Mamma Mia! Skopelos and Sporades Islands are specks of paradise in the Aegean Sea

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The isle of Tsougrias, only four miles from Skiathos, has no inhabitants.


SKOPELOS, Greece — Three times a week for the last few years, the little Attikon Open Air Cinema on Skiathos has played “Mamma Mia!” Besides being the worst movie Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan ever made (There’s a reason none of her 21 Oscar nominations were for her singing, and James Bond DOES NOT sing.), it is a chick flick of nauseating proportions. It’s so sugary sweet, you could pour the script on pancakes. Yet the film is revered on this little Greek island as if it’s “Gone With the Wind.”

The Greek gods of Zeus, Poseidon and Apollo have been replaced by Abba.

Yet behind the schlocky script, sleazy characters and song and dance routines right out of the Des Moines Dinner Theater, the scenery is worth an Oscar. If you don’t know the 2008 movie, it’s about a young woman who’s getting married and invites three men from her mom’s past hoping she’ll meet her real father. Her mother runs a hotel in Greece and organizes the wedding on an idyllic Greek island right out of the pages of Homer.

Skopelos.

It is about 80 miles north of Athens in the Sporades Islands and about 15 miles from our hotel on Skiathos. White, sandy beaches. Dramatic cliffside scenery. Languid port lined with restaurants slinging cold beer and fresh seafood. Oh, yes. The cute white chapel where the wedding in “Mamma Mia!” takes place, one of 360 churches on the island, sits atop a cliff like an empty souvenir stand. Meryl Streep pilgrims and bored, henpecked men make the climb up for their significant others’ star Instagram posting.

The view from our fourth floor at the Esperides Beach Hotel on Skiathos. Photo by Marina Pascucci


While my girlfriend, Marina, gets weepy discussing the movie, Skopelos lured me with its other charms, such as its 36 beaches. It took a lot to get me off Skiathos. On our second straight August on Skiathos, we upgraded to the four-star Esperides Beach Resort. It has a gorgeous circular pool around a concrete island of lanais chairs. An affordable beach bar sits next to a beautiful sandy beach with nary a rock and water so clear we could identify the fish swimming around our ankles. Our balcony overlooked it all and the breakfast buffet (Marina’s one travel must by threat of garotting in my sleep.) had everything from tiropitas (Greek cheese pies) to baked beans and sausage. It seemed to cater almost entirely to Greeks, English and Italians. The hotel manager said I was not only the only American in the hotel, I was the only American they’ve ever had.

Last year we were among the many Italian residents who took advantage of the 90-minute direct flights from Rome. As I blogged last year, Skiathos has 65 beaches and a string of buses that cruise up and down the southern road linking them all. The island has a new and old port, all teeming with great tavernas where I could drink my ouzo on ice and many romantic restaurants with their own twists on the delicious Greek traditional dishes. I could live on Greek salads.

In fact, on Skiathos, I do.

The harbor on Skopelos.


But after so many days in paradise, you greedily want more. So from our beach dock we took the water taxi 15 minutes to the old port where we boarded the Kassandra Delfinous for one of its daily trips to Skopelos. The Kassandra Delfinous is a 150-foot yacht with seating areas in the open-air port and aft.

The Kassandra Delfinous is a cattle car. About 200 people poured onto the boat, giving us a dim glimpse of what a cruise would feel like. Marina and I gave blood oaths never to take a cruise vacation and fortunately this was only one day.

But unlike cruises where you go an entire day without seeing land, the views were spectacular. Coming out of Skiathos harbor we could see some of the beautiful high-end homes built along the sea. We saw the pine forests above the beaches and pleasure boats bobbing up and down on the water.

Marina and I on the Kassandra Delfinous.


It’s only 15 minutes to Skopelos, an island of 37 square miles, just slightly bigger than Mykonos. Skopelos comes into view in the form of Kastani Beach, featured in a “Mamma Mia!” scene that fortunately escaped my memory bank. Kastani is a gorgeous beach stretching about 200 meters where a rocky outcrop separates it from another stretch of sand. A hidden trail through some vegetation leads to another small, secluded beach.

Despite 200 of us invading this beach and certainly pissing off those already on it, it didn’t feel very crowded as we laid on our beach towels for a couple hours. I always say you have no idea what freedom is like unless you decide on what Greek island you want to visit on your way to a boat dock. Greece has 6,000 islands. Each one has its own history, geography, beaches.

Skopelos has a beach definitely worth the big screen.

Kastani Beach on Skopelos.


We next stopped in Skopelos town, one of two “towns” on the island. The dock is lined chock-a-block with restaurants with covered, outdoor seating at tables all looking out onto the water. Marina and I ventured up the hilly historical center of the town looking for a taverna off the well-beaten path. We passed jewelry stores, clothes stores, souvenir stores. We saw one restaurant. It was closed.

We passed a local who looked as if she was showing around some visiting friends. We asked about a restaurant off the dock.

“I’m sorry. We only have two,” she said. “And they’re closed until evening.”

Souvlaki on Skopelos.


Too hungry and thirsty to be crestfallen, we took a seat and feasted on giant shrimp, souvlaki and a mountainous Greek salad topped with that huge, gorgeous chunk of white feta cheese covered in rosemary. Along with an ice-cold beer, it didn’t feel touristy at all. It felt as if we were eating in a Greek grandmother’s seaside home.

(By the way, the Ancient Greek civilization flourished in the 8th century B.C. However, the Greeks still show evidence they have the same superior minds that gave us democracy, architecture and theater. Every beer we ordered came in a frosted mug. The Greek beer scene hasn’t advanced like the rest of the world but the country’s national Mythos beer tasted like the best in the world just the way it was served. Italy? Get on board.)

Skopelos dates back to the 8th century BC.


Ironically, Skopelos was once famous for its wine. The Cretans introduced viticulture during the Bronze Age, Sophocles even wrote a play called “Philoctetes” which includes a wine merchant on his way to “Peparethos,” the island’s first name before it was changed to Skopelos, which comes from Staphylos, the Greek word for grape.

On the way back to Skiathos, we cruised by the Al Giannis Chapel of “Mamma Mia!” fame. I think I saw a woman walking up the steep steps dragging a man wearing a birdcage around his neck. We had a long swim at sunset on beautiful Lalaria Beach on Skiathos before heading back to the port.

Our outer-island exploration wasn’t over. Every day as we took the steps down from our fourth-floor room, we looked out into the Aegean to see a small island out in the sea. It wasn’t too far, maybe four miles.

The beach on Tsougrias.


