★ History and art · RomeRomeA small fairy-tale enclave in the Trieste district, with turreted villas, mosaics, wrought-iron spiders and great arches.
The storyIt was designed between 1913 and 1927 by the Florentine architect Gino Coppedè, who mixed Art Nouveau, Gothic, Baroque and Assyrian motifs. In the middle of Piazza Mincio stands the Fountain of the Frogs, from 1924: the story goes that in 1965, after their concert at the Teatro Adriano, the Beatles jumped in fully clothed. The district's eerie atmosphere appealed to Dario Argento, who shot scenes for several of his films here.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · RomeRomeA museum where Roman statues and mosaics are displayed among the boilers, turbines and diesel engines of an old power station.
The storyIt was Rome's first public power station, opened in 1912 along the Via Ostiense. Decommissioned after the war, in 1997 it hosted a temporary exhibition of sculptures from the Capitoline Museums, «The Machines and the Gods», which was so successful it became permanent. The contrast between the white marble and the black iron of the machinery is unique in the world.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · RomeRomeA garden of cypresses and tombs at the foot of the Pyramid of Cestius, where foreigners and non-Catholics who died in Rome are buried.
The storyThe English poet John Keats, who died in Rome in 1821 aged 25, is buried here: on his gravestone he wanted only the words «Here lies one whose name was writ in water». Nearby are the ashes of Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned the following year, and the grave of Antonio Gramsci. Next door, the pyramid of Gaius Cestius, built as a tomb around 12 BC, is home to a colony of cats.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Tuscia and Lake BolsenaSutriA village on the Via Francigena with a Roman amphitheatre carved entirely out of the tufa and a church created inside an Etruscan tomb.
The storyThe amphitheatre was not built but sculpted into the rock, tiers and all, probably between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. Nearby, the church of the Madonna del Parto occupies an Etruscan tomb that in Roman times may have become a temple of the god Mithras and in the Middle Ages a frescoed church. In the early Middle Ages the Lombards gave Sutri to the pope, and this donation is considered the beginning of the Papal States.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Tuscia and Lake BolsenaCalcataA medieval village on a tufa crag in the Treja valley, home to artists, with workshops, galleries and small restaurants.
The storyIn the 1930s the village was declared at risk of collapse and its inhabitants moved to Calcata Nuova. From the 1960s the empty houses were taken over by Italian and foreign artists, architects and hippies, who restored them. Calcata was also famous for an unusual relic, the Holy Prepuce, which was carried in procession until it mysteriously vanished in 1983.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Castelli Romani and CiociariaNemiA village on the rim of a small volcanic lake, famous for its wild strawberries and the Museum of the Roman Ships.
The storyFor almost two thousand years two huge ships built for Caligula, about seventy metres long and perhaps used in the cult of Diana, who had a famous sanctuary here, lay on the bottom of the lake. Between 1928 and 1932 the lake was partly drained and the ships recovered, a feat that made headlines around the world. Sadly, the museum burned down on the night of 31 May to 1 June 1944, and today models, bronzes and decorations remain.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Castelli Romani and CiociariaAlatriA town ringed by cyclopean walls of huge polygonal blocks, with one of the best-preserved acropolises in Italy.
The storyThe walls, built in pre-Roman times from gigantic blocks fitted together without mortar, were so impressive that they were said to be the work of the Cyclopes. In 1996, during restoration work in the convent of San Francesco, a rare and mysterious medieval fresco was discovered: Christ inside a labyrinth, like those of the French Gothic cathedrals.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Nature · Circeo, Gaeta and the Pontine IslandsCisterna di LatinaA romantic garden among the ruins of a medieval town, crossed by a crystal-clear river, with climbing roses on the walls and plants from all over the world.
The storyNinfa was a prosperous little town until, at the end of the 14th century, it was sacked and then abandoned because of the malaria rising from the marshes. From 1921 the Caetani family began turning the ruins into a garden, and generations of the family's women enriched it. Today it is a protected natural monument and is often listed among the most beautiful gardens in the world.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Beach · Circeo, Gaeta and the Pontine IslandsVentoteneA small volcanic island with a Roman harbour carved out of the tufa, and opposite it the islet of Santo Stefano with its Bourbon prison.
The storyAugustus exiled his daughter Julia here. The Santo Stefano prison, built by the Bourbons in 1795 in the shape of a horseshoe so that every cell could be watched from a single point, held lifers and political prisoners until 1965, including Sandro Pertini. Under Fascism, Ventotene was a place of internal exile: here in 1941 Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi wrote the Ventotene Manifesto, the text that gave birth to the idea of a federal Europe.
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