MUSEO CAPITOLINO The... and other Rome, Italy General Tips

Favorite Thing: MUSEO CAPITOLINO
The Capitoline Museum was built in the 17th century based on an architectural sketch by Michelangelo. In the first room is The Dying Gaul, a work of majestic skill that's a copy of a Greek original dating from the 3rd century B.C. In a special gallery all her own is the Capitoline Venus, who demurely covers herself. This statue was the symbol of feminine beauty and charm down through the centuries (also a Roman copy of a 3rd-century B.C. Greek original). Amore (Cupid) and Psyche are up to their old tricks near the window.
The entrance courtyard (see photo at left) is lined with the remains (head, hands, foot, and a kneecap) of an ancient colossal statue of Constantine the Great.
Piazza del Campidoglio / Phone: 06/67102071 / Open: Tues-Sun 9am-7pm. Bus: 44, 89, 92, 94, or 716. Admission (to both) 10,000L adults, 5,000L children under age 18. Free on last Sun of each month.


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: MUSEUM OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION
P.zza Agnelli, 10 - tel. 5926135 / Opening hours: 9a.m.-7p.m.; sun. and holidays 9a.m.-1p.m.; closed Monday / Entrance L. 5.000. Free: less than 18 and over 60 years old.
An impressive ammount of reproductions testifie the Roman civilization in all its aspects, room XXXVII contains the famous model of impreial Rome (see Photo) on the scale of 1:250 a work by the architect Italo Gismondi.
PIAZZA G. AGNELLI, 10 - ROMA - 54B3 / Tel.: 5926135-5926041 / TIMETABLE AND TICKETS: TICKET L.5.000. H.9-19/ 9AM.-7 P.M. /DOM. E FESTIVI 9-14/SUN. AND HOL. 9 A.M. 2 PM. MOND. CLOSED.


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: THE FORUM
Follow the Via Sacra up the hill from the Forum and among the ruins of much later imperial villas, you can see the circular foundations of three thatched huts from the 8th century BC, one of which may even have been the home of Romulus, who, legend has it, founded the city in 753 BC. By the 5th century BC (the beginning of the Republican period), the entire area was a massive, ongoing construction site. At the other end of the Forum from the Palatine, a cluster of religious buildings rose on the Capitoline Hill, where traces of the Temple of Jupiter are still visible inside the Palazzo dei Conservatori and along the Via del Tempio di Giove. Sumptuous palaces went up along the slopes of the Palatine, while the Forum was drained by the pipes of the Cloaca Massima and developed with shopping streets, public spaces, and opulent civic buildings like the Senate, the Tribunals, and temples to various gods. The Forum became both Rome's downtown business district and an urban canvas on which successive emperors (starting in 44 BC) painted self-portraits in stone, ever more magnificent monuments to themselves.


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: VIA APPIA ANTICA
This ancient roman road starts here ans borders the Mediterranean to the very south of Spain (Cadiz, the roman Gades). There are still several conmemorative monuments standing, as the one of the photo.
It was one of the most important Roman Roads. Opened by Appio Claudio 312 years b.C. from Roma to Capua, was later it extended as far as Brindisi. Now we have only some stretch of original pavement and the ruins of many stomb stones and burial monuments that bordered it.


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: SIXTINE CHAPEL
There is people Rome, and there is Papal Rome. The Church wrote volumes of the city's history, and today we tear ourselves off Rome's dizzying streets to get a feel for the backdrops the Popes chose for themselves. This is largely an indoor day, worth some husbanding of energy. Try to be at the Vatican Museums entrance promptly at 8:45am when it opens, and opt for one of the shorter marked routes, preferably A. Bring binoculars. The main attractions of this overwhelming collection are the Raphael rooms, and even more important, the Sistine Chapel. You need stamina for the long walk from the entranceway and for the awkward position that viewing the ceiling imposes. If you are nimble, you will find a seat from which to lean back and contemplate the recently cleaned miracle that Michelangelo single-handedly wrought. Some prefer to look down into a hand-held mirror. To see the the Sistine Chapel before its eight year long cleaning was as through a glass, darkly. Now its brilliant colors order us to pay attention.
Vatican Museums entrance on Viale Vaticano. Open: Mon-Fri, 8:45am-4pm Sat, 8:45am-1pm Free last Sun. of month. 8:45am-1pm. connecting bus between St.Peter's and Museums


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: PIAZZA DI SPAGNA
Often referred to as the Spanish Steps, the stairs are a meeting place for many romans and tourists, and a wonderful place to watch at people. At the top of the steps is the Trinitŕ dei Monti, built in 1495. In the 1720s the French owners of the church built the steps to make a link with the Piazza below. The Fontana della Barcaccia, at the base, is a modest design as the water pressure that feds it is very low. It was maybe the famous, Gian Bernini, but his lesser known father, Pietro, is more likely.


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: KEATS-SHELLEY HOUSE
Piazza Di Spagna, 26, 00187, Rome, Italy / Telephone 39/6/678 4235. Fax 39/6/678/4167
E-mail:info@keats-shelley-house.org
www.keats-shelley-house.org
Situated on the Spanish steps, the house is part of Roman Folklore. For generations the Piazza di Spagna has been visited by architects, painters, musicians and poets who all lodged here. Tobias Smollet, George Eliot, Goethe, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, the Brownings, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde and Joyce were just a few of the many who were attracted and inspired by the celebrated 'centro storico'.


Leave a Comment

Favorite Thing: TRASTEVERE
Trastevere is at its best on a sleepy Sunday morning when the pox of weekday traffic has miraculously cleared and the neon signs have been turned off. Sunday is also the morning of the flea market called Porta Portese. Expensive antiques and matrioshka dolls share pavement space with single shoes, marble busts of Mussolini, African handicrafts, and even the occasional genuine bargain. The smells of sausage and chestnuts and spicy porchetta (roast pork) hover over the whole glorious mess.
Porta Portese market. Open: Sunday 7am -1pm best entrance; viale di Trastevere & via Ippolito Nievo


Leave a Comment