Rome blog for Bed & Breakfast Chaplin Hostel

History of Campo de’ Fiori

Campo dei Fiori means literally “field of flowers” and is the central point of one of Rome’s most beautiful areas, the quarter between the river Tiber and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II.

In the past Campo dei Fiori really was no more than a field. The area stretching from the Tiber to the Theatre of Pompey (where Largo di Torre Argentina is nowadays) was not considered worth constructing anything on, since the river regularly flooded everything.

In 1456 Campo de’ Fiori was paved as part of an improvement to the entire Parione quarter. After that had happened important buildings were constructed, like the Palazzo Orsini on the square itself and the Palazzo della Cancelleria.

The area was an area for craftsmen, as can be seen from the names of the streets surrounding Campo de’ Fiori: Via dei Chiavari (keymakers), Via di Capellari (hatmakers) en Via dei Giubbonari (tailors), to name but a few.

Executions (usually by hanging) used to take place on Campo de’ Fiori. The philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake by the Inquisition because of his heretic ideas. In 1887 a statue commemorating this was placed right in the middle of the square. It defiantly faces the Vatican.

Campo de’ Fiori now

In 1958 the square was enlarged by tearing down a number of houses. The daily flower market dates from 1869. The old fountain La Terrina where cattle used to drink is now used to keep the flowers fresh.

Nowadays Campo de’ Fiori has become famous for its raucous nightlife – most of the organized pub crawls have the square as its last stop, and sometimes huge battles take place between drunk tourists and the police.

Directions from the Chaplin B&B

From the hostel Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Rome you take either bus 64 or the faster 40E and get off at Piazza San Pantaleo. Any side street on your left will lead you to Campo de’ Fiori.

On September 15th the exhibition celebrating the 80 years’ existence of the AS Roma fanclub finished. It was such a success - more than 200,000 visitors came to the ex-Mattatoio to see signed shirts, shoes of famous players of the past, Totti’s Pallone d’Oro and much more - that the idea was forwarded to create a genuine museum for the soccer team.

Local hero Francesco Totti himself has set up a non-profit organization in order to achieve this and Rome’s mayor, Veltroni, himself a Roma fan, has endorsed it. All that seems to lack is a suitable spot, which has to be located in Rome’s Testaccio area, where the team started in 1927.

Veltroni has promised that, should the rival team Lazio also want a museum, he would offer the same assistance.

The nearest beach in Rome, and thus also the one that is most crowded, is the one at Ostia. Especially in July and August it tends to be dirty and packed with people – the Romans who do not go away on a holiday all spend there days there. On top of that the beaches, as in most of Italy, are all private and you have to pay a lot of money just to be allowed to sit somewhere and then more if you want an umbrella, beach chairs, etc.

The advantage Ostia has over other beaches near Rome is that it is easy to reach by public transport. You take the underground (metropolitana) line B to one of the following three stops: Piramide, Basilica San Paolo or EUR Magliana. There you change onto the Ostia Lido train and stay on till the last stop. It will take you more or less one hour from Rome Termini and if you want to avoid the biggest crowds and most expensive beaches you then take another bus to get you to the public beaches. The trip is also cheap: from Bed and Breakfast Chaplin Hostel Rome it will only cost you one Euro to get there and one Euro again to come back to the city.

Pleasure can also be combined with culture: on the way to Ostia you could decide to stop off at Ostia Antica and see the ruins of the ancient Roman harbor.

Other beaches near Rome that are worth visiting are Fregene and especially, though a good bit further away, Sperlonga, a beautiful town with white beaches and an immaculate, white city centre that, with its steps going off in all directions, gives the impression to have been designed by Escher. (From the Hostel Chaplin Bed & Breakfast and Rome Termini you take a train to Fondi-Sperlonga and then a bus to Sperlonga itself. Note that on Sudays there is a very limited bus schedule and when we went there, taking an afternoon off from the B&B duties we had to take a ride from a rogue taxi driver, who allowed himself to be talked down to 15 Euros.)

Paul Gauguin, until February 3rd

From the Bed and Breakfast Little Italy Hostel Rome you take the metro to Termini where you change lines to get off at the line B Colosseo stop. After exiting cross the road, and turn right. Walk along the Roman Forum till you come to the Via San Pietro in Carcere on your right. From the Hostel Chaplin B&B Rome take the metro directly to the Colosseo stop.
From Cranach to Monet, until January 27th

Palazzo Ruspoli can be reached from the B&B Chaplin Hostel Rome by taking metro line A to Flaminio (4 stops). Look for the Piazza del Popolo-exit and when you hit the square, take the middle one of the 3 roads forming the tridente.
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Italians do not believe in subtitles. Turn on the television in your hotel room and you will find that every program, from the stupidest show made for tv, to items on the news where people get interviewed in English, to art movies is dubbed into Italian. This can be quite surreal, as in “Coffee and Cigarettes”, where Roberto Benigni dubs himself from clumsy English into perfect Italian.

The same goes for the cinema. There used to be one theatre that showed movies in English (the Pasquino, in Trastevere), but at the moment there are only some theatres that show some movies in English and that sometimes even only on some days of the week.

You know the movie is in English when it is billed as VO (Versione Originale).

Cinemas in Rome that show movies in English

The Metropolitan (Via del Corso, 7, Tel: 063200933) always has one screen showing a movie in English, generally the biggest blockbuster of the moment.
From the B&B Chaplin Hostel Rome you take the subway to Flaminio (line A, 4 stops), take the Piazza del Popolo-exit and on the Piazza take the middle one of the 3 streets that form the “tridente”.

Warner Village Moderno (Piazza della Repubblica, 44, Tel: 0647779111) is another one of the cinemas in Rome that show movies in the original language (original language, by the way, 99 times out of a hundred means that it is in English), but unless the film in question is really big (on the scale of Harry Potter or Starwars) during the weekends they will revert to the dubbed versions.
From the Hostel Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Rome you walk to Termini, look for the main exit, onto the bus square. You will see a big white building in the background. Walk towards this building and you will be on Piazza della Repubblica.