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Rome’s Trevi Fountain gets temporary catwalk as famous landmark undergoes a cleaning
A suspended walkway providing tourists an up-close view of Rome’s Trevi Fountain was unveiled Saturday, a temporary addition while the famous “La Dolce Vita” site undergoes a cleaning.
The Baroque masterpiece constructed on the facade of a palace is one of the most popular sites in Rome for tourists, who strain over the crowds to throw their coins into its water.
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While the fountain is being cleaned to remove limestone deposits and grime, however, the walkway positioned over its basin will accommodate some 130 people at a time to take a closer look.
That will give tourists “an experience not ruined by excessive crowding,” said Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri.
“We wanted to give everybody the opportunity to admire the fountain and to do this from a unique perspective because what you can see from the walkway, you will never be able to see normally,” he said.
The work on the fountain, which includes cleaning stones in the lower part of the monument and grouting joints, should be completed by the end of the year, officials said.
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French tourist Franck Petretto, 50, was one of the first to walk across the passageway, calling the view “wonderful and very, very beautiful.”
“Even without the water flowing inside the fountain, you can really see that the architecture is serious… and that’s really very pleasing,” he said.
Micaela di Caterina, a 32-year-old visiting from Argentina, agreed, saying the up-close look at the intricate sculptures of Oceanus, father of the river gods, and his sea horses was “incredible”.
Still, she acknowledged, it was “kind of weird” to be walking over the fountain.
Earlier this month, a plastic barrier and a small makeshift pool were erected in front of the famous attraction, eliciting mixed reactions from tourists. One tourist told the Associated Press that the substitute pool was “ugly.” Yet, she gave her kids some coins to throw in anyway.
ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images
City lore has it that tossing a coin into the fountain will ensure a return trip to Rome. This tradition generates an estimated $1.6 million annually, which has been donated to the Catholic charity Caritas for the past 15 years.
To manage the overwhelming number of tourists who visit the famous landmark each year, city officials are devising a plan to block off the area around the fountain. Visitors will be required to book online and then pay a fee of 2 euros to get inside.
At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place on Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business.
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services reported on social media a “hazardous materials incident” at 1901 Payne St., in Louisville. The address belongs to a facility operated by Givaudan Sense Colour, a manufacturer of food colorings for soft drinks and other products, according to officials and online records.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said emergency teams responded to the blast around 3 p.m. News outlets reported that neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the business. Overhead news video footage showed an industrial building with a large hole in its roof.
WLKY-TV
“The cause at this point of the explosion is unknown,” Greenberg said in a news conference. No one died in the explosion, he added.
Greenberg said officials spoke to employees inside the plant. “They have initially conveyed that everything was normal activity when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The Louisville Fire Department said in a post on the social platform X that multiple agencies were responding to a “large-scale incident.”
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services first urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted in the afternoon. An evacuation order for the two surrounding blocks around the site of the explosion was still in place Tuesday afternoon.
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A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly $9 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.
Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewelry made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
By chance that was Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds.”
“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett. “…We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”
Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewelry collection in New York.