It’s the isle of Tsougrias, a natural habitat governed by Skiathos with one of the best nutshell descriptions in the Greek Islands:

It has a beach, lounge chairs and a bar. That’s it. It has no inhabitants. A small boat leaves Skiathos every morning and in 10 minutes we stopped at a tiny dock. About a dozen of us walked briskly along fine, white sand to the plethora of comfy lounge chairs, all with accompanying umbrellas.

With a backdrop of pine trees, it was the perfect paradise to while away an entire afternoon. We had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Well, we walked the 20 feet to the bluest waters we’ve seen in Greece. It’s the kind of blue that changes shades as you wade out 100 meters up to your neck. It went from green blue, to sky blue to royal blue, an absolute rainbow of the best the Aegean Sea has to offer.

It doesn’t get much more isolated than on Tsougrias.


In early afternoon we sat at the bar with the sandy floor and ate roast chicken off giant spits spinning slowly next to the beer spigots. Along with a big Greek salad and an ice-cold beer, we sat in the shade and wondered about the paradise we’ve discovered. From one paradise to another to another, Greece’s Sporades Islands are 90 minutes from Rome but light years from Rome’s problems. The Sporades have no garbage. They have reliable public transportation. They have no mafia. They are specks in a blue sea that make you throttle back and realize there is no such thing as wasting time doing nothing.

Marina and I have decided the Sporades will be our annual August getaway. Sandy beaches. Greek salads. Frosted beer mugs. Every day sunny, dry and in the ‘80s.

These are scenes I don’t mind seeing again.

Bolt reunion in Greece: He’s alive and well and didn’t remember us

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We found this month-old kitten near death atop a gutter on Skiathos three years ago. Today Bolt is thriving, with some bumps, at the Skiathos Cat Welfare Association. Marina Pascucci photos
SKIATHOS, Greece – We were going to go viral.

I was sure of it. This reunion had all the trappings that pull on heartstrings, from Facebook links to the Animal Planet channel. Everyone would weep, including Marina and me. The setup was made for the big screen – well, at least, a little screen – and I’d practiced using my cell phone’s video camera beforehand.

Marina and I returned to Skiathos, the Greek island in the North Aegean, to see little Bolt, the kitten we saved from certain death atop a Skiathos gutter three years before. Bolt is alive and well in the same Skiathos Cat Welfare Association we left him.

I could picture it: We’d walk into the cat sanctuary’s giant yard and out of 150 cats, Bolt would race through the entire herd and jump into our arms, his memory flashing back to when he was a sick kitten, like a hidden dream finally uncovered.

Everyone remembers the viral video of the huge lion in Kenya jumping into the arms of his two Australian handlers who returned after rescuing him as a cub from a London department store cage. After 10 years away, the lion recognized them. The lion’s giant paws nearly engulfed their heads in affection. It brought tears to the world’s eyes.

Would Bolt be next? Let’s put it this way:

Picture a scowling couch potato when a solicitor visits. Bolt didn’t move. He didn’t blink an eye. We found him in a little cushioned bed by a shelter. He looked at us with all the enlightenment and excitement of a bored 3-year-old.

In other words, he acted like a cat.

We did get some quality time with Bolt, but it wasn’t easy after he had five teeth pulled.


Forget Animal Planet. We just hoped Bolt would let us pet him. It took Sharon Hewing, the sanctuary’s founder and director, to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and hold him down while we precariously stroked his orange fur. Bolt struggled to break free.

Our reunion, the one we hoped would go video viral, lasted all of about three minutes. (see video).
“He’s not afraid of humans,” Sharon said. “He’s just afraid of new people.”

The back story, however, is quite touching. My blog from 2016 brought some readers to tears. I even welled up writing it. As we walked down the hill from our hotel to dinner, we found him motionless on a curb. His eyes were sealed shut from mucous. One leg was disfigured from infection. We took him back to our room. He licked a little milk off my finger and we put him in a warm basket with blankets. We hoped he wouldn’t die.

He didn’t. He hung in there and we took him to the sanctuary where Sharon did some medical magic and brought him back to life. By the time we left Skiathos a few days later, his eyes were open and he was eating normal food. We named him Bolt, for the champion sprinter we hoped he’d run like some day.

Sanctuary director Sharon Hewing with Sophia, whom she rescued after her mother was killed by a car a few days earlier.

For three years we monitored his progress from afar. It was overwhelmingly positive. He had grown into his huge, bat-like ears. He played with the other cats. He ate normally. His infected leg didn’t seem like an issue. I sent occasional cash contributions earmarked for his care. The pictures we received, of him climbing a couch, eating with others, sleeping peacefully, warmed our hearts.

As Marina, who has saved many cats in her life, often tells me, “When you save a cat, you save the world.”

Unfortunately, our reunion was a combination bad timing and overly optimistic expectations. Before our mid-August arrival, one of the sanctuary’s volunteers, Chrissy Tuffin, wrote me saying, “I must warn you that Bolt doesn’t like being picked up or held. He’s not let me near him.”

We also happened to arrive the day he had five teeth pulled. Think it hurts for humans? It’s worse for cats. Bolt was mad at the world and we showed up.

Marina had plenty of attention from the 150 cats on the property.


We let Bolt go to sit in the bushes alone and Sharon and I retreated to the privacy of her small house on the property. We had to weave through more than 150 cats who were playing, sleeping or rubbing against my leg in an attempt to seduce me into petting them. One cat kept nibbling on Marina’s neck.

Out of 150 cats, Bolt seemed the most unfriendly of them all.

“Not all are sociable,” Sharon told me. “About 10 percent you can’t get close to. I can go up to him but not strangers. It depends where they come from. Maybe they remember things that happened to them before I got them.”

If that’s the case, Bolt doesn’t remember Marina or me. No wonder. His eyes were sealed shut nearly the entire time. However, he does apparently remember the painful shots Chrissy gave him during those scary, iffy, first few days at the sanctuary.

“I’d give him shots and he’d scream!” Chrissy said. “I’d put food down and he’d run back in his cage because he knew he was safe there. It made me weep.”

The sanctuary’s cats crave affection, even from each other.


However, at least he’s alive and relatively healthy. His right back leg looks normal but the infection left it useless. He’s essentially a three-legged cat although he’s the fastest three-legged cat in the Greek Islands.

While our reunion wasn’t perfect, I did get my feline fix. Photo by Marina Pascucci


“The leg’s no problem,” Sharon said. “Not at all. No issue. He runs as fast as the rest of them. When I go down to feed them in the morning, he’s one of those that runs from the top to the bottom because they get fed first. He’s very social with the other cats.”

