Faithful eCool readers may have noted that it’s been a slow month in the Eternal City. August is always rough in Rome: stores and restaurants close and normal daily life comes to a grinding halt as the city’s residents head for the seashore.
Those who are left in Rome (and numbers have been rising for years, but the economic downturn has certainly left lots of Romans unable to head out on vacation for the month of August) are always in search of a cooling breeze, some chlorinated water, and a place to get away from the stifling heat of the city. Yesterday we showed you a photo of the pool, bar, disco, and poker club called All’Ombra dell Colosseo. Today we bring you our favorite piece of publicity for All’Ombra – a sign for the poker club reminding Romans that they can play Texas Hold ‘Em in the shadow of the Colosseum.
We love this on so many levels. The juxtaposition of Texas and Rome seems strangely apropos when illustrated by the Colosseum. And we’re reminded that the ancient Romans had the same love-hate relationship with gambling that continues today. Though some late Republican statesmen argued that gambling corrupted morals and though all gambling, except betting at the circus and races, was forbidden by law, archaeological and literary evidence suggests that the Romans gambled with aplomb, especially emperors like Augustus and Nero, but also common people, whose dice and gaming boards have survived the ages.
For the past two summers, those Romans unable to spend August on the seashore have gotten a bit of relief from the heat at a pool erected on the Caelian Hill. Just off Via dei San Gregorio and overlooking the Palatine, the pool is part of a larger installation called All’Ombra del Colosseo that includes a disco, bars, a restaurant, and an area dedicated to poker.
We’ll admit to blowing off our work and taking the eCool team to the pool now and then. It’s lovely. There are lounge chairs and a wait staff that bring drinks right to you as you toast yourself in the sun. The water is cool and clean. Occasionally, a cool(ish) breeze wafts off the Caelian or the Palatine. In a city that gets incredibly hot and is short on affordable places to swim (hotels in Rome specialize in gouging the wallets of non-guests who want to take a dip), the pool “at the Colosseum” provides a much needed respite.
Susan Sanders recently spent some time lounging at the pool and returned to the Compound with this lovely photo. Shot early in the morning, before the pool and surrounding areas were inundated with bambini and their nonne, the photo showcase the bright white bar chairs (heavily populated in the evenings) and lovely stand of umbrella pines that rises on the Palatine.
For more photos by Susan, visit her website: Rome With A View
When it’s hot in Rome (and it’s currently HOT in Rome), gelato becomes a staple of the diet. The newspapers publish articles letting the public know that gelato IS a nutritious food and it seems that every man, woman, child, and nun on the street is licking at a cone or digging a spoon into a cup.
Depending on your attitude, stopping for a gelato in Rome can be a simple thing or it can become very complicated. There’s an endless number of gelato stores–some are good and others are much better. If all you’re looking for is a cooling feeling in your mouth and your throat, than any place will do.
Here at the Compound things are more complicated. We’re not willing to settle for just any gelato as we find some to be pretty terrible. We won’t name names here, but our advice is to stay away from any chain with neon signs bright enough to light up a piazza.
For some years, our eCool team was unable to choose a favorite gelateria. Some of us joined the Obama girls in arguing for the old-fashioned Giolitti–shown in Susan Sanders‘ wonderful photo above–while others of us were able to ignore the snobbishness of the infinitely praised San Crispino long enough to enjoy their frozen delights.
In the heat of this summer, however, we’ve eaten a lot of gelato and we seem to be coming to a consensus. The branch of San Crispino nearest the Compound has CLOSED during this sweltering August, so they’ve been crossed off the list. We always love the old-fashioned charm of Giolitti (as captured in Susan’s photo above) but sometimes it’s just too much to wade through the sea of tourists for a taste of pink grapefruit sorbet.
So what have we been eating? This summer the entire eCool team has become entirely enamored with Gelateria Corona at Largo Arenula 27 (there’s another branch nearby at via dell’Ara Coeli) which the Gambero Rosso guide calls one of the best 12 gelato stops in Rome. It’s a tiny place. The flavors change daily. Don’t miss the mint, the vanilla, the infinite rotation of innovative chocolates, and in this heat, it’s hard to do better than the lemon and basil granita. We’re off to get some now.
The Cool Hunter is on top of the hippest things happening worldwide and this mornign they’ve alerted us to the fact that Milan’s most upscale shopping street, Via Montenapoleone, has been embellished with fiberglass models of the adorable Fiat 500 C (released in February) that are serving as planters.
The happening, called “Create a tree,” is a team effort between the City of Milan, Fiat, and artist-designer Fabio Novembre. It’s goal? Novembre says he’s trying to unite trees and cars–two elements always vying for urban space–as a “symbol of a new way of living.”
There are members of the eCool Team who have started to call the Compound by another name–sweat lodge. It’s mid-August and it’s just plain hot in Rome. That heat doesn’t keep the eCool team from showing up for work. Oh no! They’re here bright and early, slogging away at their computers, trying to think of clever things write, trying to find amazing things to post, and generally trying to work out the proof that informs the equation (Rome = Eternally Cool).
Each day by about 2pm, however, the eCoolers have had it. Despite our instance that they need to stay and work and despite the fact that we provide them them with an unending supply of cold coffee and other iced beverages, each afternoon there’s a moment when our highly-paid team just deserts us. They say that they’re heading out into the streets to look for eCool material. We know that no one in their right minds would wander the streets of Rome in the middle of the afternoon in August. And we know that they’re really sitting in air-conditioned bookstores reading trashy vampire novels, but we don’t press the point.
