Things Seen During Trastevere Walks

Here's a grab bag of things we ran across during our Trastevere tenancy:

Locks:

In Paris some panels of bridge railings are bedecked by tourists with padlocks symbolizing, apparently, the permanence of their loves, leading to unsafe weight on the railings and the periodic need to replace the sections.

Similarly in Rome we have seen places where locks are accumulating, but not on the bridges themselves: this chain barrier keeping wheeled transport off a pedestrian bridge can easily be replaced with a new naked chain at, I imagine, minimal expense.

A section of rail in a park has so far not appealed to as many lovers, it seems, but it may just be a matter of time before it gets too heavy for safety and measures have to be taken.

Water Fountains:

As one moves around Rome one frequently sees examples of the city’s more than 2500 free fresh-water drinking fountains, which I have just learned are called nasoni, “big noses,” from their curved metal spouts. The water runs all the time, which seems wasteful of water supplies but is intended to keep the water from stagnating in the pipes. Each fountain has a small reservoir at the base that is specifically intended for the benefit of dogs, and one often sees dogs drinking there. People refill their water bottles; I've only seen the one guy shaving.

Drying Rack:

Very few Italian homes have automatic dryers indoors; some have things that are supposed to be both washer and dryer combined in a single machine, but our experience with a few of them over the years suggests that the technology remains to be mastered. Most people use clotheslines attached to the walls outside their windows, or folding indoor drying racks. This picture shows the first time I ever saw a folding drying rack placed outdoors—and not near an entrance door to the building, which suggests it was some sort of desperation measure.

Memorials:

As when I’ve seen such memorials in the past, I was touched to find these memorials in the pavement near the grocery store where we shopped. Each shiny bronze square is about the size of a san pietrino; I don’t know how deep into the ground they go. They commemorate two men in the same family, aged 52 and 15, who lived there, were arrested on April 28, 1944, and deported to Auschwitz, “dead – in place unknown – on date unknown.” Adolfo and Armando Mieli.

Another heartbreaking memorial to the Italian Holocaust that I happened to see on the day of the anniversary: “On the 16th of October 1943, entire families of Roman Jews,

deprived of their homes by the Nazis, were concentrated in this building and deported to the extermination camps – from a thousand people, only sixteen survived.”

The plaque was installed on October 16, 1984, and the wreaths of anniversary remembrance must have been placed the same day I saw them, October 16, 2022, and probably every year, by the Jewish Community of Rome and (I think, but I can’t read the writing very well on the second one's ribbon) the office of the Mayor of Rome.

In other years I've seen other memorials remembering atrocities that took place on other spots. It's good for us all to be reminded, in places where we go, that these things happened in these very places.

Tiny Vehicles

I still love, and marvel at, the tiny cars and trucks that one sees all over the place, but with restraint we have come up with only one picture this year.

People

I sometimes feel the same way as this man's t-shirt: