10 things to do within 200 meters of Stazione Termini

For most tourists, and most Romans, the area around Stazione Termini--that is, Termini, the city's main train station--means bad hotels, swarthy immigrants, pizza and trinkets, and phone centers for calling home. True enough, and we don't recommend the bad hotels. But there's more to Termini than the stereotype, and to prove it we offer our lists of 10 things to do within 200 meters of Stazione Termini.

Our 200-meter perimeter creates an race-track shaped oval that reaches out from the front edge of the station building toward the Baths of Diocletian (but does not include them) and around the sides of the building, two blocks on either side of the long station building, then curves around the back. Because the station is long, the oval is enormous, and we have tried our best to focus on attractions near the front of the station. So if you're changing trains in Rome and have a couple of hours....

1. The Station Itself . It's actually a complex structure, completed in two phases. The first phase dates to 1935-1940 (late Fascism), and consists of the area where the trains arrive and depart--up to but not including the enormous open hall--and the side areas. Facing the station 0n the left (west) side one can admire the enormous exterior arches; and on the right (east) side, inside, enormous interior arches that speak to the Fascist delight in architecture that at once intimidates and inspires (the light poles, while compelling, are of 1999 vintage).
In phase 2, The Saarinen-like front of the station, including the covered but open great hall, was designed by a team of architects and built between 1948 and 1951. Amerigo Tot decorated the modernist frieze cut in the metal across the station's front (1951). The lovely, enclosed space in the front of the station (see left, c. 1960) was unfortunately filled with shops, including a bookstore, as part of the preparations for the 2000 Jubilee.

2. The Servian Wall. The earliest wall we see around Rome is from the 4th century BC, and the biggest stretch of it is here, in front of the station, to the right, as one exits onto Piazza dei Cinquecento.
We (who don't go there) hear there's a small piece of it inside the station's McDonald's.

3. Piazza Independenza North of the train station (following the line of the Servian Wall, above), and one block to the right at the wide street out front, is Piazza di Independenza. One attraction here, precisely 200 meters from the station, is the charming bar/caffe in the center, amid the buses yet sheltered, called Casina delle Terme (little house of the baths, referring to the Baths of Diocletian). The main building with its curved corners dates from 1939, and a browntone photo on the napkin holder shows the enterprise as it was in 1950. So there's age and history to be savored. The food is fine and tourists are few; we recommend it for lunch.
At the far, northeastern edge of the piazza, and perhaps a tad out of our range, is a palazzo of Fascist-era origins, well known among Romans for the heads that grace its facade. It's widely claimed that the face is that of Mussolini--and whose else would it be?--but to us the likeness is questionable.

4. Casa Del Passaggero. Retrace your steps out of the piazza, walking southwest along the busy street that fronts the train station. After crossing several streets, at the corner of via Viminale and via Terme di Diocliziano you'll find a grey building with a descending double staircase, its gates now chained, all in an advanced state of disrepair.
These are baths, and they were built within the ancient baths of the emperor Diocletian, but their origin is relatively recent: 1920, when they were conceived as a "daytime hotel"--a sort of bath/spa known as the Casa del Passaggero (traveler's house). Despite the decay, there are reminders here of what once was, especially four lovely bas reliefs in metal, by Oriolo Frezzotti.

5. Museo Nazionale Romano. Just kitty-corner from the baths, at Largo di Villa Peretti, 1, in the direction of the station, is one of Rome's outstanding museums. The Museo Nazionale Romano is housed in the 19th-century Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. The museum houses a great many fine pieces from ancient Greece and Rome, including two great bronzes: Pugile (The Boxer) and the Principe Ellenistico (the Hellenistic Prince). The museum is open every day except Mondays and some holidays, 9-19:45 (Euro7).

Five more coming soon.
Bill

Who was that Bald Woman in Monti?

On May 17 J. and I were exploring Monti while our women went to Madama Butterfly. We saw the forlorn market, discussed the Madonelle, and found the site on via degli Ibernesi, where the long-time residents of an apartment house, many of them elderly, were evicted to make way for elite tourism. Despite its age and charming, narrow, bricked streets, the neighborhood is in the the throes of gentrification, and we were soon to get a good dose of it, up close.

