Trieste market



After having escaped the risk of being demolished to make room for a shopping center, the covered market Trieste (named after the neighborhood) and its sellers can now take a breath and someone even dares to open a new stall, such as the one dedicated to dried fruits and olives.

A walk through the stalls

Opened just a little earlier, Terra di Lavoro stall (literally, Earth of Work). “We arrived in November 2012 – says Amedeo who runs the business with Cristina – before this stall, I used to produce the Conciato di San Vittore (an ancient cheese in Lazio), so when I had the chance of a spot at the market, I decided to open a stall specializing in homemade cheeses coming exclusively from our neighborhood and products from the surroundings, thus Lazio and the northern area of 05Caserta district. We also sell some cold cuts, even if the industry is more difficult than the dairy one, we keep the ancient ham from Bassiano, homemade culatelli, the ham from Guarcino in Frosinate, traditional bacon. Working with small local producers is our goal and, whenever possible, we even buy fresh products and then prepare them to season ourselves”.
On top of Cristina and Amedeo’s stall, very peculiar, at Trieste market there is a wide offer: Alessandro and Laura’s fishmonger “La Paranza”, Pino the butcher, Antonio’s bar, flowers, groceries, haberdasheries, Antonella’s coffee shop and a very big stall of frozen foods, which almost seems a supermarket within the market: a total of 54 sellers. And there are of course many fruit and vegetable stalls, some farmers as Mrs. Luciana helped by her sons Lorenzo and Giulio who have their land in Parco della Marcigliana (Bufalotta area), now fourth generation taking over the farm. Family businesses or historical couples such as Piero and Maria (whose union is celebrated in a doily embroidered with their names and a drawing of a young couple joined by a pyramid of fruit, in the center of their stall) or Clara and Pino who set up a real exhibition of pumpkins and chilies of all colors just aside their stall.
Some are even defensive with regards to their own stall. “You should come back when I have arranged it a bit better” says Patrizia at her haberdashery stall, which once belonged to her grandfather, then passed on to her father (“he had this beautiful neon light sign with the names Gabriella and Amedeo, my parents”) before becoming hers. Three generations of sellers drawing a line of continuity through the decades, from when the market was down the street through the move in the covered site in 1957 up to date.

Alice’s wonderland

04When I went to via Chiana market, among all the fruits at his stall, I just wanted a little box of raspberries, they were so sweet and at the end of the tour my whole face was as red as a raspberry. Then Mr. Pino gave me a gift before I went home: a puppet with a face white as milk, a crest on his head, two eyes painted with a black marker and a line for the mouth. Only at home I realized it was a glove, inflated like a balloon”.

Just around the corner

Among the “tributaries” of Via Chiana (the roads leading into it have almost all the name of a river) is Tagliamento road, opening into a fabulous world (and here the adjective is also to be understood in its literal meaning): COPPEDE ' DISTRICT, a complex of buildings named after the Florentine architect who in 1915 began to build this magical corner of Rome. So magical and mysterious that the horror director Dario Argento has used it as location for many of his movies. The reason is easy to understand even visiting the neighborhood by day. Once inside, you don’t need any more advice, just stroll about holding your nose up and your eyes open, ready to seize the thousands of amazing details, quotes and symbols that you will find all over the buildings.
Passing over Rubicone (which is actually the name of a street) and crossing Salaria road, the names of the places take us all of a sudden in Belgium: Liegi avenue, Lovanio road, and, most important, VIA BRUXELLES.
Why is it so important? Well, a walk on its sidewalks will give you the chance to see some interesting buildings of the Roman twentieth century. The most curious is definitely the one at number 77, with its curves and lines similar to the catwalks of a galleon, which looks like a sort of pirate spaceship landed in Rome. Searching in Internet, someone says (erroneously, we believe) it could be a creation of Andrea Busiri Vici, member of an important family of architects who left their mark in the capital with several palaces and houses, mainly commissioned by the Vatican or the upper middle class. The perfect synthesis of their work is perhaps San Roberto Bellarmino church, in the nearby Ungheria square. One curiosity: until the white smoke announcing the election of Pope Frencis, the Argentinian bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio was its official cardinal.
Always in Bruxelles road, if you want to see a building which was no doubt designed by Busiri Vici, you should walk up to number 47, or to the villa at number 56.
After answering to the first question, we still need to explain why there are so many Belgian names in this neighborhood. To better understand, we suggest you go back to Via Salaria, then get into one of the green lungs of the city (second public park, by extension, after Villa Pamphili): we're talking about VILLA ADA. The name is due to the wife of the Swiss Count Tellfner, who was the owner for 25 years at the end of nineteenth century. But the one who the names Brussels, Leuven and Liege to the different roads is actually King Vittorio Emanuele III, who gave this villa as a present to his wife Eelena, and then thought about this "toponymic" gift for the young daughter-in-law Maria José, Princess of Belgium, just married to his son Umberto.
The intention was probably to make her feel at home in Rome, even though the noblewoman never felt truly at home at the Savoy court: grown up within art and culture in a more open and modern environment than the Savoy one, quite allergic to the strict court etiquette and clearly against the alliance with Hitler's Germany, the princess remained always a foreign body to the royal family, to the point of being sent away from Rome during the Second World War by order of King Vittorio Emanuele III, irritated by Maria Jose’s contacts with the anti-fascist opposition. And Villa Savoia (that is how Villa Ada had been renamed) is actually related to a key episode of the fascist era: it’s the place where Mussolini had been summoned by the King to be arrested on July 25, 1943. Today Villa Ada is an ideal destination for lovers of nature, or jogging and even those of history : the Savoy buildings (such as the royal stables) are abandoned to decay, and the real attractions are the rare Tibetan dawn redwood or the many squirrels scurrying undisturbed in the park.

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DOVE via Chiana 109
ORARIO 7:00 - 14:00
PARCHEGGIO privato per i clienti del mercato costo 1 euro per 40 min.
AUTOBUS dalla stazione Termini 109, Largo di Torre Argentina 63