Sharon and her volunteers are the real heroines in this story. Without them, Marina would still be weeping as she did in the restaurant the night we found Bolt. Originally from England, Sharon started the association after moving to Skiathos in 2004 and seeing the huge cat population on an island without even a vet, let alone a sanctuary. She works up to 18-hour days feeding cats, getting them to the one vet who did arrive and rescuing other cats abandoned by their mothers or evil swine with second homes here and no more need for a cat.

Two days before we arrived, a mother cat was killed by a car as her three kittens watched. Terrified, they hid in the bushes in a rainstorm. Sharon found them after two days and tried nursing the soaked kittens to health. Only one survived. Named Sophia, she sat on my lap and closed her eyes as I rubbed her tummy. She seemed to smile.

“That’s the best part of it,” Sharon said.

The sanctuary has a kiosk in town to collect food and supplies from locals.


Since our first visit, Sharon has put a kiosk near the town center. People drop food and supplies for the association and the local government has put feeders all over town for the many strays still roaming the streets. It started a nutrient program and gives funds to the local vet for sterilization.

Her next goal is a new place. Her sanctuary has a beautiful view of the Aegean and a smaller house for kittens down the road isn’t far from a beach.

Marina at the Skiathos Cat Welfare Association entrance.

Still, she needs more space. She has money for a bigger sanctuary but the Greek paperwork makes the transition impossibly slow.

We visited Bolt two more times, both with the timing of a tsunami at a company picnic. He was down in the kitten house, inside the supply room resting in a cushioned cabinet. He just had blood tests taken and was still woozy from the pain killers.

I’ve had bad weeks before but Bolt happened to have one of his worst during our visit.

I tried luring him toward my hand, awaiting to caress him. He looked at it as if it was a zip-code directory. Fortunately, except needing medicine for a little feline immunodeficiency, his blood tests came back negative.

The cats are happy and well taken care of at the sanctuary over the sea. Photos by Marina Pascucci


Marina and I wound up holding and caressing a wide array of fat, happy little kittens waiting for adoption. On that end, the association is booming. Sharon said this year so far people have adopted about 50. Many come from the United Kingdom. That’s not good. If Brexit passes Oct. 31, it will be nearly impossible to import cats from Greece.

No, I couldn’t adopt Bolt. I travel too much. In Rome I’ve had two top-floor apartments with way too much exposure and too many escape routes. In fact, I wondered if the sanctuary would be better for Bolt than someone’s home.

That night at a volunteers dinner in the lovely restaurant, Porta Rossa, ironically right across the street from our hotel, I met Nina Lobregt, the Dutch volunteer who helped care for Bolt for two weeks after we brought her in. She thinks they should amputate the leg. It still bothers him, she said. But more importantly, he could use a home.

“It’s strange because he was quite sociable with humans in the beginning,” Nina said. “He will be perfect in a home as the only cat. He gets the attention as the only one and he will change completely.”

Anyone out there want a three-legged cat from Greece? Or any other cat? Contact Sharon at her website: https://www.skiathos-cats.org.

Doom and gloom turn to cautious optimism as a new season for facelifted AS Roma begins Sunday

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New Roma manager Paulo Fonseca led Ukraine power Donetsk Shakhtar to the last three league titles. Gazzetta del Sud photo


This off season I changed my greeting at my local coffee bar. Every time I walked into Romagnani Caffe across the street from my Rome apartment I greeted the Romanisti coffee jockeys with “FORZA ROMA!” the long-time mantra of every AS Roma fan, meaning “GO ROMA!” They, in turn, greeted me with the simultaneous, seemingly rehearsed, traditional response in chorus: “SEMPRE! (ALWAYS!)”

Since last season ended in May, however, the exchange has been altered. I’d walk in with my morning Corriere dello Sport, chronicling another horrid off-season drama, and before they even handed me my usual cornetto and cappuccino, I’d say, “Siamo fottuti.”

(“We’re fucked.”)

They didn’t even acknowledge my growing command of Romanaccio, the dialect within the Roman dialect devoted entirely to profanity. They were merely slumped in resigned agreement. They handed me my breakfast and listened to me curse at my outdoor table as I read details of what appeared to be the fall of the Roma Empire.

“Roma Empire” is a headline I’ve dreamed about since attaching my heart to this soccer team in 2002. Since retiring here in January 2014 and transforming from sports writer to sports fan, it has been a painful tease. Following AS Roma as a born-again fan is like getting tickled with a feather — one with a dagger on the other end. You feel a tingling sensation then get knifed in the heart.

Roma Empire? How about the Bhutan Empire? In our 92 seasons we’ve won three Serie A Italian league titles, the last in 2001. Our last trophy was the 2008 Italian Cup, a national tournament the league’s upper echelon doesn’t sober up for until the semifinals.

The leadership of Roma icon Francesco Totti has been missing since he retired to the front office after the 2017 season. Virgilio Sport photo


Then came last season, a nine-month colonoscopy with only occasional relief. Club icon Francesco Totti had retired after 2017 and gritty leaders Radja Nainggolan and Kevin Strootman were jettisoned in favor of mostly a bunch of stiffs.

We bombed spectacularly out of the Champions League and Italian Cup, mercifully fired the embattled Eusebio Di Francesco in March and as interim manager, old Rome native Claudio Rainieri couldn’t repeat his magic in leading little Leicester City to the 2016 Premiership title. Roma finished sixth and out of this season’s Champions League, which earned the club 51 million euros last season, a booty Roma desperately needs again while it waits for its pipe dream of a new 1 billion euro stadium. Roma barely qualified for the Europa League, European soccer’s equivalent of the NIT.

Losing 7-1 to Fiorentina in the Italian Cup was the beginning of the end for Eusebio Di Francesco. Il Messaggero photo


Then it got worse.

The club gently but unceremoniously pushed out beloved captain Daniele De Rossi, who replaced fellow Rome-native Totti as the face of the franchise but flew off to Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires. Totti tired of his opinions being ignored as a club director and quit, lambasting the club as he followed out the door his boss, sporting director Monchi, who had already bolted in disgust after his bosses fired Di Francesco.

At one point this off season, Roma had no manager and no sporting director. The best defender, Kostas Manolas, was headed to Napoli; the best striker, Edin Dzeko, was headed to Inter Milan; their best young player, 20-year-old Italian international Nicolo’ Zaniolo, was being dangled in front of rich, salivating suitors; fallen striker star Gonzalo Higuain dissed Roma to stay with Juventus; and the goalkeeper was about my age.

For three months, I thought the headline of this preview would be, “I MAY SOON KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE AN OREGON STATE FOOTBALL FAN.”

