Pedaling through the cycle paths of Rome – Cristina Galardini’s Vlog.
Where were we? yes to the colosseum. From which we will leave to arrive at St. Peter’s Square. (if you haven’t seen the last episode here is the link)
Where we were? We were at the Colosseo, where we start our ride to arrive Piazza San Pietro.
We are starting our ride on Via di San Gregorio, on the right side we can admire the Palatino one of 7 hills of Roma located between the Velabro and the Foro Romano.
It is one of the oldest part of the city, the site is now a large open-air museum and can be visited during the day. It’s accessible by Via di San Gregorio or entering by Foro Romano.
We turn right for a nice ride inside the Circo Massimo, an old Roman circus, located in the valley between the Palatino and Aventino.
This place is recognized like a place of games since the beginning of the history of the city. In the valley had happened a mythical episode of the Ratto delle Sabine, during the games organized by Romolo in honor of the God Consus.
Circo Massimo is certainly a wide flat area and it’s close to the landing of the Tevere river. there, in the antiquity it was a trading place, they ensured that the place constituted the foundation of the city and was the best spot for the market activities and exchanges with other populations.
It was also a place for some rituals and socialization activities, such as games and competitions.
We passed the church Santa Maria in Cosmedin that became famous after the movie Vacanze Romane: «Here is the Bocca della Verità, the legend wants that if you lie and put your hand in the simulacrum bites you. What a horrible thing.»
We are riding on the Lungotevere an avenue that runs along the Tevere river, built primarily to eliminate and control the floods of the Tevere. On July 6, 1875, a law was passed and after started the demolition of the existing buildings on the shore.
With the construction of avenues along the river, the construction of shore walls helps the regularization of the water level. The works have been from 1876 to 1926, on the occasion, several bridges were built to connect the two shores of the Tevere River.
The most lovely route of the Tevere cycle path is the one that also pass along the Isola Tiberina. To go for one of the most picturesque bike paths in the city… we should go down… these stairs.
The Tevere is the main river of the center and the Italian peninsula, with 405 km long it’s the third longest italian river (after the Po and the Adige). It is also the 1st Apennine’s river in length and flow. It crosses 4 regions (Emilia-Romagna, Toscana, Umbria and Lazio), 7 provinces (Forlì-Cesena, Arezzo, Perugia, Terni, Viterbo, Rieti and Roma) and 82 municipalities, including Perugia and Roma.
Among the most used accesses in this area, there are Sisto bridge, Palatino bridge and Fabricio bridge.
After a few hundred meters we begin to admire the splendor of Castel Sant’Angelo, also called Mausoleo di Adriano, located in front of the Pons Aelius current bridge Sant’Angelo, not far from the Vatican, between the Borgo and Prati districts; It was built in front of the Campo Marzio, there are linked by the Elio bridge.
All of this construction began in 135 A.D. when the emperor Adriano asked the architect Demetriano to build a funeral mausoleum for him and his family it’s inspired by the model of the mausoleum of Augusto, but with gigantic dimensions.
The mausoleum lost a part of his function when it was connected to the Mure Aureliane becoming part of the city’s defensive system. Majestic in front our eyes there is the Basilica di San Pietro in the Vatican State. A Catholic Basilica of Vatican City, symbol of the Vatican State, crowned by the monumental Piazza San Pietro.
It is the largest of the four papal basilicas in Rome, often described as the largest church in the world and the center of Catholicism.
The construction of the present Basilica di San Pietro began on 18 April 1506 under Pope Giulio II and ended in 1626, during the pontificate of Pope Urbano VIII. The arrangement of the square was made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, from 1657 to 1667 that to realize this project had demolished the clock tower built only a few years earlier by Martino Ferrabosco on the north side of the square and placed in axis with the street of Borgo Nuovo.
The bronze door of the clock tower led, through the Scala Regia, to the Cappella Sistina and the Vatican Palaces. Following this change, it created an evocative path that accompanied the viewer from the narrow and articulated streets of the “Spina di Borgo” to the grandiose Piazza San Pietro.
This cut asymmetrically, the north side of the Piazza San Pietro to offer evocative and always new view towards the facade of the Basilica; it’s making the dome of Michelangelo the prominent element of the entire Basilica.
Roma is nice… it’s wonderful to come here but… Oh mon Dieu! Here we are.
March 2021 I had participated in a guided tour with a friend of mine an official guide, also because in March in Roma the tourist can’t come here… this official guide had changed her clients, starting to do a tour for us, roman people.
I was there with other our friends and I said to myself: “Me too I would like to share Roma in my way, because Roma is beautiful, I love Roma. It’s true I’m not an archaeologist, I’m … “I was a washout at school” like we said in Roma, I never studied. The less time that I did it, it was just to pass over the interrogation.
I love Roma with all its defects, with all its holes in the street, with all no rules, with all the non-open mind, I also love Roma when I say Roma is beautiful, even if, there are the roman people that are not always nice destroying the city! I love Roma, but how I can describe it?
How I can? I want to say is not… if it will be easy to say and to share this feeling to the other person. But I don’t know, maybe with a camera inside my brain that could show the images that I see or what I would like to show you. It should be easy.
Then I thought, but I’m an actress, perhaps I could create something…uhm what? A movie about Roma? There are a million already exist from Roma Città Aperta to the international movie Mangia Prega Ama until to arrive at magnificent movie of Sorrentino with La grande bellezza, that I said any best documentary in the world showed Roma as Sorrentino did. So what I do?
