I am going to Rome hurrah hurrah

(or something akin to that)

http://www.romecentral.com/music.php

There are not even any good new year's parties. I want to dance, can anyone help me feel the voib?

I went to a sort of ravey-thing last time but the DJs were crappy.
If anyone wants to drop by, email me or catch me on AIM and I'll give you the phone number of where we're at.

have fun

By all means recommend me places in Naples (esp. places to stay)!

I can't really recommend anywhere specific, just walk around and get lost in it all, but be careful at night. And watch out for agressive street salesman, one guy put a cigarette out on my arm when I wouldn't buy A SIX PACK OF TISSUES from him. ?????????

!!!

Here's the funny story behind the ring, at least the one I know at this point. Several years ago my house was robbed and they took all my jewelry. I've never been much of a jewelry girl anyway and I kinda gave up on the whole concept. So I don't own any rings and have no idea what ring size I am. So one night mr teeny decides to throw a wine and cheese party for a few friends and of course I get obliterated at everyone's urging and mr teeny keeps me awake as long as he can and then when I pass out, he can finally get my ring size! And he still got it wrong!!

I never thought I would like an engagement ring (too girly y'know) but it really is beautiful. mr teeny knows I hate diamonds (african mines and all that) so it is a white sapphire flanked by blue sapphires, in platinum. Awwww. He said we can still run away to las vegas if we want too.

http://magnetos.org/files/images/Morriseyinrome.preview.jpg

he looks besotted.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5029/5588441978_bfe9fd6a76.jpg

elaborate ceiling of the French Embassy, rarely open to the public, in Piazza Farnese.

PF = Baroque in the Roman context effectively means ornate but not classical, so it looks like you get the difference even if you do not know the term.

Is the Palazzo above considered baroque, then?

I don't find these buildings ugly but again, I'm surprised by how square and blocky they are.

Yes, I meant the ornate stuff from the end of the Renaissance onwards - oversized statues. scrolls, fluting, curls, big forms, tons of classical elements thrown in, dramatic effects. Trevi fountain-looking things. From the impressions of a day or two, found Florence's architecture much more sympathetic and elegant - more early renaissance stuff around. But I didn't see much of Rome, & it was strictly first impressions.

(that was an xp)

No, if that's the Palazzo Farnese it's high renaissance: the ornament hasn't gone over the top, it's quite a restrained exterior (baroque moves towards showier façades).

(no architectural historian, so slightly out of my depth here)

well, I agree that Rome is OTT overall - too many statues everywhere, kind of diluting the effect of each one, ditto the churches etc. But that's its particular character I suppose and makes it different from where we live.

the noblest Roman of them all:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5190/5588447564_3954125b11.jpg

"too many statues everywhere, kind of diluting the effect of each one, ditto the churches etc."

sorry, but I couldn't help smiling. :)
quite interesting to read how Rome is perceived abroad, anyway!

Talking of churches:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/5592464688_fb2fd74001.jpg

nice photos

rome was rather overwhelming

nice langoustines

"rome was rather overwhelming"

It's the side effect of squeezing 2500 years of history in one city!

I agree that it's rather overwhelming, and that that's why, in large part.

Marco, do Romans find this as odd as I do?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/5591870827_0d9b578d3e.jpg

I don't know about Romans, I certainly find it rather odd!
I lived in Rome for four years when I was a kid and I still have nightmares of traffic jams on the Circolo Anulare. That said, I love it to death: it is a beautiful city with lots and lots and lots of equally beautiful secret corners.

Marco you're needed on the current EXCELSIOR thread regarding an Italian reggae band.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5594870992_62c12e9740.jpg

One thing I was struck by in Rome was how many tourists there were.

Funny, that.

Actually, the thing I was 'struck' by (or not-struck, if you see what I mean) was the traffic.

Famously, Rome (center) has cars that drive all over, and at all speeds. But if you crossed the road (particularly big open road/roundabouts, but entrances/exits of side streets too), they always slowed down without complaint and/or waited. Certainly by comparison to UK streets.