I was going to spend an entire season at my Abbey Theatre Irish Pub and my local Birrotecca Stappo with fellow Romanisti, attracted more to the great pub grub than the weekly drubbings on the big screen.

Then things changed.

New sporting director Gianluca Petrachi led Torino to Serie A promotion in 2011 and two Europa League bids. Tottoasroma photo


With the season opener Sunday night, a series of dealings has put some optimism back in my bark. James Pallotta, the Boston-based owner who occasionally has been the most hated man in Rome since Nero, hired a sharp sporting director in Gianluca Petrachi, who had Torino punching above its weight for the last 10 years.

For manager they hired Paulo Fonseca, whose movie-star good looks won over female fans and his three recent titles with Donetsk Shakhtar, the Juventus of the Ukraine Premier League, won over the male fans. While Manolas did leave for Napoli, Dzeko and Zanioli re-signed, Roma pinched a promising 24-year-old goalkeeper from Real Betis named Pau Lopez, acquired Italian international defender Davide Zappacosta on loan from Chelsea and signed midfielder Leonardo Spinazzola who last season helped lead Atalanta to its first Champions League berth.

They looked better on paper. But if you read on this site how much trash is in Rome you’ll know how much paper is worth in this town. I needed to see them in action.

I saw them win a friendly on the road at Lille, which finished second in the French League last season, then beat a full-strength Real Madrid at home on penalty kicks in the Mabel Green Cup.

Fonseca replaced Italians’ traditionally snoozy, heavy-on-tactics and defense with an aggressive, attacking style that produced a flurry of shots against both clubs. Dzeko had two assists at Lille and scored against Real off a beautiful pass from Cengiz Under, a promising 22-year-old Turk who combined with Zaniolo for 14 goals and 13 assists the last two seasons. Lopez made some highlight-reel saves behind a defense that pressed higher and set up more counter attacks.

“This season the objective is to return to the Champions League (by finishing in the top four),” Fonseca said, “but in two or three seasons I’m convinced we can win a title.”

Since I punted my objectivity on Roma nearly 20 years ago, I called a trusty Rome-based soccer journalist. Paddy Agnew (@paddyagnew) has been penning great copy about Roma and the Italian League since 1986 and now writes for World Soccer, my favorite soccer magazine in the world. Jaded and tough from also covering the cesspool that is Italian politics and the Vatican, Agnew backed my cautious optimism — with a caveat.

Who’s the face of Roma? Alessandro Florenzi, the Rome native who inherited De Rossi’s captaincy, was so elated about Dzeko re-signing he offered him his captain’s armband. Dzeko, his mouth not nearly as loud as his deadly legs, turned it down.

“It’s a different year for Roma because it’s the first year for God knows how many years — 25 years — when they haven’t had either Totti or De Rossi around,” Agnew said. “It’s different looking Roma. My question would be, who’s actually the team leader?

“They really don’t have a bad squad. The question is who is the boss man on the pitch? That’s what Fonseca must work out. If he works that out you could have a good year.”

That’s my worry. When De Rossi was injured — and, at 36, he has developed the shelf life of handmade linguini — Roma had no direction. It had no bite. Zaniolo had about as much fire as anybody and he still looks like a kid who eats Orange Slices after games.

Edin Dzeko’s 87 goals in 179 games are already fifth on Roma’s all-time list. Goal.com photo


The best news, and what convinced me not to torch my AS Roma potholders and beach towel, is Dzeko’s re-signing. Considered the best Bosnian player in history, he has scored 87 goals in 179 games, already fifth in Roma history in only four seasons. If he left for Inter, saremmo fottuti (We’d be fucked.)

The next most is Florenzi with 28 in 262 games.

“The thing about Dzeko is he’s a one-man team up front,” Agnew said. “He can get ahold of it and even though he’s got three defenders hanging onto his shorts, he can hold on to it for a while. For a big man, he has really good feet and is good passing the ball. On top of that he gets into the box and scores goals.”

Problems remain, of course. They’re going to miss Manolas, whose heroic winning goal against Barcelona two seasons ago overshadowed his stripping of Lionel Messi who was driving for a winning goal of his own. Lots of pressure is on Manolas’ replacement, Gianluca Mancini, a 23-year-old who came over from Atalanta. They could use another striker to take some pressure off Dzeko.

With the market window closing Sept. 2, Roma is looking at Nikola Kalinic, 31, a Croat international who sat on Atletico Madrid’s bench most of last season, and defender Daniele Rugani, a 25-year-old who didn’t even make Juventus’ road trip to Parma Saturday and is interested in Roma.

I’m not the only one whose optimism is growing. The club sold fewer than 19,000 season tickets, well under last year’s total of 22,000. However, Friday the club sold 12,000 tickets alone for Sunday’s opener against Genoa.

It’s a nice bump but only 30,000 for a season opener? In Rome? I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe it’s because half of Rome is out of town on their annual August holiday, but there is less buzz about this team than at any time in my memory.

“I know what you mean,” said Agnew, who lives just outside Rome in Trevignano Romano. “In other years there was a bigger buzz that we could do something this year and get back to the heights of competitive days. I don’t get that feeling at the moment.”

I agree with him on what has made so many turn their backs on this team.

“Two things obviously have spoiled the atmosphere at Roma,” he said. “Totti’s press conference in May in which he basically, this great Roma idol, shat on them. He just essentially accused the management of being both incompetent and disloyal and not having made it clear to him what they wanted him to do and then when he did give advice paying no attention to it, indicating with these guys in charge of the club there was going to be problems up ahead. The fans listen to this closely. Then he said, ‘I’m leaving the club’ which is a bigger statement than all of it.

Daniele De Rossi joined Boca Juniors after 19 years with his hometown Roma. Il Post photo


“Then you have the other iconic figure, De Rossi, who wants to stay. If I was the club director, I’d have kept him on for at least another season because of what he could offer in terms of experience and understanding of the entire environment.”

My sportswriting experience has jaded me too much to hope for a title run. I’ll settle for a top four finish. Inter Milan, under new coach Antonio Conte, looks like it has closed the gap on Juventus. I want to see how the pressure to not only win a record ninth-straight title but not lose in the Champions League will affect new Juve coach Maurizio Sarri, whose Europa League title last season wasn’t enough for Chelsea fans to appreciate.

Napoli has established itself as a consistent top three and Manolas strengthens its defense, Atalanta is Italy’s new rising star and Milan still has the country’s best goalkeeper in 20-year-old Gianluigi Donnarumma.

Meanwhile, Lazio still sucks.

A crowd of only about 30,000 is expected Sunday. AS Roma photo


(Actually, it doesn’t. I just like my Laziali friends to read that.)

