{"id":29,"date":"2004-09-27T02:42:55","date_gmt":"2004-09-27T06:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/2004\/09\/27\/notte-bianca-pt-1\/"},"modified":"2004-09-27T02:42:55","modified_gmt":"2004-09-27T06:42:55","slug":"notte-bianca-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/2004\/09\/27\/notte-bianca-pt-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Notte Bianca Pt. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I should have posted this a week ago, but I’m just now getting around to writing about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Every year in Rome (at least, for the last 2 years), the city puts
\ntogether an event called “Notte Bianca<\/a>,” or “White Night.”  The French started it with Paris in 2002.  It’s
\npretty simple:  they close the city center to all traffic except
\ntaxis, all the stores stay open until 3:00 am, and all the museums are
\nopen until 6:00 am.  There are also dozens upon dozens of concerts
\nand events going on all over the city.   <\/span><\/p>\n

We just happened to be in town for the 2004 edition, which was last Saturday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

By 6:00 pm there was clearly
\nsomething in the air.  Even though it was Saturday, the streets
\nwere not clearing out at all and the stores were staying open.  It
\nwas like a solar eclipse… something strange going on.  By 8:30 the
\nsidewalks were choked with pedestrians.  Because our hotel was on
\nthe edge of the city center, all the foot traffic was going one
\nway:  towards downtown.  Sara and I decided to walk around a
\nbit while Dad and Marie rested, so we jumped into the river of humanity
\nand started to walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon we wandered into Piazza Venezia,
\na historic square right in the middle of Rome.  You might call it
\nthe political heart of Rome, or one of the political centers at
\nleast.  This is because it contains this gi-normous marble
\nmonument called the “Altare Della Patria<\/a>,”
\nor “Altar of the
\nFatherland.”  As you might guess from the name, this 19th Century
\ntribute to King Vittorio Emmanuele II who unified Italy, is considered
\nby most Romans to be a jingoistic, nationalistic eyesore.  Amidst
\nall the monuments all around the city, which are dwarfed by this
\nmonstrosity, it’s totally out of place, and to top it all off they had
\nto destroy several ancient and medieval sites to build it.  And as
\nif it weren’t rah-rah enough, while we were in town there was also a
\nhuge Italian flag across the monument that had half fallen down. 
\nThe flag was apparently displayed in response to an occupation<\/a> of the
\nAltare in March 2003 perpetrated by Greenpeace activists in which they
\nhung a banner showing Berlusconi with a U.S. soldier’s helmet on. <\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nCattycornered from this is the
\nPalazzo Venezia.  From a balcony of this palace, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I should have posted this a week ago, but I’m just now getting around to writing about it. Every year in Rome (at least, for the last 2 years), the city puts together an event called “Notte Bianca,” or “White Night.”  The French started it with Paris in 2002.  It’s pretty simple:  they close the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1453],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jackstriptoeuropestories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}