The real excitement in Monti on that evening was in a small piazza not far from the main square, just beneath the stairway that once led up to Angelo Mai. A private party, all roped off with yellow plastic strips like a crime scene, was goin' on. Mostly young people in black, sipping wine. At the center of things--the celebrity around whom the event was designed--was a young woman who was without hair--apparently (though not certainly) by choice. As we stood there, she was being interviewed, or so it seemed, though she was the one holding the microphone and managing the conversation. And down at one end were paintings of her lining a wall. Pop singer? Painter? Architect? Proprietor of hip new clothing store? Gallery owner? Cancer victim?

Who was that Bald Woman in Monti?

Bill

Help in the right places: The little Marys of Italy

Italy is full of "madonnelle" - little madonnas that grace the sides of buildings and to whom various passersby pray for something personal. The photo at right is one I particularly like - and many of our blog readers know why. It's to the "little madonna of the lake" ("madonnina del lago") and asks her to "protect the motorcyclists." Particularly endearing is that the sign was put up (in 1997, says the plaque) by "Ass. Cult. Rockness" - or "Cultural [I kid you not] Association Rockness."

We've also seen them at the beginning of hiking trails, and have been glad they were providing us some protection from the elements while hiking.

One story is that the "madonelle" were the safety net of women of the night - who would go from one lit madonnella to another - praying in thanks when they got to the next light that they had made it that far. We featured an electrically lit madonella from Segni, a small town with pre-Roman origins, in an earlier blog (July 8, last year).

Dianne

Fuksas' "Cloud": An Architect's Fantasy, Under Construction

A couple of years ago we headed out to EUR, the community south of Rome that was created in the late 1930s and early 1940s (before the war intervened) by Mussolini and his fellow Fascists to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the March on Rome (1922) and to affirm Rome's links to the sea and the Italian nation's role as an imperial power. We went there to find a work of art, this one designed by an architect: Massimiliano Fuksas' "Cloud,"
which we had heard was somewhere in the Palazzo dei Congressi, one of EUR's most famous buildings. Once in the Palazzo we poked around, went upstairs and downstairs, opened this door and that, but all to no avail: no Cloud to be found. Later we learned that it didn't exist. It still doesn't, but it might. They're building it now--the Cloud will house, or be contained within, a "congress" or meeting place-- obviously at considerable expense (photo of the construction site, below).
And we are astounded that they are. Yes, it will probably be pretty cool. But when was the last time that a government that couldn't afford to pay its pensions or teachers, not to mention fix potholes or collect the garbage, invested millions and millions in an architect's visionary concept? If you build it, they will come? We'll come, but I don't know about "they."

You will come too, if you take the EUR itinerary in our latest book, Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler. More on the book is at the end of this post.

Bill

Fuksas's Cloud is on the EUR itinerary, as we noted above, in our new print AND eBook,  Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  Modern Rome 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.

The Secret Sketches of Pio Pullini

We're fresh from an artistic rush, this one provided by Pio Pullini's lovely and poignant watercolors, now on display (until 3 September) at the Museo di Roma at Palazzo Braschi, between Corso Emanuele II and Piazza Navona. Pullini was born in Ancona in 1887, moved to Rome when he was 19, and the mostra (show) covers the years from 1920-1945, when Pullini provided illustrations for the Tribuna Illustrata and L'Urbe. He also did some paintings, often involving those he was close to, and--a highlight of the show--many "secret" watercolors that record his reactions to Roman life under Fascism and the German occupation (including loading Rome's Jews into trucks for eventual transport to concentration camps). Others treat the liberation of Rome by the allied armies.

Pullini will remind some of Norman Rockwell, but his work is thankfully less technically precise (Rockwell was fanatical about verisimillitude), more perceptive about the human condition, and more willing to grapple with the political realities of life in an age of economic depression and totalitarianism.

I was eager to take some pics in the exhibition but was intimidated by the presence in every room of two video cameras covering every angle. Two of offerings in this post are all from the show's brochure. The third, above left, was sent on by BL, who was apparently less intimidated.

There isn't a word of English in the exhibition, and that's unfortunate; it wouldn't have taken much to translate picture titles from the Italian. But this show is worth seeing anyway, and cheap at twice the price. When we asked the young lady at the desk if there was a sconto (discount) for sopra sessantacinque (over age 65), she asked us where we were from, and we were sure that the answer we gave--New York--would, in revealing that we weren't from the European Union, disqualify us for the discount. Instead, she gave us our tickets and told it was free. You never know!

Bill