At least now I don’t need to call my sister, an Oregon State grad, and ask how to brace myself for soul-crushing public humiliation every weekend. I know exactly what I’ll say to the boys in Romagnoli Sunday morning in preparation for a new season with surprising promise.

“FORZA ROMA!”

Lazio wines rising on the Italian, international wine scenes

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Antonio Benedetti, a sommelier, in his tasting room at Cantine Santa Benedetta. Photo by Marina Pascucci


FRASCATI, Italy — Daniele Cernilli remembers when he was a little boy in Rome 50 years ago, back when Italian cinema was booming and so was the economy. His father used to send him to the local osteria, a small, very traditional family run restaurant, to get a big jug of wine. Through most of the 20th century, Romans bought wine in bulk, kind of like how they buy water now except in bottles the size of small oil drums. It was quantity, not quality. Little Daniele could tell just by smelling the vinegar level.

“The color of the wine was orange, not yellow,” Cernelli wrote in an email. “A wine like that nowadays would be undrinkable.”

Cernelli, known around the world as Doctor Wine, knows more than just local wine. Decanter magazine ranked him among the 50 most influential people in the world of wine (www.doctorwine.it) every year from 2007-09. He’s an international wine judge and his five books include “The Ultimate Guide to Italian Wine 2018,” the bible I used to navigate my new wonderful world of wines from Rome’s Lazio region.

A significant draw for me retiring to Rome five years ago was having the best wines in the world within Italy’s borders. Since moving here, one of my most pleasant surprises is some of Italy’s best wines are within the borders of Lazio.

Like Rome’s pizzas and gelato, Lazio wines are the most underrated in Italy.

Crisp white wines. Rich, bold reds. When I go out, wines like Cesanese and Trebbiano and Bellone have entered my lexicon. I’ve even found a high-end, romantic, reasonably priced wine bar in Rome devoted entirely to Lazio wines. VyTA, just off Via del Corso, has become my must stop when I go into the center.

But to get a true taste of Lazio wines, I had to go into the heart of Lazio wine country. I rented a car and in only about 30 minutes Marina and I found ourselves standing in a vineyard of 35 acres of grape vines high in the green, rolling Alban Hills southeast of Rome. This is Frascati, for years home of the only Lazio wine known outside Italy. I remember my first stint in Rome from 2001-03. I’d have picnics in this villa-laden town of 22,000 people. If there’s a better picnic wine than the crisp, cool Frascati white I always bought, I didn’t know it until now.

Showing us around the vineyard was Antonio Benedetti, a tall, suave, worldly sommelier and chef who returned last year after eight years cooking in restaurants from South Africa to London and two as a sommelier in Mazzo in Rome. He’s part of the 13th generation of Benedettis who have run Cantine Santa Benedetta, the oldest winery in Frascati going on 320 years.

Antonio Benedetti in his vineyard at his Cantine Santa Benedetta, the oldest winery in Frascati at 320 years. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Like Daniele, Antonio, 29, knows the old Lazio wine stories. It wasn’t too long ago when this region supplied Rome’s massive population and its thirst for wine. Wine is one of Italy’s five major food groups and with a 1970 population of 2.8 million, the same as today, quality took a back seat to quantity.

“The first reason is the fact that everything that was made as a mistake, they made in this area,” he said. “Massive production. The big problem here is many, many producers used to have from 10 acres to 200 acres. They helped the big companies and their production.”

Not far away near the town of Zagarolo, Cantina del Tufaio (www.cantinadeltufaio.it) has been around since 1881. So has the big house where Marina and I visited with owner Claudio Loreti who served us a lovely Malvasia-Savignon Blanc blend and a very smooth Merlot. He said local drinking habits were hard to break. He told us a story from the 1940s when his father and father’s cousin made a batch of wine with 13 percent alcohol, high by local standards back then but normal today.

They carted it to a Rome restaurant where the owner took one taste and all but spit it out. So the pair went back to their winery and cut the wine with water, dropping the alcohol level to 10 percent.

Claudio Loreti at his Cantina del Tufaio. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Then they returned.

“They gave the owner the vino with water and the owner said, ‘Buono! Good! I like it!’” Loreti said.

Silvia Brannetti of Riserva della Cascina (www.reservadellacascina.it) has a winery within the Rome city limits. It sits right off Ostia Antica, the road where Spartacus’ slaves were crucified during their rebellion (See Spartacus: Failed labor movement). Her grandfather made wine when she was little.

Needless to say, it never made Decanter magazine.

“We call it Vino Scuzzo,” she said. “It’s the kind of wine you come and pick up with your barrel. It was not bad. I know it wasn’t the sort of wine I’d call quality wine. He went around the city and tried to sell it.”

Cantine Santa Benedetta’s vineyard. Photo by Marina Pascucci


In Lazio these days, “not bad” isn’t good. The whole region’s wine makers are pushing out the big wine bottles hanging in wicker baskets on farms and replacing them with elegant displays back-lit in tony Rome enotecas.

“We’re trying to make something that is good and comparable to products in the rest of Italy,” Brannetti said.

What changed? The city of Rome for one. In 1940, Rome’s population was less than a million. People from around the country, particularly after World War II, descended on the capital for work, for glamour, for food. They didn’t come for wine.

“A lot of people prefer to drink wine from the original family’s birthplace,” Cernilli wrote. “So who came from Campania drink Campanian wines. Who come from Abruzzo prefer Montepulciano, etc. etc.”

Complexus, a Malvasia-Bellone blend, and Tre Vecchie, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Also, as wineries got handed down, younger minds took over. Instead of producing for bigger companies, they started making their own. It turned about 20-30 years ago, coinciding also with the increase in wine-making technology. In Tuscany, you don’t see many big bottles of Chianti in wicker baskets anymore. Technology improved without raising the production costs. Now you get excellent Chianti Riservas for very reasonable prices.

The same thing happened in Lazio.

“It’s changing,” Benedetti said. “It’s coming back in a great quality way. People have their own vineyard. They do their own wine. I mean small production for 20,000 to 100,000 bottles.”

Lazio wines have a built-in advantage. Most of the soil for the vineyards is volcanic. It’s more natural, meaning they don’t have to add the sulphites and preservatives that American wines do. Those are the ingredients that give you hangovers.

Claudio Loreti and Pino de’ Matti, owner of our Casale delle Ginestre B&B. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Lazio wines are so natural, irrigation is illegal. Actually, there is no need. The volcanic soil can absorb a lot of water and release it when the soil around it is dry.

