• Ancient Rome
• Centro Storico
• Colosseum, Celian Hill and beyond
• East of Via del Corso
• Esquiline Hill, Termini and beyond
• Out from the city
• South of the city
• Trastevere and the Janiculum Hill
• Vatican
• Villa Borghese and north
ANCIENT ROME
From Piazza Venezia Via dei Fori Imperiali, a soulless boulevard
imposed on the area by Mussolini in 1932, cuts south through the heart
of Rome's ancient sites. Before then this was a warren of medieval
streets that wound around the ruins of the ancient city centre, but as
with the Via della Conciliazione up to St Peter's the Duce preferred to
build something to his own glory rather than preserve that of another
era. There has been a long-standing plan to make the entire ancient part
of the city into a huge archeological park which would stretch right
down to the catacombs on the Via Appia Antica. Although excavations have
been undertaken in recent years, they are continuing slowly. It's a
dilemma for the city-planners: Via dei Fori Imperiali is a major traffic
artery with a function which must be preserved. One way around this is
to dig a tunnel under the road - an expensive option but an option that
is apparently being considered. For the moment, if you want tranquil
sightseeing, you'll have to settle for coming on Sunday, when a long
stretch from Piazza Venezia to Via Appia Antica is closed to traffic and
pedestrians take to the streets to stroll past the ruins of the ancient
city.
CENTRO STORICO
The real city centre of Rome is the centro storico , or historic
centre, which makes up the greater part of the roughly triangular knob
of land that bulges into a bend in the Tiber, above and below Corso
Vittorio Emanuele, to the west of Via del Corso, Rome's main street.
This area, known in Roman times as the Campus Martius, was outside the
ancient city centre, a low-lying area that was mostly given over to
barracks and sporting arenas, together with several temples, including
the Pantheon. Later it became the heart of the Renaissance city, and
nowadays it's the part of the town that is densest in interest, an
unruly knot of narrow streets and alleys that holds some of the best of
Rome's classical and Baroque heritage and its most vivacious street- and
nightlife.
The main square and transport hub of Piazza Venezia is a good
orientation point: to its north lies the main body of the old centre of
Rome, with the graceful oval of Piazza Navona and the great dome of the
Pantheon at the heart of its tangle of streets and churches; to its west
is more of the same, focusing on the busy squares of Campo de' Fiori and
Largo Argentina , and fading as you move towards the river into Rome's
ancient Jewish Ghetto . To the south is the Capitoline Hill and its
museums, on the edge of Rome's ancient centre.
COLOSSEUM, CELIAN HILL AND BEYOND
On the far side of the Forum, heading south , are some of Rome's
most ancient sights, remnants of the time when this area was mostly
green, bucolic countryside. A lake lay where the Colosseum stands now,
drained by a small stream that wove between the Palatine and Celian
hills, curving to empty into the Tiber close by the Circo Massimo. The
slopes of the Palatine and Celian hills were inhabited by people living
in shanties and huts, until the great fire of 64 AD, when Nero
incorporated the area into his grand design for the city, building a
gigantic Nymphaeum to support his planned gardens on the Celian Hill,
part of his Domus Aurea, and cleaning up the slopes of the two hills.
Eventually a temple to the deified Claudius was built on the Celian
Hill, and the Palatine became the residence of the emperors, fed by
water brought by the arched span of the Aqua Claudia.
Nowadays, this part of Rome has some of the city's most atmospheric and
compelling Christan and ancient sights, in the Colosseum , and, beyond,
the churches of San Clemente and San Giovanni in Laterano , among others.
It also has some of its most pleasant corners, in particular up on the
still green and peaceful Celian Hill .