Yes, the traffic is unusual, and scary - there is a crossing by Circo Massimo which felt especially dangerous - but I did also hear that they are supposed to slow down and let you across. There seems to be an endlessly improvised feeling to this, though not quite in the benign way of that Dutch (?) town that abolished road signs.

That's the exact crossing I was meaning, and yes they do.

Ha yes, first time I tried getting across a big, busy Italian road it was most confusing (a dual carriageway in Catania as I recall). I went by the book, pressed the button and the lights went red and everything - but nothing happened, the cars did not slow down one jot. After a couple of tries of that I was won over to the improvised way through necessity, as there's just no way to get anywhere otherwise.

"Improvised" is a word that perfectly describes a lot of Italian things.

Probably my best shot of this:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5184/5596059697_3c00f0ee96.jpg

Rome, yesterday

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5262/5596058791_db25c10e01.jpg

Largo di Torre Argentina

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5021/5600080797_5f23c39c7b.jpg

I think this is the place everyone talks about being a cat sanctuary, but I saw no cats here.

MAO?

What's that - the noise a Roman cat makes?

Via dei Condotti

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5064/5609035755_12c308a0b0.jpg

If you the chance to visit something outside the city, you should try to see Villa Adriana in Tivoli or the pretty impressive remains of Ostia Antica:

http://www.villa-adriana.net/
http://www.ostia-antica.org/dict/topics/excavations/excavations.htm

and you can always see the catacombs (http://www.catacombe.roma.it/), especially the catacombs of Priscilla on via Salaria.

There is also a relatively small but beautiful basilica called Santa Prassede (it is not far from the Termini Station), with fantastic, Byzantine-style mosaics.

Thanks - though for myself, I have long since returned to London, which for a few days just now had its own Roman-style heat wave.

Last Rome pictures now uploaded, I sign off with the last major sight I saw:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5104/5611499422_628709a616.jpg

People said Circo Massimo was 'just a field', and so it is, but that's what I found likeable and moving about it - wonderful that this ancient site should just be a public space for random lying around; it seems to have found a vocation in aimless idleness, a still purer kind of leisure than the frantic sport that made its name so long ago.

And I hope to find some sweet repose there myself. I'm going next week for a couple of weeks, and think I'm going to find this thread very useful. I've enjoyed your reports and photos, pinefox, and look forward to following up some of Marco's tips as well (as well as some of the other recommendations).

I carried a printout of half of this thread around with me at all times!

Two whole weeks in Rome, that is remarkable.

i like your photos and i enjoy reading your take on things, pinefox.

Thank you!

Many more photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9107386@N06/sets/72157626286542185/

Will try and get a look at this -

Good Friday (April 22)
On Good Friday, instead of a mass, choirs sing St John’s version of Christ’s crucifixion. Later that night, the Pope traces the Via Crucis, or Stations of the Cross, from the Colosseum to Palatine Hill. This torch-lit procession is one of the grandest, most solemn things you can witness in Rome.

Although the grandness of me getting drunk in Rome and the solemnity of the next day might be its equal imo.

Hi PF. I've never been to Italy, but I probably shouldn't go, because everytime I heard the police siren, I would think of Morrissey. I've actually had this problem simply watching Italian movies.

The album seems incredibly Rome-centric to me, with the Pasolini and Visconti references and the enlistment of Morricone, but maybe it's just a ruse--as was the artist claiming to be living in Rome while making it, while he was merely staying in a (5-star) hotel.

Anyway, I also think of you when I hear the song "Honey, You Know Where to Find Me," you know, only the classics.

Just got back. Didn't love the place, but had a great time. Definitely a few things worth mentioning.

Outside of the Colosseum, nothing quite gave me such a sense of scale as the baths of Caracalla -

http://theidiotandthedog.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/dscf2334.jpg

10,000-odd people could use them at once.

