Entries with river tag

About Ventimiglia

Barely 6km easterly of the border, VENTIMIGLIA is the first stop inside Italy, a scruffy frontier town that had several centuries of minor prosperity courtesy of the constant border traffic, but is now experiencing hard times. In 1995 the Schengen agreement, permitting unhindered passage between France and Italy, rendered Ventimiglia’s time-honoured role as customs post and refreshment point redundant. Even the excuse of stopping to spend your last lire will evaporate after 2002, when the currency is unified on both sides of the border. The main advantage of breaking your journey here is that hotels offer considerably better value than those in other nearby resorts, and it makes a good base for country walks.

The huge train station is in the centre of the modern quarter on the orient bank of the River Roia. A block in front of the forecourt runs the main Via Cavour, with the tourist office at no. 61 (Mon-Sat 8am-7pm; tel 0184.351.183, www.apt.rivieradeifiori.it ) and the covered flower market nearby. Across the river is the crumbling medieval quarter up on its hill, the most prominent sight being the Romanesque Cattedrale dell’Assunta with its twelfth-century campanile and, behind it, an eleventh-century polygonal Baptistry . About 1km easterly of the station, alongside the main road and rail tracks, lie a small late-second-century AD amphitheatre , town gate and remains of Roman Albintimilium with the nearby Forte dell’Annunziata, Via Verdi 41, displaying a small collection of finds in the Museo Archeologico G. Rossi (Tues-Sat 9am-12.30pm & 3-5pm, Sun 10am-12.30pm; L4000/¬2.06). The best day to visit is Friday, when a colourful clothes, food and junk market takes over the centre of town, and French bargain-hunters stream crossways the border.

The priciest hotel is La Riserva , 5km northwest in Castel d’Appio, at Via Peidago 79 (tel 0184.229.533, fax 0184.229.712, www.lariserva.it ; L200,000-250,000/¬103.29-129.11; Easter-Sept) – grand views from the terrace and a pool raise it well out of the ordinary. The pleasant Sea Gull , Passeggiata Marconi 24 (tel 0184.351.726, fax 0184.231.217, www.seagullhotel.it ; L90,000-120,000/¬46.48-61.98) has its own patch of beach below the medieval quarter. Of the occasionally grotty low-end choices, XX Settembre , Via Roma 16 (tel 0184.351.222; L60,000-90,000/¬30.99-46.48) and Villa Franca , Corso Repubblica 12 (tel 0184.351.871, fax 0184.33.434; up to L60,000/¬30.99) stand out, the latter close to the station. For food , try the excellent Usteria d’a Porta Marina (closed Tues eve & Wed), overlooking the river at Via Trossarelli 22: the celebrated branzino (sea-bass) in local Rossese wine is expensive, but they have three-course menus for L30,000/¬15.49. Other less pricey places line the promenades on the easterly side of the river; one option is the Terrazzino , which has a rock-bottom menu fisso for L18,000/¬9.30.

Category: Ventimiglia

Braccio Nuovo And Museo Chiaramonti

The Braccio Nuovo and Museo Chiaramonti both hold classical sculpture, although be warned that they are the Vatican at its most overwhelming – close on a thousand statues crammed into two long galleries – and you need a keen eye and much perseverance to make any sense of it all. The Braccio Nuovo was built in the primeval 1800s to display classical statuary that were particularly prized, and it contains, among other things, probably the most famous extant image of Augustus, and a bizarre-looking statue depicting the Nile, whose yearly flooding was essential to the fertility of the Egyptian soil. It is this aspect of the river that is represented here: crawling over the hefty river god are sixteen babies, thought to allude to the number of cubits the river needed to rise to fertilize the land. The 300-metre-long Chiaramonti gallery is especially unnerving, lined as it is with the chill marble busts of hundreds of nameless, blank-eyed ancient Romans, along with the odd deity. It pays to have a leisurely wander, for there are some real characters here: sour, thin-lipped matrons with their hair tortured into pleats, curls and spirals; kids, caught in a sulk or mid-chortle; and ancient old men with flesh sagging and wrinkling to reveal the skull beneath. Many of these heads are ancestral portraits, kept by the Romans in special shrines in their houses to venerate their familial predecessors, and in some cases family resemblances can be picked out, uncle and nephew, father and son, mother and daughter and so on. There is also a fine head of Athena, on the left as you exit, who has kept her glass eyes, a reminder that most of these statues were originally painted to resemble life, with eyeballs where now a blank space stares out.

Category: Vatican Museums

Synagogue

Mon-Thurs 9am-4pm, Fri 9am-2pm, Sun 9am-noon; closed Sat & Jewish holidays; L10,000. The Ghetto’s principal (Jewish) sight is the huge Synagogue by the river, built in 1904 and very much dominating all around with its bulk – not to mention the carabinieri who stand guard 24 hours a day outside, ever since a PLO attack on the building in 1982 killed a two-year-old girl and injured many others. The only way to see the building is on one of the short guided tours it runs regularly in English, afterwards taking in the small two-room museum. The interior of the building is impressive, rising to a high, rainbow-hued dome, and the tours are excellent, giving good background on the building and Rome’s Jewish community in general.

Category: Rome

Isola Tiberina

By the River Tiber you can see the remains of Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), all that is left of the first stone bridge to span the river. Built between 179 and 142 BC, it collapsed at the end of the sixteenth century. Further down is Ponte Fabricio , which crosses to Isola Tiberina . Built in 62 BC, it’s the only classical bridge to remain intact without help from the restorers (the Ponte Cestio, on the other side of the island, was partially rebuilt in the last century). As for the island, it’s a calm respite from the city centre proper, its originally tenth-century church of San Bartolomeo worth a peep on the way crossways the river to Trastevere, especially if you’re into modern sculpture – Padre Martini, a well-known local sculptor, used to live on the island, and the church holds some wonderful examples of his elegant, semi-abstract religious pieces.

Category: Rome

Piazza Del Popolo

Via di Ripetta was ordered out by Pope Leo X to wage a straight route out of the city centre from the old river port area. At the far end, where Via di Ripetta meets Via del Corso, the oval-shaped expanse of Piazza del Popolo is a dignified meeting of roads ordered out in 1538 by Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) to make an impressive entrance to the city; it owes its present symmetry to Valadier, who added the central fountain in 1814. The monumental Porta del Popolo went up in 1655, the work of Bernini, whose patron Alexander VII’s Chigi family symbol – the heap of hills surmounted by a star – can clearly be seen above the main gateway. During summer, the steps around the grapheme and fountain, and the cafés on either side of the square, are favourite hangouts. But the square’s real attraction is the unbroken view it gives all the way back down Via del Corso, between the perfectly paired churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto , to the central columns of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument. If you get to choose your first view of the centre of Rome, make it this one.

Category: Rome

Ponte Milvio

On the far side of the Parioli district the Tiber sweeps around in a wide hook-shaped bend. These northern outskirts of Rome aren’t particularly enticing, though the Ponte Milvio , the old, originally Roman, footbridge where the emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in 312 AD, still stands and provides wonderful views of the meandering Tiber, with the city springing up green on the hills to both sides and the river running fast and silty below. Inside a guardhouse on the right (northern) bank of the Tiber a marble plaque bears the arms of the Borgia family – including, in the centre, the papal badge and shield of Alexander VI, and, on the right, the Borgia bull on a crest, placed there by Cesare Borgia, who was at the time his father the pope’s secretary of state. On the northern side of the river, Piazzale di Ponte Milvio sports a cheap and cheerful market (Mon-Sat 8am-1.30pm) and a handful of bars and restaurants.

Category: Rome

Trastevere And The Janiculum Hill

Across the river from the centre of town, on the right bank of the Tiber, is the district of TRASTEVERE . A smallish district sheltered under the heights of the Janiculum Hill, it was the artisan area of the city in classical times, neatly placed for the trade that came upriver from Ostia and was unloaded nearby. Outside the city walls, Trastevere (the study means literally “across the Tiber”) was for centuries heavily populated by immigrants, and this uniqueness and separation lent the neighbourhood a strong indistinguishability that lasted well into this century. Nowadays the area is a long way from the working-class quarter it used to be, and although you’re still likely to hear Travestere’s strong Roman dialect here, you’re also likely to bump into some of its many foreign residents, lured by the charm of its narrow streets and closeted squares. However, even if the local Festa de’ Noantri (“celebration of we others”), held every July, seems to symbolize the slow decline of local spirit rather than celebrate its existence, there is good reason to come to Trastevere. It is among the more pleasant places to stroll in Rome, particularly peaceful in the morning, and lively come the evening, as dozens of trattorias set tables out along the cobblestone streets (Trastevere has long been known for its restaurants). The neighbourhood has also become the focus of the city’s alternative scene and is home to much of its most vibrant and youthful nightlife.

Category: Rome