Every once in a while, however, our team does return to the Compound with something ultra-awesome. Dripping with sweat, they download their photos onto the eCool computer and then show us something so amazing that we cease to care what they’re doing with their time and lavish praise upon them. That exact series of events happened recently and so today we’re happy to share with you the photo that our badass team brought home late last week.
It’s a stencil that currently embellishes a wall flanking Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, quite near the Colosseum. A Roman centurion–the kind that poses for a picture with you outside the Colosseum and then demands an exorbitant price for the privilege–stands holding a paint roller in his hand. Above him are the words “When in Rome.” Are we meant to read him as the artist of this oh-so-apropos artwork? (The artist, by the way, seems to have claimed their work here in the form of a signature below the figure that reads “Above.”) Or are we meant to see him as representing an antiquated authority figure who will come and erase this bit of stupendous stencil work with another coat of paint. We don’t know the answer but we love this addition to the streetscape.
So Michael Jackson and Augustus walk into a bar….
We’ve not really managed to finish the joke, having only come up with weak punchlines about first century thrillers and imperial moonwalks.
Our inability to figure out what happens in that imagined bar scene probably stems from the fact that Augustus would have hated Michael Jackson and vice versa–we can only imagine that the meeting of their carefully choreographed self-images would have produced an ugly clash.
That hasn’t stopped the city of Rome from celebrating these two historical figures in a single space, however. A recent drive down the (blissfully deserted) Lungotevere alerted us to the fact that someone’s decided to honor Michael Jackson at the new Ara Pacis Museum. There, visible through a massive glass window that faces the Tiber River, stand a sizable boot and glove that sparkle with golden glass mosaic tiles that could commemorate no one else but the King of Pop.
As far as we know, Augustus was never decked out in such a fashion (and would have sternly disapproved of anyone who accessorized their toga this way) but it’s not the first time that the Ara Pacis Museum has been used to display fancy dress, so maybe someone knows something we don’t.
Buon Ferragosto a tutti! Today, August 15th, is Ferragosto, one of Italy’s biggest holidays. Stores are closed and Italians have headed to the beach in order to avoid the swelter of summer in the city. Ferragosto is more than that, however. It’s a religious holiday too. If you’re not up on this celebration, you can read all about it by clicking over to our 2007 entry about the day.
Here in the Compound we’re celebrating in various ways, not least of which is the posting of this fine Roman street photo by Susan Sanders. Shot near Piazza Trilussa in Trastevere, the image documents the layers of street art applied to walls in this area known for late-night partying and hipster fun. Someone, it seems, has been appropriating from Warhol, sticking up his Marilyn (and his banana) on the city streets though with some modifications–are those bullet holes between her eyes?
For other fab photos by Susan, click on over to her Rome With A View website.
Probably everyone who reads this site knows that the eCool team has a thing about the She-Wolf. We love her. Unconditionally. After all, she’s Rome’s urban icon.
We’re not purists however. We’ll take our She-Wolf shaken, stirred, commercialized, and multiplied. In fact, we love nothing more than an advertiser who decides to incorporate the She-Wolf into their campaign in a creative manner, and so, on a recent August giro through Rome (note the deserted streets in the photo above), we were pleased to discover that Binacci, a furniture company, is making clever use of our Roman heroine and her offspring.
The image shows the She-Wolf atop the pedestal she inhabits in the Capitoline Museums. Below her clamors a sextuplet of Romuluses and Remuses hoping for a bit of nourishment. The tagline reads, “Binacci multiples the benefits with discounts up to 50%.”
It’s that time again eCoolers when we offer a roundup of links about Rome that we’ve found interesting. If you’re a Facebook Fan of eCool, then you may already have seen these and we apologize for the repetition. Others of you may want to click over to Facebook to join our fan club (link above) or you may prefer to take advantage of the hot new Facebook fan box we’ve added to the sidebar of this blog.
Here’s what we’ve been reading in the past few weeks:
- After its triumphal tour of Greece, the Euphronios Vase–recently returned to Italy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art–takes up a permanent place in the Villa Giulia. Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times reports.
- The Discovery Channel alerts us to the discovery of lotion that is over 2000 years old, left almost intact in the cosmetic case of an aristocratic Etruscan woman. Taking your cosmetics to the grave gives a whole meaning to the brand Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
In case you’re wondering, that “Your Teens” photo above is by Susan Sanders. Click over to her photo blog, Rome With a View, to see more wonderful photos of the Eternal City.
In Rome, things move a bit more slowly in August. It’s hot; almost everyone is out of town; stores and restaurants are closed; only a fraction of the usual buses and taxis are on the street. In short, there’s just no reason to hurry.
The lazy slowness of August is exactly and precisely the reason that we’re a bit late with our Photo Friday post this week–though our tardiness makes Susan Sanders’ shot no less humorous. She snapped this photo of a Bernabei van in Piazza del Popolo. Bernabei is one of Rome’s major distributors of alcohol, so we’re betting that the van’s exterior embellishment is meant to encourage those who imbibe to consider their actions carefully while under the influence.
The icons on the van suggest that such activities as littering, painting on walls, sleeping in piazzas, and talking loudly should be avoided. We agree. We’d also go so far as to suggest that one’s spelling should always be checked–even in cases of extreme inebriation.
For more photos by Susan, visit her awesome blog: Rome With A View