The hot rooms to either side of the great circular caldarium offered a range of different kinds of dry heat. Their missing front walls were composed almost entirely of glass, taking advantage of natural solar energy. The surrounding surfaces on the outer facade wall were finished with coloured glass mosaic, so that the whole block will have shimmered in the afternoon sun. All that survives of the caldarium proper (which equalled the Pantheon rotunda in height and was three-quarters its diameter) are two piers of brick-faced concrete 35m high. It contained seven plunge baths and the domed ceiling was probably lined with gilded sheet bronze.

So yeah, liked those.

Gardens at Ninfa were amazing - about half an hour's train ride out of Rome. I like gardens well enough, although usually find them boring as well, but these were fantastic. It has a microclimate you know.

Also went to Cinecittá to get some pics of the real Rome -

http://theidiotandthedog.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/dscf2401.jpg

It's open until November, and has a Fellini exhibition on as well, albeit a footling one.

Was staying in Pigneto, which I get the impression is becoming in the eyes of some residents rather trendified. It has got a great market on a street that in the evening has some bars and lots of young Italians. Market, bars, young Italians all great.

Most of the best eating was food I cooked myself, just simply, with the amazing stuff in the market - artichokes, asparagus, fish, meat, gorgeous red oranges, tomatoes, sausages etc etc et rucking c.

Central Rome is a tourist nightmare, and finding a good place to eat is far more problematic than it should be.

There were some exceptions however - Osteria Qui Se Magna in Pigneto (Via del Pigneto 307), off the beaten track, rudimentary trattoria, very good cheap food, great atmosphere.

There's a bakery in the ghetto where you can get really tip-top pizza and other very nice things, always rammed at lunchtime, strongly recommended, but for the life of me I can't remember the name. Am trying to find out. Is responsible for the greasy paw print on the Cinecittá pic above.

But the very best place was Cantina Cantarini, Piazza Sallustio 12. This place was perfect in every way. It's been going for something like 110 years. It's in rather a businessy/banking area, it's not cheap cheap, but it's very reasonable considering I had one of the best meals I've had in a long time there - pasta in brodo + rabbit stew + a green salad, with incredibly refreshing verdicchio wine. They gave us panna cotta and fruit, which was also delicious, and an aromatic fernet like drink which had been in the fridge for three days with fruit marinating in it. The meal itself was relatively simple, but absolutely delicious, and throughout and afterwards felt that perfect pitch of satisfaction without a trace of being 'full' or 'stuffed' in anyway. It was delightful in every way and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who goes.

Primo in Pigneto gets some press - it's a restaurant rather than a tratoria - but I thought it was poor. Expensive, curiously English in its food and approach, and the quality was mediocre.

There were two things that I wanted to see but didn't, which were The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory in the Chiesa del Sacro Cuore del Suffragio on the Vatican. It only amounts to a glass case of objects supposedly scorched by the imprint of people trying to communicate from purgatory, but i wanted to see it. The other was Istituto centrale di patologia del libro - the institute of book pathology - with books in different states of decay and things. I suspect it's in fact just a fancy title for a book restoration museum. Still, again, it appealed.

I knew we had to telephone in advance (although it's free and there's audio guides n shit) but didn't realise that you have to fill out a form TEN DAYS IN ADVANCE. One for next time anyway.

Lots of gelati.

excellent

Good luck Rome.

I'm off, fairly soon too...

Everyone's off, apparently - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13354988

Earthquake 'predicted' for Rome today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/rome-earthquake-prophecy-claims

Oh jeez

Righto, will be there next week.

Might check out "Pink Moon" the record shop...

I asked this on ILM too - any good record shops in Rome these days?

Well?

Or places to hear African, latin, Caribbean music or other stuff too--r'n'b, rock ?

Doing my last-minute research on Rome to see what we can fit into 3 days in Rome, 3 in Florence, 1 day in Venice, and 5 days in Paris. Food, art museums, music, and outdoors stuff too