Italy's Wonders

[fbenario]

[Given that we spend so much time focused on what is wrong with the world, I thought it'd be nice to have a topic that focuses on the good. Admins: if you agree, please delete this introductory, bracketed comment.]

When I was age 12 in 1973, we spent a week on the top floor of the orange building to the right of the church, in rooms overlooking the Piazza. At that time it was a nunnery, and the nuns served us our meagre breakfast, a single hard roll and orange juice. To this day I remember wishing their breakfast had included more food!

Perfection, Squared

Masterpieces are made. They can also change with time. When Napoleon entered Venice in 1797, he famously pronounced the Piazza San Marco "the world's most beautiful drawing room." He then promptly decreed plans for rearranging it. In architecture, and in urban spaces that undergo constant modification, a thing can grow and still remain instantly recognizable.

No one would deny the magnificence of the Venetian piazza. But Rome's Piazza Navona certainly gives it a run for its money in any contest for the World's Greatest Public Space.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... P_review_0

[nonhocapito]

I remember a few times walking those streets between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon thinking that those areas of Rome were, without a doubt, one of the most greatly beautiful places on earth.
I lived in Venice for a few many years, and traveled around Italy enough to know all the wonders that this nation contains. But I must admit that those particular streets of Rome contain a beauty and harmony and greatness that is difficult to find anywhere else.
To think that for centuries those have been popular quarters, almost slums! Right now they are amongst the most pricey places on earth, which makes it completely not worth it to even dream to live there.