The beach of La Feniglia, north of Rome, in the Maremma region.

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Stefano

The beautiful beach of La Feniglia by Rome City Apartments

You would never expect to find beautiful sandy beaches with crystal clear and uncontaminated waters, within a National park, at approximately one hour drive from Rome. Yes, this is Italy! A cultural sightseeing of Rome can be matched with a day or a week-end spent enjoying the gorgeous scenarios of the southern Maremma region, one of the best preserved and wild landscapes in Europe. So, no need to fly to exotic destinations in the Americas or in the far East, a short flight to Rome from any European Country – or from the US or Canada, why not?- will give you the opportunity to swim, sunbath, play with your kids in a shore that can be compared to the most beautiful beaches of the Caribbean sea or of the Indian Ocean; but here you can as well taste the best varieties of food in the world, from the tasty wild boar to the delicious fresh fish delivered daily in the Port of Santo Stefano, Monte Argentario. We recommend to rent a car in Rome and drive through the highway Rome – Civitavecchia and then take the Aurelia heading north, following the signs to Orbetello. Shortly before Orbetello, exit Ansedonia and you’ll enter the Italian National park della Maremma. This area consists of sandy beaches, pinewoods, hills, sea cliffs, lagoons. Continue reading →

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The fury of the Last Judgement.

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Stefano

The Coronari apartment in Rome by Rome City Apartments

Michelangelo had returned to Rome, aged 59, at the request of Clement VII who had asked him to decorate the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. He had not wanted to accept this commission, since he was desperately anxious to get back to work on Julius II’s tomb. And in time of the ill and weary Pope Clement he had been able to work on the tomb in secret while progressing slowly with cartoons for the Sistine Chapel wall. With the forceful Pope Paul III, however, Michelangelo could not prevaricate. The Pope was determined to have Michelangelo working for himself alone. “I have harboured this decision for 30 years” he is reported to have said to Michelangelo. “And now that I am Pope I shall have it satisfied. I shall tear the tomb contract up. I am quite set upon having you in my service, come what may”. One of the attendant Cardinals, looking around the sculptor’s studio apartment in Rome, observed that the statue of Moses was alone worthy to do honor to the memory of Pope Julius. Another suggested that the remaining statues could be made by assistants from Michelangelo’s models. The Pope, having set the cartoons for the Sistine Chapel wall, became more insistent than ever. So Michelangelo gave way. He was appointed Chief Architect, Sculptor and Painter to the Vatican and began work on the Last Judgement in 1535. Continue reading →

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Italian cuisine – world class dining or baby food?

Posted on May 23, 2012 by James Whiting

Fresh Roman vegetables by Rome City Apartments

Italian food is loved around the world. Delights such as pizza and pasta have been repackaged into 2-minute ready meals and frozen cardboard-tasting deep-dish abominations that would send shudders through the gastronomic instincts of every Italian. Is there much more to the Italian menu or is it food for overgrown babies?

All Italians love to cook and love to eat, or so my Italian friends tell me. Yet, Italian men are famous for living with their mothers into their forties. If they don’t have a good reason to fly the nest, then why forfeit mama’s loving, domestic services of laundry services and heartily home cooked meals?

In recent times, this social trait has been a hot topic of debate among politicians and commentators. A section of the conservative, older generation believes this is a genuine social and economic problem. Two years ago, the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, went one step further. He described overgrown male babies still living in their parents’ apartments as “bamboccioni”, or big babies. Continue reading →

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Is this love? (part 2, The end).

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Stefano

A picture of the marquise taken by her husband

Anna Fallarino was one of the first Italian women to get breast implants, an operation still completely unheard of at the time. The more important discovery the commissioner made, however, was Camillo Casati’s diary. “It was in the desk of the study where the crime took place.  It was a diary the size of a file folder, bound in green leather, and written in Casati’s neat handwriting. It was an important discovery; together with the photographs it allowed us to reconstruct the events leading up to the crime, and thus to explain what had happened. But it was also a delicate discovery, something to be handled tactfully because of the names it contained and the details of certain accounts that were a good deal more lurid than the versions published in the newspapers.” With an almost maniacal precision and richness of detail the marquis chronicled his wife’s sexual encounters with workmen, soldiers, lifeguards an waiters, encounters he himself had arranged and sometimes paid for. This behavior began the very day they were married, right in the hotel where they spent their wedding night. Continue reading →

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Is this love? (part 1)

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Stefano

Camillo and Anna Casati Stampa by Rome City Apartments

The first call to the police station rang at ten o’clock on a Sunday evening,  August 30, 1970. Strangely, the day had been almost autumnal, a rarity for that time of the year. The caller reported a murder in the Pinciano neighborhood, Rome, at Via Puccini, 9 a building of upper-class bourgeoisie apartments. Valerio Gianfrancesco, head of the station’s homicide division, was first to arrive at the crime scene, in the elegant home of Marquis Casati Stampa di Soncino, a two-story, terraced penthouse with a view of Villa Borghese. He later spoke of what had happened in an interview with Ezio Pasero, a journalist “As soon as the alarm came to the station , we rushed to that splendid penthouse, with no idea of what had caused the problem, obviously. Instead, I thought that it must have been an attempted robbery, or maybe even a kidnapping gone wrong. I was the first to go into the den and see the horrible scene. A woman was heaped in an armchair with an incredulous expression still on her face, the marquis was on the floor next to a rifle, and a young man was balled up behind a small overturned table”. All three were dead. Who were the three leading actors of this tragedy?
Continue reading →

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THE HAND OF GOD.

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Stefano

Sistine Chapel: the hand of God and Adam by Rome City Apartments

One of the key visuals of the Sistine Chapel (click here for a virtual tour of the Chapel) in Rome is the hand of God, and nobody would argue if we call Michelangelo, maybe the greatest artist of all times, the “hand of god” in the field of the fine arts. More recently the Argentinian football player Diego Armando Maradona, maybe the greatest footballer of all times, called himself the hand of god for other reasons (click here to see why). But as we don’t want to be blasphemous we will not call Michelangelo “the hand of god” and we will not call Diego Armando Maradona “the foot of God”, which would be more appropriate. As we don’t think we’re entitled to give a last judgment about the issue represented by the behavior of Maradona on the playground, we’d rather recount the chronicle of the making of the Sistine chapel, an absolute masterpiece of Arts which was made possible by the encounter of two hypertrophic egos such as Michelangelo Buonarroti and Pope Julius II. Continue reading →

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BREAD AND CIRCUSES.

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Stefano

The Colosseum as it was by Rome City Apartments

“Rome has been restored to herself” wrote the Spanish poet Martial when the “far-seen amphitheater” was nearing completion. “What was formerly a tyrant’s delight is now the delight of people”. The tyrant’s colossal column, the figure on the summit replaced by that of the sun-god, still stood nearby and it was possibly this, rather than the vast size of the Colosseum itself, that gave the amphitheater its name. The measurements were daunting. Its oval ground area, 617 feet long by 513 feet wide, enclosed an arena 282 feet by 177 feet. The surrounding walls rose in four storeys to a height of 187 feet. The top floor, an enclosed, colonnaded gallery, was reserved for women  and the poor, who sat on wooden seats; the floor immediately below this, also enclosed, was reserved for slaves and foreigners; beneath this were tiers of exposed marble seats, the higher for the middle class, the lower for more distinguished citizens. Just above the level of the ringside were the boxes of the Senators, magistrates, priests, Vestal Virgins and members of the Emperor’s family. High overhead on the roof of the topmost gallery were sailors expert in the handling of canvas whose duty it was to pull across a coloured awning to protect the spectators from rain or the heat of the sun. In all about fifty thousand spectators could be accommodated.
Continue reading →

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It’s a kind of Magic.

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Stefano

Rainbow Magicland in Rome by Rome City Apartments

Today some monsters came and took me and my sister and daddy and mommy to a magic place. Daddy says that they took us to a magic third dimension. At first I was a bit scared but then I jumped into daddy’s arms and he gave me a big hug so I was no longer scared.  I decided that I would be princess Belle, even if I like more Princess Aurora, and my sister princess Ariel, but without the fish queue as otherwise she could not walk. It was a marvelous trip and I liked very much the Ice cream. The Winx get their Ice Creams at the Frutti Music Bar, I’ve seen this on my daddy’s IPAD. We traveled with a space ship and after a while we arrived in front of the entrance of the Rainbow Magicland in the countryside of Rome, a city where there is also a countryside and the Colosseum, an old place where the gladiators were fighting and people were looking at them. The Magicland is an area where there are many magic things and where Bloom and Stella and Flora and Musa and Aisha and Techna are living. Also Roxy is there; the other Winx are telling her that she is a fairy but she doesn’t believe it, as she thinks she is a human being. But I think she is a fairy as I’ve seen in an episode that when she gets angry she turns into a fairy. But the real Winx are living in another planet, not in Magicland I think, but I ‘m not sure.

Continue reading →

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I’M NOT AN ALIEN, I’M AN ENGLISH MAN IN TRASTEVERE.

Posted on April 27, 2012 by James Whiting

The church of Santa Maria in Trastevere by night - Rome City Apartments

Trastevere – the perfect stepping stone for discovering Rome’s treasures. Across the Tiber from Rome’s most famous attractions lies the neighbourhood of Trastevere.  James Whiting discovers another Roman jewel not to be missed.

Located in the nook of the west bank of the River Tiber, across from the old walls of the city, and just south of the Vatican, Trastevere is surely the most romantic, colourful neighbourhood to visit in Rome. But there’s more to discover than most visitors expect.

The charming cobbled streets, flanked by charismatic medieval houses, are awash with local and international sightseers by day. Come nightfall, bars and restaurants buzz with a hip mix of Italians and tourists. Narrow, zig-zagging laneways create a chaotic maze in which it is easy to lose your way… unless you have a good map and a seasoned navigator.

Initially, this town was not governed under ancient Rome and was named after its location across the river – tras translating as across, and Tevere the Italian name for the River Tiber. Despite its gentrification, the village within a city retains its rough, rustic edge. Continue reading →

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A MAN: THE FACE OF ROME, THE SOUL OF ITALY (Part 3).

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Stefano

The Liberty apartment by Rome City Apartments

In 1965, in the last episode in black and white of The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles sang “She’s got a ticket to ride“, but no one could imagine that the happy ride of the Western bourgeoisie was to finish soon. The first stop was felt sharply in 1962 when the Americans had been awakened in the middle of the night with the cold sweat of a nuclear fever of Caribbean origin. But then the sea eagle knocked out the Siberian bear and it seemed, at least for a while, that everything would continue as before. One morning, however, the world woke up and discovered that John Kennedy, the hope for a better world, had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on 11 November 1963, 12.30 local time; then it turned out that Vietnam was a dirty war and soon the young Westerners discovered that the dreams of Martin Luther King had been killed before they were even born, and so they chose to screw up the world built by their fathers, and therefore the ’68 arrived. The sons decided to disown their fathers and preferred to declare themselves the flower children and to make love instead of war; it seemed that the pollen of the flower children could also take root in the east, and in fact there was a very early spring in 1968 in Prague, Czechoslovakia . Soon, however, the spring flowers of Bohemia were crushed by steel and in the east everything started again, just as before. In the West, however, change and social conflict crept deep into the 70s and  the world will never be the same again. Continue reading →

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