The wedding cake in Rome

This morning, under a white crying sky, I found myself in Piazza Venezia, a lovely flowery square, clean in its simple Roman heart, that is the bright start of the Via del Corso, which, once upon a time bore the majestic name of Via Lata (the big way). At the bottom of the Via del Corso, another beautiful Piazza, the piazza del Popolo which is not, as can be understood named after the people (Popolo in italian meaning people...) but of the populi, poplar trees. Our brothers, the trees, have been cut down, but the name remains forever.

Well, anyway, lets go back to the first piazza, the Piazza Venezia. So, I was there waiting for a person of my heart. And I had enough time to look at the tourists and listen to their chatting. The cameras ticking and tacking focusing on the Vittoriano, which lurks, white and (for me) ugly, on the gentle piazza. It is the unliked (by Romans) symbol of the piedmontese power in the Rome of the Popes. White marble under the sun, sad under the rain. Infact it is a tomb. The tomb of the unknown soldier. But, up and down, the flight of stairs go the happy tourists thinking, maybe, that the white temple dates back to the Roman Empire and not, as it is, to the eighteen hundreds... "Mom, who is that man on the horse?", I heard a little girl ask her mother. And the lady, admiring the wedding cake (this is how the Romans used to call the Vittoriano...) answered: "I don't know, but it must be an emperor or a king or something like it..."