Buon anno, happy new year, auguri, yada yada yada* and good riddance to 2020. Like most Italians we stayed home in the family, respecting the Covid-19 lockdown and the ban on fireworks. From the explosive sound of our neighborhood, this ban was about as well-enforced as parking regulations. For the past few years Rome has put on a pretty impressive New Year’s Festival but this year they had to think …
The Prati-Trionfale neighborhood is a bustling European-feeling part of Rome. Apart from the ever-present Vatican City (technically not in Prati or even in Italy) and Castel Sant’Angelo, there is not much in the way of cultural highlights to attract people here. Instead, Prati thrives on business and daily life and this can be a welcome respite from the Stendhal syndrome which strikes the visitor exhausted from seeing a famous monument at every …
For years I have been following the vicissitudes of Massimiliano Fuksas’ EUR project, dubbed “the Cloud” and it has now officially been completed. Rather, it has been inaugurated, which in Italy is not always the same thing as completion. In fact, multiple inaugurations are common, getting maximum mileage out of any big project, which makes perfect sense. I saw the projected inaugurated with the groundbreaking in around 2000. I have …