La dolce vita
(the sweet
life)
A lazy, late summer afternoon in
Piazza Navona. Hard to imagine the same scene in Macclesfield
or Pittsburgh.
We’re finally going to use the phrase ‘La Dolce Vita’ here at Romebuddy. We’ve used it sparingly because it is such a lovely expression, and should not be blatantly overused or cheapened. But Rome is the home of La Dolce Vita, and while the city is a shadow of what it was in the fifties and early sixties, it still lives up well to it’s decadently romantic reputation.
Well connected dog enjoying the sweet
life outside restaurant on Via delle Muratte, a stone's throw
from the Trevi Fountain.
The romance
Young lovers by the fountain in Piazza
Navona in typically un-self-conscious pose
Rome is the place to fall in love.
To stand on one of its bridges on a warm summer night, gazing
at the floodlit city vista and listening to the crickets singing,
one can easily lapse into spouting some Shakespeare sonnet on
the joys of Mediterranean romance. But what will probably strike
the English visitor most is the tremendous outward display of
love and affection by the Romans. We’re not just talking
about romantic love here, but also friendship and family ties.
Quite apart from the mandatory social kissing at every hello and
goodbye, there are so many more gestures of amore on show in Rome,
both platonic and romantic. Young teenage girls will rest their
heads on each other’s shoulders, and even girlfriends in
their twenties will hold hands or go even arm in arm in the street.
Brother and sister will embrace, young men will flirt with baby
girls, mothers will shower their grown up sons with hugs and kisses,
and all this in the street, in the bar, in the shops, anytime,
anywhere in fact. Lovers kiss and exchange gifts on the train.
British romance tends to be claustrophobically dull and physical
by comparison, for England’s foul, wet, chilly weather drives
lovers indoors on most evenings of the year, with nothing but
the TV and the bed to cement the relationship. British lovers
embrace each other under the bed-covers simply to try and keep
warm than for any other reason! In contrast, Italy’s golden
warm weather and easy-come easy-go life of bars and scooters allows
Rome’s lovers to spend countless evenings drifting happily
through its winding streets and piazzas, sharing discoveries and
adventures together or in groups of friends and family. Romances
are thus more relaxed and fuelled by more platonic pursuits than
in England, allowing serious relationships more time to develop
into something deeper and more meaningful. Whilst it is true that
Italian society is highly sexually charged, with much macho posturing
from young hetero studs congregating outside the bars, and beautiful
pouting girls with perfect figures poured into skin-tight dresses
drifting like sirens among the fountains, all casting provocative
glances back and forth between each other , it is all somehow
peculiarly mixed up with traditional if now hypocritical family
values - girls love their boyfriends only slightly more than they
love their brothers, and boys love their girlfriends slightly
less than they love their mothers. As in all great cities, there
is of course an exciting singles scene for short-term visitors
who enjoy action and variety, but long term visitors to Rome searching
for true love will find it the most delightful setting in the
world for the gentle flowering of a deep and dream-like romance.
Trastevere
is the old residential area of Rome,
until recently the habitation of working class families who had
lived there for centuries.
Typical Roman street complete with
cat and the ubiquitous scooter. Rome's enormous stray cat population
is legendary. Nobody in Rome actually owns a cat. There's no need!
Put a couple of fish-heads outside your front-door every couple
of days and you'll make plenty of feline friends.
Cross the river on foot on any bridge near the equally haunting and mysterious island, ‘Isola Tiberna’, and you’ll be in Trastevere - step into the cool shade of the nearest street and you’ll step back three or four hundred years. Anybody who’s ever visited The Shambles in York and was bitterly dissappointed to discover that it was only one street of plebby nouveau-riche tea-cosy shops will not be similarly disappointed by Trastevere. Trastevere is the real thing! Endless winding cobbled streets, tiny little bars of exquisite intimacy, and washing hanging out between the shuttered windows high overhead. Red ochre and burnt sienna wash paint peeling from ivy infested stone walls, trickling drinking fountains set back into dark carved crevices, while the smells of rich espresso coffee, freshly baked ciabatta and sun-ripened dog turds waft through the air. There is also an enticing collection of little antique shops and jewellers sprinkled throughout these magical streets, together with the occasional artist or sculptor’s studio. If you’re gonna get lost anywhere in Rome, then get lost in Trastevere. You’ll never want to find your way home again…
The Architecture
Rome's architecture is stunning, the more
so because of the curious variety of architectural periods in
evidence there. There’s more than two thousand years of buildings,
all built on top of each other, as Rome’s empires and civilisations
have risen and fallen. Unlike most of the world’s cities
which have been bombed to pieces during at least one war this
century and completely rebuilt in the modern style within the
last fifty years, Rome has escaped such destruction, so it’s
all still there to see.
