversion to a 21st- century hotel was by the architectural firm of King Roselli, praised by one of our favorite contemporary Rome architects, Nathalie Grenon of Sartogo Architetti Associati. King Roselli also are the architects for the Radisson Blu es Hotel, which sports one of Rome's great rooftop bars. The Radisson Blu es Hotel is also near Stazione Termini, but about a mile away, on the other side of the train station.

It took us a while to find Hotel Montemartini, because it's not an obvious hotel building and the address doesn't make its location apparent.  Once we found it, and the Servian Wall, we were duly impressed.

Lobby view into "library"; note the use of see-through
stone block (i.e. Servian Wall) display

The hotel design has been up for awards and received good press when it opened a little over a year ago, January 2014.  King Roselli has commentary on its Web site about the conversion, which clearly wasn't easy.  It appears (see below - like many things in Rome, nothing is totally clear) the building was first designed as headquarters of the Rome transportation system, ATAC.

As the architects say:  "The structure and the original internal arrangement were not immediately suitable to the programme of a hotel.  This meant the design of the 87 guests rooms in seven or eight 'types' which were then adapted to the existing building one by one."

Looking through the stone blocks

Another Web site notes:  "The structure, an early example of a reinforced concrete, mixed with load bearing walls, with a large number of level changes, has given rise to a necessarily complex distribution of the hotel."

King Roselli state they tried to reflect ancient history with their use of stone (the Servian Wall) and water - the ruins of the Baths of Diocletion are, yes, a stone's throw, from the hotel (if not under it).




We think this all works, but then we haven't paid to stay in this 5-star hotel.  There are many meetings here, including those of an ex-pat group that seems particularly fond of the bar, and we would say, appropriate so (photo below).



A view out the entrance -a feel for the 18th century
style in a 1908 building (on ancient ruins)

Another mystery to me was the name of the palazzo.  "Montemartini" is known to Romans as the site of the ancient sculpture collection of the city housed in a former 1920s power plant - hence the name of the museum - Centrale Montemartini.  But that's way on the other side of the city in Ostiense.  Hmmm.  Now (not when we started this exploration) we know that the palazzo originally was a headquarters for ATAC.  And Centrale Montemartini was named for the then head of ATAC, Giovanni Montemartini.

restaurant, featuring the 18th century-style columns
and water streams at left (see next photo below)

Giovanni Montemartini, 1887

Aha!  As stated in one of the Web sites:  "The Palazzo was established by Giovanni Montemartini, first councillor of public transport of the municipality of Rome and, until December 2008, it was the headquarters of the transportation company of Rome, today ATAC."  Should we trust that info?  The same Web site says the building dates from the 1800s, which seems clearly to be wrong.  Was it first Montemartini's residence?  Some evidence suggests that; other evidence that it was built as an administration building.  As the hotel's own Web site says, it was an 18th-century design, in any event.

Seeing the Servian Wall here and having seen it in other places - the McDonald's under Stazione Termini among other sites - maybe our next project is  "walking the Servian Wall" - or at least connecting the dots of the few pieces left - one of which is also next to the hotel.

described as "table fountain," water reflecting
the proximity of the Roman Diocletian baths

Dianne

The bar - one can see its appeal

Another part of the Servian Wall, this one under wraps, at the
entrance area to the hotel.

Another view of the Servian Wall, this one from outside the
hotel grounds, complete with street vendors, which are plentiful
around Termini, this one appropriately selling luggage in front
of the hotel.

The Borromini Monastery in Trastevere - hidden treasure or just for the wealthy?

We were intrigued to read recently - on Mary Jane Cryan's 50 Years In Italy blog - about Cryan's students' experiences living in what most Romans refer to as the Borromini monastery in Trastevere.  We've written about her books on Etruria, and it's fun to read about her impressions of Rome.

We used to slip into the monastery to show the distinctive building to visitors.  But then it was taken over by a luxury hotel operator, and now is simply that - a luxury hotel.  You can peek your head inside, but you can't go as far in, or see as much, as in the "good old days."  We knew guests could stay in the monastery before it became a hotel, but we hadn't realized it was used for students staying for longer terms. Cryan's - and her students' - experiences, photos, and documents show us what used to be there - a real treat.

Cryan begins with the ad for what the monastery is now - the deluxe hotel, and the rest of this post is from her blog posting which we print here with her permission:

 Donna Camilla Savelli Hotel    Rome City Centre, Trastevere, Rome

Designed by Baroque architect Borromini, the Donna Camilla Savelli is a former monastery in Rome's popular Trastevere area. It offers a garden, elegant and sober rooms, and free Wi-Fi in the lobby.

This is the website description of  a 4 star hotel located at the foot of  the Janiculum hill in Rome’s Trastevere area . 

For many lucky American students studying in Rome during the 1980s   it was  home  during their semester  study  abroad program.  

Borromini designed the facade of the monastery 

The female students were “cloistered” on the first floor while the men were relegated to the second floor corridor. There were communal bathrooms back then and the  ancient heating system was seldom  lukewarm. To survive the chill, the students bundled up with thick sweaters or  sat in the sunshine of the courtyard garden where roses bloomed  even in December.

The  atmosphere at the convent was often similar to  a Fellini film set : Gina, the  grumpy portinaia,  elderly nuns gliding  silently along white and black marble hallways,  meals served in the frescoed  refectory, cavernous kitchens hung with bright copper pots  and  sitting rooms furnished  with antiques including  Pope Pius IX’s  armchair.

copper pots in the  convent kitchen 

marble fountain
near the refectory 

The sisters of the religious order were grateful for the money which arrived from America and used it to  repair  parts of the roof. 

the convent today - an expensive  4 star hotel

Here are some  of the original  letters with the price list  for bed and breakfast....a far cry from what today's clients pay to stay in the luxurious modern rooms of the former monastery. 

   

How times have changed!  Notice that IVA tax  was only 9 or 10%. 

What could you buy for the equivalent of   26 or 28,000 lire today? (approximately  14-16 euro) 

The convent  was founded  by Donna Camilla  Savelli (related to the Ruspoli-Marescottifamily)  and  has had an interesting history culminating in its new use as a luxury hotel. 

During World War II many  Roman Jewish families found refuge here and the sisters distributed  bread  and food to the local population from the monastery kitchens.