Rome - December 28, 2011 - Spanish Steps

Boat fountain by Bernini's pater

Spanish Steps

Just to the north of the Piazza Mignanelli is the actual Piazza di Spagna with the Spanish Steps, another of Bernini’s fantastically baroque fountains (but wait! Apparently it was carved by his father, Well I do declare! It is shaped like a boat, sort of…in a way…if you look at it from the right angle at least, so I have always referred to it as the boat fountain, I suppose other people do as well). Later I was reading about it and there is an urban legend that, during a rather sever flood, a boat floated up here and Pope whichever the some number in Roman numerals had a fountain built here to commemorate the receding of the flood waters. I have no opinion on that; might be, might not be...I just like it!

Here we are though, the Spanish Steps. A hundred years in the making, this was built to connect the Bourbon church of Trinita dei Monti on the hill with the Spanish Bourbon palace below. The architect created an incredible spacial composition that includes not just the undulating stairs, but the houses on either side which frame the view.

I think we we were accosted six times on the way up by people selling cheap plastic camera tripods, wooden choochoo trains and fake plastic Louis Vuitton handbags...do I look like I need a fake plastic Louis Vuitton handbag?

Luckily we were there for the giant Nativity scene (to be posted with the other Nativity scenes from all over Italy).

Trinita dei Monti, from half way up the Spanish Steps. The brown building
is the backdrop for the life-size nativity scene