Rome – आवारा मुसाफिर

Pope’s big Holy Year only aggravates Rome’s overtourism crisis

December 22, 202468 Views

When Pope Francis left the Vatican earlier this month for his traditional Christmastime outing downtown, he acknowledged what many Romans have been complaining about for months: That his big plans for a Holy Year had turned their city into a giant construction pit, with traffic-clogging roadworks tearing up major thoroughfares, scaffolding covering prized monuments and short-term rentals gobbling up apartment blocks. Francis urged Romans to pray for their mayor — “He has a lot to do” — but to nevertheless welcome the upcoming Jubilee as a time of spiritual repair and renewal. “These worksites are fine, but beware: Don’t forget the worksites of the soul!” Francis said. When he formally opens the Holy Year next week, Francis will launch a dizzying 12-month calendar of events that ...

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A criticized Airbnb deal will let users play gladiator in Rome’s Colosseum

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November 17, 2024126 Views

The ancient Roman Colosseum will be the venue of gladiator fights — albeit staged — for the first time in two millennia under a $1.5 million sponsorship deal with Airbnb that aims to promote “a more conscious tourism.” But some visitors to the monument Thursday, as well as housing activists, were skeptical about the value of the arrangement, citing ongoing controversies in many cities over the role of short-term rental platforms in fueling overtourism and limiting affordable housing for residents and students. Under the deal announced by Airbnb and the Colosseum on Wednesday, the sponsorship by the short-term rental giant will cover the renewal of an educational program inside the ancient Roman amphitheater covering the history of the structure and gladiators. FILE PHOTO: A gener...

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Rome considering limiting tourist access to Trevi Fountain

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September 7, 2024175 Views

Rome is considering limiting access to the Trevi Fountain, one of its busiest monuments, ahead of an expected bumper year for tourism in the Eternal City, city council officials say. The Italian capital is preparing to host the 2025 Jubilee, a year-long Roman Catholic event expected to attract 32 million tourists and pilgrims. Under the draft plans, visits to the fountain would require a prior reservation, with fixed time slots and a limited number of people allowed to access the steps around it. FILE PHOTO: Crowds of tourists visit the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy, August 8, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane "For Romans we are thinking of making it free, while non-residents would be asked to make a symbolic contribution, one or two euros ($1.1-2.2)", Rome's tourism councill...

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What happens to the coins tossed into Rome’s Trevi Fountain!

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March 9, 2024642 Views

As visitors’ coins splash into Rome’s majestic Trevi Fountain carrying wishes for love, good health or a return to the Eternal City, they provide practical help to people the tourists will never meet. For hundreds of years, when in Rome, visitors have flocked to the fountain to make a wish, following a storied ritual. Few gave their coins a second thought. Sofia Paz, from Chile, throws a coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane Today, coins pile up for several days before they are fished out and taken to the Rome division of the worldwide Catholic charity Caritas, which counts the bucketfuls of change and uses them to fund a food bank, soup kitchen and welfare projects. In 2022 Caritas collected 1.4 million euros ($1.52 milli...

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Ancient ‘power’ palazzo in Rome reopens to tourists, decades after closure

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September 22, 2023871 Views

An ancient Roman imperial palazzo atop the city’s Palatine Hill was reopened to tourists on Thursday, nearly 50 years after its closure for restoration. The nearly 2,000-year-old Domus Tiberiana was home to rulers in the ancient city’s Imperial period. The sprawling palace allows for sweeping views of the Roman Forum below. The walls of the newly restored domus Tiberiana on Rome's Palatine Hill, in Rome, Italy, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) The public is now able to tour it, following decades of structural restoration work to shore the palace up for safety reasons. Excavations uncovered artifacts from centuries of Roman life following the decline of the empire. The director of the Colosseum Archeological Park, which includes the Palatine Hill, in a wri...

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Entry to Roman Pantheon no longer free

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July 1, 2023761 Views

Visitors to Rome's Pantheon, one of the ancient world's best preserved monuments, will have to pay a 5 euro ($5.45) entrance fee from Monday, Italy's tourism ministry has said. Now a church, the vast cylindrical former temple whose undamaged exterior wall supports a 43.3 metre-high (142 ft) dome, attracts millions of visitors every year, making it one of Italy's top tourist draws. People queue to enter Pantheon, one of the ancient world's best preserved monuments which from July will start charging visitors an entry fee in Rome, Italy, June 30, 2023. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane The long-delayed introduction of a charge is part of a drive to squeeze more profit from Italy's cultural assets, with the tourism ministry set to receive 70% of the revenue to help cover cleaning and mai...

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Rome to open ancient square where Julius Caesar was killed

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June 21, 2023946 Views

History buffs will be able to stroll close to the spot where legend says Julius Caesar met his bloody end, when Rome authorities opened a new walkway on the ancient site on Tuesday. General view shows the archaeological area of Largo Argentina a day before it reopened to the public after restoration, in Rome, Italy June 19, 2023. REUTERS/Remo Casilli Accounts, embellished by William Shakespeare, tell how the Roman dictator was stabbed to death by a group of aggrieved senators on the Ides of March - March 15 - in 44 BC. According to tradition, he died in the capital's central Largo Argentina square - home to the remains of four temples. General view shows the archaeological area of Largo Argentina a day before it reopened to the public after restoration, in Rome, Italy June 19,...

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Trevi Fountain water turns black in Rome climate protest

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May 21, 2023592 Views

Seven young activists protesting against climate change climbed into the Trevi Fountain in Rome on Sunday and poured diluted charcoal into the water to turn it black. The protesters from the "Ultima Generazione" ("Last Generation") group held up banners saying "We won't pay for fossil (fuels)," and shouted "our country is dying". Climate activists hold a banner after pouring vegetable charcoal in the Trevi Fountain water, during a demonstration against fossil fuels, in Rome, Italy May 21, 2023 in this image obtained from social media. Allesandro Penso/MAPS via REUTERS Uniformed police waded into the water to take away the activists, with many tourists filming the stunt and a few of the onlookers shouting insults at the protesters, video footage showed. In a statement, Ultima G...

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Ancient home, prayer room open at Rome’s Baths of Caracalla

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June 24, 2022584 Views

One the most spectacular examples of ancient Roman baths, the Baths of Caracalla, has become more spectacular. Authorities in Rome on Thursday opened to the public a unique private home that stood on the site before the baths, with a frescoed ceiling and prayer room honoring Roman and Egyptian deities. The two-story home, or “domus,” dates from around 134-138 AD, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. It was partially destroyed to make way for the construction of the Caracalla public baths, which opened in 216 AD. The site today is a big tourist draw for the multi-leveled brick remains of the Imperial Roman baths, libraries and gyms and the marble mosaics that decorated the floors. Journalists look at the frescoes coming from the sacellum, a small votive chapel, of a two-story hom...

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Italy creates new museum for trafficked ancient artifacts

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June 16, 2022905 Views

Italy has been so successful in recovering ancient artworks and artifacts that were illegally exported from the country it has created a museum for them. The Museum of Rescued Art was inaugurated Wednesday in a cavernous structure that is part of Rome’s ancient Baths of Diocletian. The Octagonal Hall exhibition space was designed to showcase Italy’s efforts, through patient diplomacy and court challenges, to get valuable antiquities repatriated, often after decades in foreign museums or private collections. Exhibits in the new museum will change every few months as the objects on display return to what experts consider their territory of origin, many of them places that were part of ancient Etruscan or Magna Grecia civilizations in central or southern Italy. Votive terracotta hea...