EAST OF VIA DEL CORSO
The triangular area on the eastern side of Via del Corso , bound by
Piazza del Popolo, the Corso, the edge of the Villa Borghese and Piazza
di Spagna, is travellers' Rome, historically the artistic quarter of the
city, for which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Grand Tourists would
make in search of the colourful, exotic city. Keats and Giorgio de
Chirico are just two of those who used to live on Piazza di Spagna;
Goethe had lodgings along Via del Corso; and institutions like Caffè
Greco and Babington's Tea Rooms were the meeting-places of a local
artistic and expat community for close on a couple of centuries. Today
these institutions have given ground to more latter-day traps for the
tourist dollar: American Express and McDonald's have settled into the
area, while Via Condotti and around is these days strictly international
designer territory, with some of Rome's fanciest stores; the local
residents are more likely to be investment bankers than artists or poets.
But the air of a Rome being discovered, even colonized, by foreigners
persists, even if most of them hanging out on the Spanish Steps are
mostly flying-visit InterRailers.
ESQUILINE HILL, TERMINI AND BEYOND
On the far side of the main road, Via Labacana, from the Colosseum,
the Esquiline Hill is the highest and largest of the city's seven hills.
Formerly a sparsely populated area, with vineyards, orchards and olive
groves stretching out to the Aurelian wall, it was one of the most
fashionable residential quarters of ancient Rome. In fact it consists of
four separate summits; the Oppian (the part nearest the Colosseum, now a
small park); the Subura, which was ancient Rome's most notorious inner-city
suburb; the Fagutalis : and - the highest (65m) and largest - the
Cispius, which is the site of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
Because of these four hills, this area of the city is called "Monti".
Nowadays it's a mixed area, but one which almost every traveller to Rome
encounters at some point - not just because of key sights like Nero's
Domus Aurea and the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore , and the grand
developments of post-Unification Rome around Via Nazionale and Via XX
Settembre , but also because of Stazione Termini , whose tawdry environs
are home to the lion's share of Rome's budget hotels.
OUT FROM THE CITY
You may find there's quite enough of interest in Rome to keep you
occupied during your stay. But Rome can be a hot, oppressive city, its
surfeit of churches and museums intensely wearying, and if you're around
long enough you really shouldn't feel any guilt about freeing yourself
from its weighty history to see something of the countryside around. Two
of the main attractions visitable on a day-trip are, it's true, Roman
sites, but just the process of getting to them can be energizing.
Tivoli , about an hour by bus east of Rome, is a small provincial town
famous for the travertine quarries nearby and its fine ancient Roman
villa, complete with landscaped gardens and parks. Ostia , in the
opposite direction from the city near the sea, and similarly easy to
reach on public transport, is the city's main seaside resort (though one
worth avoiding), but was also the site of the port of Rome in classical
times, the ruins of which - Ostia Antica - are well preserved and worth
seeing.
Tivoli , about an hour by bus east of Rome, is a small provincial town
famous for the travertine quarries nearby and its fine ancient Roman
villa, complete with landscaped gardens and parks. Ostia , in the
opposite direction from the city near the sea, and similarly easy to
reach on public transport, is the city's main seaside resort (though one
worth avoiding), but was also the site of the port of Rome in classical
times, the ruins of which - Ostia Antica - are well preserved and worth
seeing.
SOUTH OF THE CITY
The word romance is associated with the very name of Rome itself,
and one of the most romantic parts of the city is the area to the South
, where there are plenty of reminders of the glory of ancient Rome. This
area encompasses the start of the Via Appia , the most famous of Rome's
consular roads, which struck from the southeast end of the Circo Massimo
straight as an arrow to the port of Brindisi 365 miles south. The road
was built by the censor Appio Claudio in 312 BC, and is the only Roman
landmark mentioned in the Bible. Immediately beyond the Palatine Hill,
the Baths of Caracalla is the first major sight along the route, one of
the city's grandest ruins, and the venue until recently of inspirational
performances of opera. Beyond, most visitors take public transport out
to see the ancient catacombs , which line either side of the Via Appia
Antica on its way through the outlying districts of the modern city. A
little way west, Via Ostiense was another important traffic artery,
linking - as it in fact still does - Rome to its port of Ostia. It's
home to a more recent, nineteenth-century attraction in the Protestant
Cemetery , where the poets Keats and Shelley are buried, and the
magnificent rebuilt basilica of St Paolo-fuori-le-Mura .
