Hi everyone,

this is part 3 of the best places you should visit when in Rome: The turtle fountain!

Me at the turtle fountain in the Roman Ghetto

We left the Theater of Marcello behind us and enter the Roman Ghetto. It is a wonderful place to live in Rome these days - for sure it has a sad history which you might still feel if you search for signs of the last century.

We cross the Piazza di Campitelli with the amazing church Santa Maria in Postico in Campitelli - an awful long name but a church, which you won´t find again in your life! (check out www.santamariainportico.it for further information).

The backside of the altar is extraordinary! By sunset you will believe in some god-power floating into the church!

We cross the square and continue the main street until the next little place: Piazza Mattei.

There are many reasons for the fountain on this place to be the most beautiful one in Rome

This is my top 3:

1
The sound of the water ist very delicate and genuine - you feel the freshness and the beauty of water and nature, even if you are sitting in the center of a big city. The place is a bit hidden from the normal traffic routes, so there is no traffic noice, and you can focus completely of the sound of the water!

Foto credit: latavernadelghetto.com

2
There are no tourists, because they mainly go to the big fountains. Actually Rome is the city in the World with the highest amount of drinkable water - actually you can drink the water from every fountain, obviously not from the fountain itself, but there are a lot of "hidden" water jets you might enjoy - you can see, where the Romans drink and follow them. So just remember: there are hundreds of fountains in Rome - do not be the tourist, who sees just one or two of them!

After a restoration the tritons do not touch the turtles any more

3
There is a beautiful story behind the square, the fountain and the building. Once there was prince Mattei who had a beautiful girl. He asked her father the permission to marry her. He was glad about it. Unfortunately prince Mattei was a player and lost everything during one night. The father of the girl told him after that, that her daughter would not marry him any more.
Prince Mattei was so upset, that the let build the entire fountain in one night, so that the day after - when she would have opened her window - the girl would have seen this beautiful fountain right in front of there bedroom. So hi did.
After that prince Mattei went to her father and said: "What prince Mattei might loose in one night, he might also rebuild in one night.
The story might have had a happy end - but in memory of this story there is one fake (painted) window in the Mattei building.

Can you see the painted window on the Mattei Palazzo?

3+1
The fountain is so beautiful by night. But that is nearly everything in Rome... Therefore it is just a 3+1 ;)
Enjoy!

You will find all information about the fountain and the ghetto through google.
Our trip through the best places to be in Rome will bring us to Campo de´ Fiori - today a beautiful place to hang out (especially for having a cold beer), but just a couple of hundreds of years ago, it was a really scary place!

This will be my post nr. 4! Make sure you do not miss it.
Feel free to write a feedback under this post!

Marco

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