Interior of the fabulous Pantheon
- This has to be seen to be believed. No, you are not mistaken
- that really is a big hole in the ceiling - Don't ask
me what they do when it rains...
Obviously there’s the Roman stuff such as the Coliseum and the fabulous ruins of the Forum, fifty foot high columns amazingly still standing after twenty centuries.
Then there’s the medieval stuff, pretty little arches and terracotta tiling, followed by grandiose rococo edifices of the eighteenth century, and much later the severe but perfectly executed public buildings of the fascist regime.
Yer' own personal Mary - rooftop
shrine on the left of the picture shows what a little imagination
and a big dose of Catholic piety can do to brighten up any dull
inner-city apartment...
Rome is packed with curious little niches of exquisitely juxtaposed
architectural beauty like this. But blink and you could miss them.
Get into the habit of looking up as you walk through the city,
and explore all those nooks, crannies and alleys.
On the outskirts of town modern apartment blocks built since the 1960s predominate which are nothing to write home about, but Rome’s city centre consists of a good thirty square miles in which hardly a single modern building stands at all. And it’s all beautiful stuff, designed and crafted by some of the world’s most gifted and adventurous architects and artisans.
The art galleries
Like all major cities, Rome has it’s
share of excellent art galleries, and this being Italy, there
are plenty of fine and famous works by all the major Italian artists.
In addition, most other principal European artists are represented,
many of whose works are rarely seen in British galleries. Works
by Klimt for example, (an artist much in vogue now but almost
never shown in London) are on view, and also some of the swagger
portraits of Giovanni Boldini, the dashing belle époque
society artist.
La passeggiata...
...is the stroll taken through town
every Saturday night or Sunday afternoon by countless Romans.
It translates as ‘promenade’, or ‘stroll’,
and is a practice carried on throughout most of Italy, and a number
of other southern European countries. The Romans however are particularly
good at it. La passeggiata is the Roman family strutting it’s
stuff in front of other Roman families, but couples and individuals
also take part. There is nothing like it in England anymore; One
must dress up a little for the passeggiata, something largely
unheard of in England today. Children and suitably domesticated
and groomed dogs may also partake. On Sunday afternoons, the shops
will be closed and only a few bars will open, so the passeggiata
is strictly an occasion on which to see and be seen. Nothing more
and nothing less.
Not-so-young lovers take a breather
during the passegiata. But just check out that stylish hat and
the three inch heels the dame's wearing. In Rome, age is not an
excuse to start dressing down.
In
Rome the main passeggiata is held on the Via Condotti, from Via
Corso to Piazza di Spagna. This area is always a pedestrian-only
zone but on Sundays half of Via Corso is closed to traffic as
well. Sometimes on a particularly pleasant evening weatherwise,
a spontaneous passeggiata can occur midweek, anywhere, without
warning. It’s difficult to describe it any further - Just
dress up and join in - You’ll soon get the idea.
The beach
The craziness
Whether it’s the heat or the wine or the olive oil, or something genetic, we don’t know, but the Mediterranean temperament reaches it’s metropolitan boiling point in Rome. As a city, at this time in our civilisation’s history, it’s a tremendous gamut of religiously and politically opposing social conventions and fashions.
Post-punk hippies whip out their
guitar for a spontaneous begging-bowl jam in the porch of The
Pantheon, practically Rome's oldest church building, converted
from a pagan temple rebuilt by Emporor Hadrian after a fire in
AD70.
Amid this crazy ancient patchwork of different architectural styles on the skyline, two thousand year old Roman monoliths battle for pole position with sixty foot high billboards for cosmetics, mobile phones and 18th century rococo fronted churches.
Because she's worth it? Laeticia
Casta gains monolithic supermodel status as L'Oreal's gigantic
billboard in Piazza Navona dominates the historic landmark during
refurbishment of the fountains. Although the slogan is translated
to Italian, the product is French and the model is French-Corsican,
but Italy has never barred true beauty from its borders, nor is
the subtlety of Casta's virginal aura subliminally lost on the
populace of this city which has built its reputation on the iconic
worship of the Madonna.
Everyone is beautiful, everyone is stylish,
everyone is occupied in their own fiercely hedonistic search for
a beautiful and meaningful lifestyle - A Romelifestyle…
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