“It’s amazing,” Benedetti said. “The minerals. The potassium. It’s so rich.”

The world is starting to discover Lazio wines. Before, Frascati was better known in Belgium and the United Kingdom than it was in Rome.

Now Lazio wines are going around the world. Thirty percent of Cantine Santa Benedetta’s wines are sold in 47 U.S. states. They also export worldwide. Brannetti travels to wine fairs around the world.

“We’re trying to make something that is good and comparable to products in the rest of Italy,” she said. “For example, I’m going to take part in a fair, the Millizine Beal in Montpellier (France). When people taste my wines, they are shocked: ‘My God, this is Rome? This is Lazio?’”

Grapes at Cantina del Tufaio. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Keep in mind, wine was invented 6,000 years ago and Lazio has only been in the serious wine retail business for about 30. Barolo from Piedmont, my favorite wine in Italy, has been around since 500 B.C. Cantina Le Macchie (www.catinalemacchie.it) in Rieti, 80 kilometers northeast of Rome, produces about 70,000 bottles a year, sells in Belgium and its marketing people hit every wine event they can in Europe.

Still, many restaurants even in Rome don’t carry Lazio wines.

“We haven’t the denomination,” said Stefano Proietti, marketing manager for Cantina Le Macchie. “Barolo is a big and strong denomination. We are young. In Lazio we need more time, but I hope one day we’ll be as renowned as Barolo.”

***

Lazio may not have the luxurious wineries of Tuscany and Piedmont, where visits are akin to country clubs with better beverages. However, they’re worth visiting for a weekend. Cantine Santa Benedetta’s tasting room is 320 years old. That’s nothing. When we arrived, Benedetti showed off a stone road that borders his vineyard. He has the only winery in Lazio with an Ancient Roman road running through it. I could imagine Julius Caesar stopping his march toward the sea to tip back a glass of red on the very stones I stood on.

Cantine Santa Benedetta served the best bruschetta I’ve ever had. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Too bad he didn’t have the beautiful room where Benedetti took Marina and me. The room was all polished wood with seven glass chandeliers and antique furniture. Old portraits hung on the wall. The only other guests were four New Zealand women. It was like our own private wine tasting.

He started us out with his best seller, a 2018 Complexus, a blend of Malvasia and Bellone, an intense yellow wine with hints of peach, pear, apple and lemon. (That’s Benedetti’s description. I can’t pick what fruit is in a wine unless the glass holds an apple core.)

He then gave us a 2016 Tre Vecchie (Three Old Women), a Cabernet Sauvignon-Cabernet Franc blend with tastes of mulberries, blackberries and cherries. Lazio is not known for its red wines but this would go well with any pasta in Italy.

Cantine Santa Benedetta has more than 1,000 olive trees. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Cantina Santa Benedetta has an added plus. At many wineries’ tastings, the lone food is breadsticks and cheese sticks as if their target customer is Oliver Twist. Cantina Santa Benedetta goes all out on the food. The first item that came out was a high-end bruschetta (pronounced brew-SKETT-ah, Americans, not brew-SCHETT-ah): sourdough bread refrigerated, then grilled to get out the humidity, then baked, leaving charbroiled stripes on the soft dough. Benedetti then poured over it extra virgin olive oil made from some of their 1,000 olive trees. The olive oil, oozing with flavor, soaked deep in the soft, fresh bread. The combination was so tantalizing Marina and I fought over the last piece. It was the best bruschetta of my life.

Then came a pecorino romano cheese with fresh cherry jam, perfect with the Tre Vecchie red wine. Finally, he finished with bruschetta topped with fresh sliced cherry tomatoes.

The swimming pool at Il Casale delle Ginestre B&B.


Our base for our, ahem, “research” was a beautiful bed & breakfast about 20 miles away, even higher in the hills overlooking Rome. Il Casale delle Ginestre (www.ilcasaledelleginistre.com) is a 500-square-meter, 120-year-old stone house with three two-room apartments and two apartments with shared bath.

Our room had a beautiful view of the valley below but nothing like the panoramic view from the swimming pool, the perfect place to “dry” out after an afternoon drinking wine. I spent the rest of the afternoon floating on an inflatable raft looking way down at the Lazio valley below. The only sounds we heard all weekend were the occasional mews of cats and kittens who hang out on the grounds and offer their furry bodies for petting in exchange for a little food.

Breakfast is in a big lounge near a garden. Sitting down we were served a string of biscuits, fresh yogurt with berries, cheese pie, cornettos, cappuccino and orange juice.

Cats’ meows were about the only noises we heard all weekend. Photo by Marina Pascucci


Il Casale delle Ginestre (named for the nearby 2,500-foot Mount Ginestro) is technically in the town of Castel San Pietro Romano, a 10-minute drive away that is right out of central casting for 1950s Italian cinema. The town of 870 people is a small, tightly packed collection of narrow roads all leading to a small piazza anchored by the 16th century San Pietro Apostolo church. Inside a huge cross hung over the pews, all overlooked by statues of capuchin monks.

Outside in the piazza, locals sat on stoops under plaques commemorating some of the many films shot in the town, complete with still photos from the film shoots. Ironically, Castel San Pietro Romano was a ruin after World War II and Italian directors flocked here in the mid-20th century for films about economic hardship in Italian villages. The films include “Pane, Amore e Fantasia” in 1953 which won the Silver Bear at the 1954 Berlin Film Festival and earned the best actress award, and breakout moment, for a 26-year-old Lazio gal named Gina Lollobrigida. Today, 92-year-old Lollobrigida is still alive and well in Rome and Castel San Pietro Romano is on many lists as one of the Most Beautiful Villages in Italy.

Scenes from Bar al Caffe in Castel San Pietro Romano. Photos by Marina Pascucci


It’s easy to get a pulse of Italian villages. Just go to the local bar and you can’t get any more local, even with a name, than Bar al Caffe. Tucked at the end of a small alley up from the church, Bar al Caffe sits under a line of flower boxes of pink and red flowers. Old men sat at outside tables on plastic chairs drinking wine out of small water glasses and talking in a crude Roman accent. I went in and ordered the house white. The bartender pulled out an oversized bottle from the cooler and poured me a glass of Olevano Romano, a local white table wine.

Sitting around with old men, the sun setting on a beautiful mountain village only 22 miles from Rome, I raised my glass to Marina and said, “Salute! QUESTO e’ viaggiare! (Cheers! THIS is traveling!)”

The lights of Rome from Castel San Pietro Romano. Photo by Marina Pascucci


We dined around the corner in Ristorante Gasbarri’s outdoor courtyard, featuring a menu of totally Roman cuisine including a scrumptious pasta amatriciana, the guanciale (pig’s cheek) so lean I could’ve eaten it alone. Afterward, we walked along the stone wall with a spectacular view of the lights of Rome off in the distance.

