Fountains of Rome

There are hundreds of fountains in Rome. The most famous are big and positioned in large squares (“piazzas”), but I have featured one of the many small exquisite fountains that exist in wall recesses or gardens – this one is from a garden wall by Basilica di Santa Sabina alli Aventino.

The Four Rivers fountain (1st of the Extra photos), by Bernini (1651), stands in the Piazza Navona, a public square that was constructed in the 1st century AD and used as a stadium.  The four rivers represent four continents through which papal authority had spread: the Nile (Africa), the Danube (Europe), the Ganges (Asia), and the Río de la Plata (the Americas).  At the northern end of Piazza Navona is The Fountain of Neptune (1574), the 2nd of the Extras.

Arguably the most famous, and certainly the most crowded, is the Trivi Fountain (3rd Extra).  A film (“Three coins in a Fountain”) and theme song created a story that if you throw a coin in the fountain, you’ll return to Rome one day. If you do make it back, you’ll find that the authorities have sucked the loot out of the fountain each night since you were there last.  It’s estimated that 3,000 Euros are collected by the authorities every day … that should be enough to pay the wages of the numerous police that keep watch on the crowd, blow whistles and charge towards any tourist that looks like they are going to put a mere finger or toe in the water!  The only way to properly appreciate the Trivi is to go at dawn, but I discovered that, even then, plenty of others have the same idea (3rd Extra). Tourism at this crowded scale is all a bit nuts.