How splendid is the
Piazza Navona, through which forty years ago I walked to and from daily to work, except on those mornings or evenings when my way was barred by a tank or other militaria, during the making of the film of
Catch-22. Nice to catch it in winter when not drowned in tourists.
This below is a slightly strange photo, catching a fragment of The Moors' Fountain, works barriers and a wooden structure presumably for the current Festival of Rome.
But to me it represents what Rome is, such a constancy of contruction, over three thousand years.
We focus on Piazza Navona as a work of the baroque period of the seventeenth century, but its history began in the first century CE and continues.
Tre Scalini, one of the magical restaurants in Piazza Navona.
Their website will surely attract the upmarket tourist. But at 11am shut, perhaps shut for the season.
The gentleman with guitar played and sang well songs of Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and such items of the 1960s and 1970s. Some of my acquaintances back in 68-69 seemed forever hopeful of being chosen by Fellini who did in fact select actors for his movies as he walked by, and indeed the locals included the curious of appearance from whom he made casting selections. Some starry-eyed expatriates also spoke of not having seen, though they knew someone who had seen Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, reputedly habitues of the place next to Tre Scalini. Nor did I see them, though I did know people who knew people who said they had seen them.
The great Fountain of the Four Rivers was surrounded by scaffolding and barriers; the Fountain of Neptune greeted Elena and Dino. Somehow people don't photograph Neptune... Such strength and beauty in this figure, observes Elena: "My ideal of perfect beauty."
