The alleyways of Trastevere are the veins of Rome. Here, there is always a tavern or craft shop to visit, there are always card games played on street corners, and the exuberant style and culture of the district (now considered the “Historic Centre”) is manifested in its street art.
Finally back (R)home! As an Italian living abroad, the first months of 2020 were kind of tough. The only thing I could think about was if (worse moments) or when (brighter days) I could have seen my family again.
I did, eventually, and here are some memories from my first trip to Italy after lockdown, as well as some surreal images of Rome without tourists.
When I was 7 years old, the TRV Crew started tagging the walls of Rome. That’s how all this began for me; as an innocent hunt down the rabbit hole of Rome’s earliest graffiti scene. Little did I know that, almost 30 years later, I would once again be walking on TRV’s footsteps by going from Rome to Amsterdam, where I met Nico.
There is a no-place in Montesilvano where cars, trains, bikes and pedestrians frequently cross. Multi-level linear paths all intersect her before carrying on their trajectory towards the vanishing points. There is a beautiful park on both sides, and the blue sea rests not too far away, although once you are caught up in the traffic that flows through Sottopasso Aldo Moro, all you can hear is the noise of the cars, whose engines roar through the two tunnels that serve as the entrance and exit of the city, and a train clanking past every twenty minutes or so.
“That one is you, always glued to your phone!”
“C’mon, I’m not that fat! Or am I?” he asked Jaune, who was stencilling yet another garbage man on Gaeta’s “Isola Ecologica”.
‘I’m sending a postcard to my gran’ commented Wasp Elder, looking at the winding streets and the red-ish shades of the postcard-pretty Acquapendente, an enchanting village in that area of Northern Lazio called ‘Tuscia,’ which once was inhabited by Etruscans.
Nestled in the unspoilt nature and not so far from the picturesque Bolsena Lake, this little village is the evidence that you don’t need to go to a metropolis to hunt some great street art in Italy. In Acquapendente, urban art perfectly fits with ceramics, red bricks, and old stones.