Sept 9, 2018 | Rome> We turn our attn now twards Trastevere, the rione we called home from 2010 to 2012... so shore weaved yacked plenty about rione # XIII here on 5cense.

Tuttavia, we did our best to retraverse tutte le strade for the sake of this RomeRioni project.

Trastevere literuley means "across the Tiber". They god a lion sticking his tongue out in their logo, who nose why, may-b cuz it falls w/in the walls built by pope Leo. Now it's famous for how swarming it is w/ tourists + Amerikin college kids drinking a year abroad. So menny flock to Trastevere to experience how quaint + rustic + "real" it is that it's become a jam-packed parody of itself. Back in the day, before it became an official rione, + then a theme-park, it was figuratively "the other side of the tracks," an impoverished, flood-proned area where Syrians + Jews dwelled (b4 they got put in an official ghetto).

our old house on Titta Scarpetta (taken in 1938)            Titta Scarpetta #28 in 2012 when we moved away 

Titta Scarpetta, Sept 2018

Our desk sat near 1 of them upper windows + everytime we looked out we'd see a camraw pointed back at us like we was in a zoo... + this was the quiet (east) side of Trastevere. We used our ol casa as a starting pt for this roamin'... tho there aint no rhyme or reason to the streets + alleys for a fixed plan. We did her over a few days actually, 1 evening before dinner we did the side east of viale Trastevere + then another night we hit the streets going up the Giantculo to our friends for dinner. And then yesterday we filled in the gaps + then sum (we also did the neighboring Borgo, wich will chronicle in another post) ...not like we aint walked all these streets before, but as w/ most of the other rione, we're refreshing our memory, reminiscing + tying her all together.

Trastevere side of Ponte Cestio in 2010 w/ starling murmurations above

A few weeks ago we was walking along Lungotevere + saw a dead dude laying mangled on the road, thrown from his motorini... only the 2° or 3° time we've seen a dead body that close. All that kept going thru our head was "don't think that poor fella is gonna make it home for dinner." That + note to self: never ride a Vespa. We only wint as far as Porta Portese, wich we think of as Trastevere, but once u go thru that gate you're officially outside of Rome. The same gate in Bicycle Thieves (1948) where they duck out of the rain huddled w/ the German priests + then Ricci spots the jerk who nicked his bike + gives chase... but we mensunned dat already in the snow-in-Rome post.

There's loads of other film scenes shot in Porta Portese, like in I Soliti ignoti (1958) when Mastroianni fakes a broken arm so his freed-up hand can get a 5-finger discount on the camraw behind his back.

There's another scene in I Soliti Ignoti ("Big Deal on Madonna Street" for ye Amerikins) shot in Trastevere, where Peppe (Vittorio Gassman) gits out of prison + salutes the guard. Not shore if its the same bldg but it's in the vicinity of the real prison there (Regina Coeli), that was also used by Fatshits + Nazis to lock up politickle prisoners + Jews. But that's on the north-west bank of Trastevere, wer'e still on the east side.

S. Cecilia (we've bin down in their crypts b4 but can't find the post)
(this time there was a wedding so we dint go in)

inside S. Benedetto, run by them sado-masochistic Brazilian monks that sport chains + motorcycle boots + keep nuns locked up as sex slaves in the bldg opposit our old terraza (at least that's how it looked to us)

the 1° time ever we visited Rome (in 2001) the taxi dropped us off rite here cuz he coont fit thru this alley

randumb coroner

for ye opera-buffs, Antonio Cotogni was from Trastevere,
as was Sergio Leone, for ye spahgetti western freaks

Francesca Romana hospital

Bernini's statchew of Ludovica in XTC, in S. F. Ripa (taken in 2012, mass was going on this trip) 

When our bedder-½ won that prize + they made a video, we revisited a lot of our old haunts in Trastevere—the markets, the cheese shop, on the 8 tram, the tortellini lady, etc. + the interviews take place in piazzas Piscinula + Sta Maria + various colleagues houses thereabouts:

Stamperia del Tevere is also in Trastevere, the place where Cal launched Ark Codex. Dante's house is also in Trastevere, tho we cd never figger out what wint on in there. It's across the street from the monument to the poet G.G. Belli, i.e. the taxi stand. There's the spots we got caught in the rain + the bodega w/ the French bulldog, but we haven't seen her in a while. And all them punkabestias + that crazy ol homeless couple, the ones they made a movie about, tho doubt any english-speakin Inurnet folk have herd of it. That Pranzo de Ferragosto (2008) movie was filmed in Trastevere, using some of the colorful charactors of the hood + that scene in Suburra (the series) where (spoiler alert!) the gay gypsy kills the preppy kid's father/cop was @ the intersexion of Salumi + Titta Scarpetta.

+ there's the restraunts of course... 1 of the reasons we chose dat house on Titta Scarpetta was cuz it was near Da Enzo... the orginal Da Enzo that then became the nearby Da Teo... or maybe we shouldn't say the "original" cuz Da Enzo claims they was the original 1 all along. Our allegiance followed the cook, to Da Teo, where it remained for a few years until they went into decline, as most good restraunts eventually do. Now we usally end up at (the original) Da Enzo, which has remained perty darn good, it's just hard to score a table there. On this pertickler outing we met our bedder-½'s boss at Osteria Gensola, wich is another of our ol favorites, specially cuz it's diffrent then other Roman places, more Sicilian/ Sardinian + more about seafood (they used to always have ricci but not so often anymore). But Gensola too is not all that it used to be. There's loads of other good places, at least on the east side of viale Trastevere... the west side we cant vouch 4, xcept may-b da Augusto, + Trillusa Tavern is a reliable mainstay. On our 2° outing (in the afternoon), we grabbed a slice at La Renella, the bakery where we used to get our bread.

La Renella

Drink-wise we seem to find ourselves lately at that "what the fuck else did u come here for" craft-beer place, i.e. Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fà? Our favorite old bar, S. Callisto, is also on the west side, tho it's hard to find anywhere to sit there no more. It's featured in La Grande Belleza (2013):

Largo S. Giovanni De Matha

the main attraction

just another brick in the wall

Cinema America "Occupato" (the theatre anti-gentrification protesters squatted in
to keep it from being demolished, but now it just sits abandoned)

So now we're heading west, along the river, past the Kentridge murals, past where we saw them filming the helicopter/car chase scenes in that Bond movie Spectre (2015), past the prison complex + the botanical gardens.

prison wall

+ then we looped up onto the Gianicolo, or Giant Culo, where the canon sits that they ceremoniously + punctually fire off at 12:00 noon. We hear it almost every day in our attic now, but hardly ever heard it when we lived closer under it in Trastevere.

lighthouse on Giant Culo (in 2011)

Ossario's Mausoleum in 2010, nearby is Gianicolo fountain also shown in this post
+ in the opening scene of La Grande Belleza

1 of menny busts atop the giant culo, pic taken in 2009...
when we did a whole series of collaged rubbeings of these statues

Garibaldi's wife Anita, baby in 1 hand, gun in the other

Villa Sciarra

We looped thru Villa Sciarra then back down along the wall twards the Vatican + Borgo rione, wich will cover in the next post...