So who needs Tuscany? Why Piedmont? Veneto? Ha! Some of the best wines in Italy are only a short drive away or, in the case of VyTA and other Rome wine bars, only a tram ride away.

Photo by Marina Pascucci


For those coming to Rome and want to go local, here are the most important Lazio wine varietals to know (in alphabetic order):

* Cesanese
* Malvasia
* Montepulciano
* Sangiovese
* Trebbiano

These are the most important denominations (where the wines are from with Frascati an easy No. 1):

* Frascati
* Montefiascone
* Castelli Romani
* Cesanese del Piglio

Rome: The filthiest capital in Europe — and it might be second as well

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A common sight: The dumpsters in front of my apartment building.


Sandro Ferri, my old friend at my corner edicola, walked out of his small newsstand to show me something on the ground near his window. It was a small circle of what looked like new concrete. It was once a home — for mice. They used to come up through the hole and head to what was on the other side of his newsstand.

I didn’t have to look. I knew. It’s five dumpsters, all bursting at the iron seams from garbage spilling out of their openings, like pus from open sores. Surrounding the dumpsters were piles upon piles of plastic garbage bags, left there too long for Sandro and me to remember when they weren’t.

This is where the mice came to feed, that is, until he covered the hole last month. Sandro has had this newsstand since 1997. I asked him if it was like this then.

“It’s much worse,” he said. “I’ve never seen Rome like this.”

Neither have I. I first came to Rome in 1978. The air was filthy but the streets were clean. I came again in 1998, during Rome’s economic upturn, and they cleaned up the air. The city was as pristine as what you see in the tourist brochures. I lived here from 2001-03 and fell in love with the city, its beauty, its light. I vowed I’d return forever — and today find myself up to my heart in garbage bags.

Rome is plagued by a lack of space for a public landfill. Observer photo


You may have to go back to the 5th century AD, right after the fall of the Roman Empire when everyone from the Goths to the Vandals sacked the city, to see Rome this filthy. A massive garbage problem that has escalated for six years has turned Rome into the filthiest capital in Europe. I know. I’ve been to every one but Nicosia, Cyprus; Vallata, Malta; Chisinau, Moldova; Bucharest; Sofia; Minsk; Kiev and Warsaw. No other city is within a dumpster fire of Rome as the dirtiest. Rome might be second, too.

I’ve seen worse in the world. Cairo, Jakarta and Port-au-Prince come to mind. However, no other city has built such an international reputation on its respect for beauty. From art to fashion to architecture, Rome has symbolized style, class and elegance since the Renaissance. I tell my friends and visitors that Rome still is the most beautiful city in the world.

Just don’t look down.

If you do, you’ll see sights that will turn your intestines. Bags of garbage spilling out from overflowing dumpsters and onto sidewalks. Seagulls picking open plastic to get to discarded table scraps. Entire stretches of road heading to the beach lined with garbage bags. Hookers sitting on chairs in front of a mountain of trash don’t dress it up a bit.

The garbage is even attracting wild boars into the city. Millennium Report photo


I’ve read reports of scavenger birds fighting wild boars for rat carcasses.

And the smell … you don’t even have to look while walking down a sidewalk to know you’re by a dumpster. During one stretch this steaming summer, they didn’t pick up the garbage on our street for 15 days. I asked Sandro what’s it like to work next to this and he held his nose.

We live in Monteverde, a “chic” neighborhood of tree-lined streets, classy apartment buildings from the ‘30s and tony bars and restaurants. Yet on most days my street, Via Monte Verde, looks like an alley in rural India.

“Rome is the window on the country,” said Carlo Pascucci, a Monteverde native who runs my neighborhood beer bar, Stappo. “Here is something that jumps in your eyes because we are the fucking Eternal City. The garbage is all around. Rome is the Eternal City. We can’t have eternal rubbish around.”

How bad is it? According to The Associated Press, Rome produces 1.7 cubic tons of rubbish every year. About 1.2 million of it gets exported at a cost of 180 million euros. The other 5 million apparently don’t get collected. Why? Rome’s garbage problems began in 2013 when its Malagrotta landfill, once the largest in Europe and Rome’s only garbage dump for 30 years, closed due to “lack of maintenance.”

Think about that for a second. What kind of lack of maintenance would a garbage dump require to be labeled a “lack of maintenance”? Of the three current landfills, two have been closed for maintenance and another burned to cinders under suspicious circumstances.

What is left is a blighted city and a fuming populace. In October a protest in front of city hall called Rome “an open sewer.” An organization called Roma Fa Schifo (Rome Sucks) did a song parody on the problem.

Rome chief physician Antonio Magi put Rome on “hygiene alert” and could upgrade it to “health warning.” He said diseases are surfacing from — get this — feces of rats, insects and birds eating the trash. Some citizens are spreading rat poison over the excess garbage on the streets, causing more noxious fumes from the rotting rat corpses in Rome’s summer heat.

Bella Roma!

Who’s to blame? Like Rome’s garbage, blame is spread everywhere:

Even tourist sites are having problems. The Points Guy photo


* AMA ROMA. AMA Roma means “Love Rome.” That’s the most disingenuous name this side of Fox News. The heart for “AMA” on its trucks should be a discarded pizza crust. According to Mayor Virginia Raggi, AMA was 600 million euros in debt as of three years ago. Romans have little sympathy. They pay an average garbage tax of 597 euros per habitat a year, nearly twice Venice which has the second highest at 353. Some offices in Rome pay 4,500 euros.

Private companies have dominated the history of Rome’s garbage collection. Prosecutors have tried connecting it with organized crime and gone after the owner of Malagrotta, Manlio Cerroni, a lawyer who goes by “Il Supremo.” The biggest problem is Rome flat out has no place to put its garbage. The Malagrotta closure put intense pressure on the three other landfills. The fire then knocked out the Salario dump which treated one quarter of Rome’s garbage.

Add maintenance problems on trucks and you have a city of 2.8 million people with no place to throw a wine bottle. Ofttimes, the trucks will pick up the garbage from the overflowing dumpsters but leave on the sidewalk the garbage bags that didn’t fit. Visitors who see piles of garbage next to empty dumpsters must think Romans are as filthy as their city. (More on that later.)

AMA boss Lorenzo Bacagnani has plans. He wants to build 13 new facilities, including three recycling plants, which will process 880,000 tons of waste a year. He says Rome will become “a model for Europe in waste management.” If you know anyone in Rome who wants a landfill in their neighborhood, have them contact Lorenzo. No one has stepped up. I tried talking to AMA. They directed me to the city government.

