These luxurious gardens can be glimpsed in a pit known as Horti Sallustiani near Piazza Sallustio. ” Laid out in the 1880s, the slick magnolia-lined boulevard winds its way uphill where the erstwhile Sallust pleasure gardens lay: created by wealthy scholar Sallustius, friend of Julius Caesar, who spent his imperial leisure time here.
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Instead I feed on celluloid as I wander through the streets of the most wonderful movie set in the world.Ĭompared to the action-packed motion pictures, the streets are surprisingly sedate as I walk up the Via Veneto, cynosure of the hedonistic 1950s era now remembered-thanks to cinema-as “ la dolce vita. Here, even “pizza” can refer to a film reel, though Roman pizzas are almost as inedible as DVDs (note to self: pizza should be eaten in Naples where it and Sophia Loren were born). Rome’s the setting of it all-including the 1970s’ Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Sabse Bada Zuari, and most recently, Bollywood pot-boiler Roam Rome Mein (2019).
Picture-postcardish 1950s’ Hollywood romcom Roman Holiday and silly 2009 thriller Angels & Demons or think of arty sleaze like Bernardo Bertolucci’s Luna, Roberto Rossellini’s neorealism and Pier Paulo Pasolini’s Mama Roma. This oh-so cinematic Italian capital is a fitting town for cinephiles and I can’t help but get pulled into it by the tangle of flicks filmed on these cobblestoned passageways and sprawling piazzas. He lives on in his films, so I chase him through his beloved theatrical backdrop of Rome-a high of caffeine, nicotine, absinthe and all the films of Fellini. Walking past it is as if Fellini himself is saying hello, welcome, bye-bye.
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Spacious enough to accommodate thousands-Michelangelo incorporated the massive 85-foot-wide cross-vault, Diocletian windows and ancient pink granite pillars-it was a suitably dramatic setting for Fellini’s funerary service in 1993. Just up the road I pass the church Santa Maria degli Angeli, which Michelangelo in 1561 audaciously constructed from parts of a 4th century bathing complex.
It set the tone for one of Federico Fellini’s final pictures, Ginger & Fred.Īlthough I have never been to Rome before, everything’s so crystal-clearly familiar as if I’ve returned to someplace I used to hang, back when life was black-and-white like Italian cinema of the 1950s. Hopping onto the express train, in half-an-hour I’m zipped into Rome’s heart of darkness, the brutalistic railway terminal built on a site where the poor used to be buried-suitably named Termini, the last station.
I would have preferred to land at the old Ciampino, the airfield featured in La Dolce Vita, but nowadays it only handles select budget airlines. I exit Leonardo da Vinci airport as soon as my luggage tumbles out on the baggage carousel.