TRASTEVERE AND THE JANICULUM HILL
Across the river from the centre of town, on the right bank of the
Tiber, is the district of TRASTEVERE . A smallish district sheltered
under the heights of the Janiculum Hill, it was the artisan area of the
city in classical times, neatly placed for the trade that came upriver
from Ostia and was unloaded nearby. Outside the city walls, Trastevere (the
name means literally "across the Tiber") was for centuries heavily
populated by immigrants, and this uniqueness and separation lent the
neighbourhood a strong identity that lasted well into this century.
Nowadays the area is a long way from the working-class quarter it used
to be, and although you're still likely to hear Travestere's strong
Roman dialect here, you're also likely to bump into some of its many
foreign residents, lured by the charm of its narrow streets and closeted
squares. However, even if the local Festa de' Noantri ("celebration of
we others"), held every July, seems to symbolize the slow decline of
local spirit rather than celebrate its existence, there is good reason
to come to Trastevere. It is among the more pleasant places to stroll in
Rome, particularly peaceful in the morning, and lively come the evening,
as dozens of trattorias set tables out along the cobblestone streets (Trastevere
has long been known for its restaurants). The neighbourhood has also
become the focus of the city's alternative scene and is home to much of
its most vibrant and youthful nightlife.
VATICAN
On the west bank of the Tiber, directly across from Rome's historic
centre, the VATICAN CITY was established as an independent sovereign
state in 1929, a tiny territory surrounded by high walls on its far,
western side and on the near side opening its doors to the rest of the
city and its pilgrims in the form of St Peter's and its colonnaded
piazza.
The Latin name Mons Vaticanus (Vatican Hill) is a corruption of an
Etruscan term, indicating a good place for observing the flights of
birds and lightning on the horizon that was believed to prophesy the
future. It's believed that later St Peter himself was buried in a pagan
cemetery here, giving rise to the building of a basilica to venerate his
name and the siting of the headquarters of the Catholic Church here.
After reaching an uneasy agreement with Mussolini, the Vatican became a
sovereign state in 1929, and nowadays has its own radio station,
newspaper, currency and postal service, and indeed security service in
the colourfully dressed Swiss Guards. However, its relationship with the
Italian state is not surprisingly anything but straightforward.
You wouldn't know at any point that you had left Rome and entered the
Vatican; indeed the area around the Vatican, known as the Borgo , is one
of the most cosmopolitan districts of Rome, full of hotels and
restaurants, and scurrying tourists and pilgrims - as indeed it always
has been since the king of Wessex founded the first hotel for pilgrims
here in the eighth century. You may find yourself staying in one of many
mid-range hotels located here, although unless you're a pilgrim it's a
better idea to base yourself in the more atmospheric city centre and
travel back and forth on the useful bus #64. However much you try, one
visit is never anywhere near enough.
VILLA BORGHESSE AND NORTH
Outside the Aurelian walls, to the north and northeast of the city,
was once an area of market gardens, olive groves and patrician villas
abutting the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana before trailing off into open
country. During the Renaissance, these vast tracts of land were
appropriated as summer estates for the city's wealthy, particularly
those affiliated in some way to the papal court. One of the most notable
of these estates, the Villa Borghese , was the summer playground of the
Borghese family and is now a public park, and home to the city's most
significant concentration of museums. Foremost among these are the
Galleria Borghese , housing the resplendent art collection of the
aristocratic family - a Roman must-see in anyone's book - and the Villa
Giulia , built by Pope Julius III for his summer repose and now the
National Etruscan Museum. North of Villa Borghese stretch Rome's post-Unification
residential districts - not of much interest in themselves, except
perhaps for Foro Italico , which is worth visiting either to see Roma or
Lazio play at its Olympic Stadium, or simply to admire Mussolini's
stylish, of-its-time sports complex. |