Rome mayor Virginia Raggi. Il Tempo photo


*CITY GOVERNMENT. The paddle girl in this whole controversy is one 41-year-old Virginia Raggi. Three years ago she became Rome’s first woman mayor on the platform of being an outsider from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. She’s a young, attractive lawyer, not a grizzled, insider politician. She promised to shake things up, including the broken-down organizations of AMA and ATAC, Rome’s pre-Renaissance public transportation service.

She’s beautiful but has had little to no impact. She asked other towns in Lazio and other regions in Italy to open their landfills to Rome. On Facebook, she wrote, “Romans don’t need a new dump or new incinerators. Romans don’t deserve this non solution which would end up sweeping the dust under the carpet once again.”

She has a plan to expand door to door collections from a few neighborhoods to the whole city. Her goal is 70 percent of the waste collected separately by the time her term ends in 2021. The percentage stood at 44 percent last year.

In the meantime, she is battling Nicola Zingaretti, the president of Rome’s Lazio region, in a headline-grabbing blame game. Zingaretti said Raggi should be “ashamed” after she “reduced the most beautiful city in the world into a disaster zone.” She claimed the disaster was manufactured to cause political damage. He claimed this summer he’d solve the problem in seven days, a prediction she — and everyone else — all but laughed at.

Thirsty anyone?


It’s been about a month since his boast and yesterday I had to shoehorn a plastic milk bottle into the crammed dumpster on my street.

The infighting and head banging aren’t going over well in a city where the inhabitants are turning on its government. I’ve lived here for seven years over two stints and Romans always amazed me at their ability to stay cheerful through crises. I’ve never seen them so angry.

Christian Raimo, a writer and neighborhood administrator who has supported some protests, wrote, “City managers have demonstrated they’re completely unfit to design an effective strategy able to address Rome’s waste problem.”

I contacted the city and they didn’t return my emails requesting comment.

Retake Roma’s Monteverde Vecchio founder Paolo Monteverde with fellow volunteers Alessio Carlevaris and Manica Tatiana.


* CITIZENS. About three weeks ago I was walking to my gym behind two well-dressed, middle-aged Italian men. One blatantly dropped a large plastic wrapper on the sidewalk — right in front of a dumpster far from full. Furious, I pointed at the wrapper and said, “Questo e’ SPAZZATURA! Metterlo nella SPAZZATURA! (That’s GARBAGE! Put it in the GARBAGE!)” What did he do? He shrugged, a shrug that said, “I don’t care and I don’t care what you think.” So I told him, “SEI UNO STRONZO! (YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!) VAFFANCULO! (GO FUCK YOURSELF!)” He turned the corner. I don’t even know if he heard me. Everyone else on the street did. They stared.

The U.S. has many problems but litter isn’t one of them. The rest of Europe is spotless. Last fall I was in Liechtenstein and saw a woman light a cigarette and walk half a block to place the match in a wastebasket.

Mediterannean populations have a reputation for being void of environmental enlightenment. However, I’ve been all through Greece and in many parts of Spain and haven’t seen the blatant disregard for litter as I have in Rome. Much of it isn’t Romans’ fault. If they find no room in dumpsters, they must put their garbage on the sidewalk. I’ve done it. When people on the outskirts see entire rest stops filled with garbage bags, it’s natural to add to the pile.

But it’s clear some Romans don’t care as much about their streets as they do their art, food and fashion.

“We have some kind of ignorance,” said Carlo, sitting in his small air-conditioned bar with such lovely Italian craft beers. “We lost what we were before. There were so many kilometers of city but every neighborhood had its rules. We used to respect. We lived in a way that was taught by our ancestors. But now we’re living what the television and media tell us how to live.”

He told me one day last week he was on his motorbike at a traffic light. Some guy in a car next to him rolled down his window and threw out an empty cigarette package. Pascucci picked it up, took it to him and said, “YOU LOST THIS!”

“He went white,” Pascucci said. “Sometimes these things make me crazy. I said to him, ‘It’s not the right way in this city.’ I put it on his windshield.”

One of the many protests in Rome this year. Guardian photo


The organization Retake Roma began 10 years ago to help educate Romans about the environment, work with AMA on collections and call police when they see violations. The founder of the Monteverde Vecchio branch, who calls himself Paolo Monteverde for the neighborhood where he grew up and now lives and works, agrees not all of the problems fall on the city.

“We wanted to do something concrete to bring back the decorum of Rome and sensitize the people of Rome of taking civic responsibility,” he said as fellow volunteers swept up leaves and dirt on the sidewalk. “Even though it’s not your private property, it’s everybody’s and so is the civic responsibility, to wake up this civic sense, to bring the beauty back in Rome.”

Organizations like Retake Roma and Roma Fa Schifo give hope to my beloved adopted city. We need a massive parcel of land more than anything else but in the meantime public awareness might make a bigger dent than me cussing out a local on a sidewalk.

Asked about Retake Roma’s mission, he later wrote in an email, “On the one hand making adults and students aware of waste reduction, to differentiate while encouraging the reuse and recycling of materials, etc. On the other hand, explaining the penalties for those who dirty or throw rubbish or leave bulk (furniture) in the street, also collaborating with AMA for some events (they lend us materials and withdraw the sacks of waste that are produced during a Retake event.)

“If we see bulk in the street we report it. If we see who abandons them we report to the police the plate of the vehicle. If we see bags of rubbish outside the bins we put them in. We also promptly inform AMA and/or the municipality of cases of bins overflowing or overturned or burnt or missing or badly positioned.”

The problem has cast a mask of gloom on the normally upbeat Romans. My corner coffee bar, Romagnani Caffe, is my Cheers. Everyone knows each other. All the barristas know what I order. Yet AS Roma’s soccer fortunes are often replaced with conversations of rubbish, like the time they saw an estimated 250 bags of garbage around the previously mentioned dumpsters across the street.

I asked Carlo how sad he is.

“So much. So much,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “I hate this city what it has become. Because it was never like this. This was a different metropolis from all the others all over the world. We used to have a big city with a lot of people that had a community sense, a living-together sense.”

It’s still there. Unfortunately, we are all living together in filth and the sense that this community is falling apart. Add holes in the streets, buses that burst into flames and tortoise-like public services and you have a city on the verge of collapse. Rome is nearly 3,000 years old, was once the center of the most powerful civilization in man’s history and now it can’t pick up a discarded Barilla box.

Maybe it’s time to plug some more holes.