Posts Tagged ‘Rome’
Reason #5372 to love Rome: Soccer/Football card trading
Okay, this falls firmly under the ‘things we do as parents for our kids’ category. My half-Italian sons are – like 99.9% of their peers- crazy about calcio (soccer for Americans, football for Brits). Here, all the kids collect football cards, buying packets, putting them in their albums, trading them with their friends. But the…
Read MoreReason #5371 to love Rome: Emperor Augustus
‘Marmoream relinquo, quam latericiam accepi’ – I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. Okay, you may not love Emperor Augustus already (thought by many to be Ancient Rome’s greatest emperor), but you’re bound to enjoy the exhibition organized at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale to mark the 2000th anniversary of…
Read MoreReason #5370 to love Rome: The Appia antica
Even after years of living in Rome, I’m often struck by how truly beautiful it is. My son plays tennis at a club just off the Ancient Roman road, the Appia antica – the Appian way. When I see him play, I can also take a walk along these beautiful, ancient cobblestones lined with cypresses…
Read MoreReason #5369 to love Rome: The modern Jubilee Church
When one thinks of Rome, it is not generally modern architecture that comes to mind. And yet, many of today’s ‘starchitects’ have undertaken major projects here in the Eternal City. Renzo Piano built Rome’s Auditorium, Zaha Hadid the MAXXI Museum (Both in Rome’s Flaminio neighborhood). Massimiliano Fuksas’ ‘Cloud’ Roman Congress Center is currently being built…
Read MoreReason #5368 to love Rome: History around every corner
You can’t spend ten minutes in Rome without realizing how true this is. Rome is a city that lives and plays around its antiquities. Each day, we walk over the fabulous subterranean remains of the Roman Empire – sadly, only few of them open to the public, although many can be arranged with advance appointments.…
Read MoreMy story, Amica del cuore, will be published in the Far Flung and Foreign anthology
Recently I got the news that my short story, Amica del cuore, will be published in the annual anthology of Writers Abroad. I wrote about the call for contributions in an earlier post. The title of this year’s anthology is Far Flung and Foreign, and contributors to this year’s anthology were asked to contribute a…
Read MoreReason #5367 to love Rome: Vatican stamp collecting
It’s the rare visitor to Rome who doesn’t make his or her way to the Vatican. Visiting St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museum are highlights of any visit to the Eternal City. As most visitors know, Vatican City is actually its own state, separate from Italy, with its own Head of State – the Pope.…
Read MoreAuthor Jhumpa Lahiri reading in the Roman Forum
Last week, I went to see an author whose work I admire read in the Roman Forum. The American author Jhumpa Lahiri is in Rome as the 2013 Writer in Residence at John Cabot University. I saw her introduce the reading with Italian author Francesca Marciano, where she she spoke about her love of Rome and the…
Read MoreReason #5366 to love Rome: Track and field stars at the Golden Gala
Every year in June, Rome hosts the Golden Gala at its Olympic Stadium. Rome held the track and field events from the 1960 summer Olympics here, and it is also here that Roma and Lazio, Rome’s two football (a.k.a. soccer) teams play their matches. But for one night each June since 1980, the stadium is…
Read MoreReason #5365 to love Rome: The Ludus Magnus – gladiator training grounds
When you are next visiting Rome’s Colosseum, be sure to take the time to cross the street and peer into the area known as the Ludus Magnus. Two thousand years ago, this was the largest and most prestigious of Rome’s gladiatorial training schools. The Ludus Magnus was built during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81-96…
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