Posts about City Life
News, tips, and observations on life in the Context cities.
© Frank Löhmer
The annual Carnival of Cultures in Berlin, a four day festival which celebrates the capital city’s rich cultural diversity, is taking place from May 25 to 28. Did you know that of the 3.4 million people who live in Berlin today, about half a million do not have German citizenship? Beyond that many more come from a mixed cultural background, which was the impetus of the city to start this event in 1995. The bulk of the celebration will take place in the vibrant Kreuzberg district, where the street fair allows visitors to sample international cuisine at a food pavilion and browse for crafts while also taking in performances and concerts. The festival culminates with a parade starting at 12:30 pm from Hermannplatz on May 27 where approximately 4,500 will participate with colorful costumes and floats. For more information about the parade and a route map, see the official website for the Carnival of Cultures.
Posted by Jessica | This post has no comments
May 20th, 2012 under Berlin, City Life, Special Events.
Given that we operate in 19 cities worldwide and I spend a good chunk of the year traveling between them, you’d think that I’d be pretty expert in all the ins and outs of visa requirements and travel planning. And yet, on a recent trip to Beijing and Shanghai from the U.S. I was caught out at the last minute without a visa for China. Read more »
Posted by Paul Bennett | This post has no comments
May 11th, 2012 under Beijing, Budget Conscious Travel, City Life, Context Travel, Shanghai, Transportation, Travel News.
The Greek debt crisis has drawn a lot of attention in the media in the past two years, and this has created some false impressionsabout the current situation on the ground. No doubt, many Greeks have turned to the streets to protest against largely unpopular austerity measures, and occasional violence has erupted. Does this make Greece a dangerous place? Not at all. Read more »
Posted by Georgia Sermamoglou-Soulmaid | This post has no comments
May 8th, 2012 under Athens, City Life, Family Travel, Travel News.
The new train station in Rome
We’ve asked architect and Rome docent Liz Brewster to tell us more about the new, sleek looking station of Tiburtina that recently reopened to travelers in the East of the Italian Capital. After much controversy, and a large fire that delayed the opening, the new Stazione Tiburtina is finally here.
A sleek new glass-skinned steel bridge has recently emerged above the tangle of raised concrete viaducts that make up Rome’s busy east tangential highway. The Tiburtina station now arches over the 20+ train tracks that line up below, visually announcing its presence from afar. Gone is the low, placid
block of the old Tiburtina train station which sat politely alongside the tracks for decades. As the Italian rail system upgrades to high velocity trains, a series of major city train stations throughout Italy are undergoing major renovation.
The Tiburtina station has grown to become one of Rome’s principle public transportation interchange points, housing a B line metro stop beneath it and a major national and international bus terminal adjacent to it. If the controversial and expensive high velocity rail lines that are planned to connect the European countries are completed, the Tiburtina station could be the entry gate into Rome for passengers coming from outside of Italy like France and Spain.
I couldn’t wait to see the metamorphosis take place. Along with all the other residents of north and east Rome, it’s been several years of agonizing detour road traffic around the construction site and slaloming barriers in the station itself when I took the train. I’d crane my neck to watch the progress every time I dared to take the Tangenziale, which has become an enormous hemostat, squeezing cars down to a traffic standstill for kilometers.
Tiburtina station interior
I decided it was most appropriate to arrive by train for my first visit. Getting off the train, I rode up one of the new escalators that starts right on the arrival platform and penetrates directly into the underbelly of the the bridge station that looms above and across the tracks. It felt a little like being beamed up into a large, hovering spacecraft.
Once inside, the 10,000 square meter concourse was truly spectacular. Floor to ceiling glass walls allow visitors to see the horizon of the city line and watch the flow of the train activity below. By night the concourse is illuminated by rows of sparkling ceiling lights, creating a fishbowl display of people
moving through the bridge’s innards. In the several-story tall space, 8 suspended halls float about mid- height on either side of the concourse, piercing through the glass walls and forming protrusions or “interferences” on the building exterior.. Each suspended hall’s perimeters are soft and curved, defined by a solid plane bent over itself like a ribbon to form the ceiling, wall and floor. Matte green colored, it vaguely looks like a colossal stick of peppermint chewing gum has been folded over to form a space in its concavity. Floor to ceiling glass walls fill in the open end walls. The overall effect of walking through this space amplified the sense of fluid movement and transition.
The new station, commissioned by the Italian National Rail and designed by architect Paolo Desideri and partners of the roman studio ABDR, is being completed more or less on schedule; the station was inaugurated precociously in November 2011. The commercial spaces in the concourse were still empty when I visited and both interior and exterior finish work on the building was still being completed. The station’s new bridgehead entrances on either side of the tracks are dramatic multistory spaces, but the surrounding external public spaces are far from completion. On the east side, the concrete viaducts of the Tangential road, (which are planned to be removed) come within meters of the 4 story glass facade.
On the west side, a service road skirts a barren hillside as the parking lot and park areas have not yet been activated. Worried residents of the surrounding neighborhoods have organized regular protests to bring attention to lack of momentum the city of Rome seems to be taking to move ahead with the part of the plans that they are to complete. Locals are afraid the city of Rome will cut the budget and not follow through with the ambitious urban renewal for the external public spaces around the station, which include interconnected green parks, public piazzas, bike and pedestrian paths and parking as well as the removal of entire sections of the tangenziale viaducts and an eventual deviation of automobile transit. The Tiburtina station’s bridge form makes the building a natural connector between the two neighborhoods that flank the railroad, bringing new centrality to areas that have been separated since the railroad lines were originally put in.
If the entire Tiburtina project is completed as it was originally planned, the whole area, station and
surrounds, will be worthy of it’s role as an international gateway into Rome. Stay tuned!
Posted by Liz Brewster | This post has one comment
May 7th, 2012 under City Life, Docent Essays, Rome, Special Events, Transportation.
Almost since Venice’s beginnings, Rialto has been the center of Venetian life, and it remains so today. Monday through Saturday one finds the area filled with locals purchasing fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and flowers. The market rings with the shouts of the vendors, and the crush of Venetians inspecting and buying their goods. Rialto is also a popular space for informal social exchange, especially on Saturday mornings, as Venetians regularly run into friends here, often ducking into a bar together for a quick coffee or ombra (small glass of wine) before continuing on to the next stall. Read more »
Posted by Monica C | This post has no comments
April 18th, 2012 under City Life, Docent Essays, Food and Wine, Shopping, Venice.
If you are lucky enough to visit London, you will probably be paying a visit to all its most important architectural landmarks, pubs, neighborhoods, shops, and of course a few museums. If traveling with kids or teenagers, the traditional art museum might not sound so appealing (to them), but fortunately for the kids, London is packed with extremely strange and fun museums. These unique museums are a great way to discover the more bizarre sides of London’s history, and to make your way to a few neighborhoods you probably wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. Read more »
Posted by Sophie | This post has 2 comments
April 10th, 2012 under City Life, Family Travel, London, Museums and Monuments, Uncategorized.
Context began in Rome nearly 10 years ago. Since then we’ve expanded to 18 cities, including several in North America and Asia. With more than 300 docents in the network and 300 walking seminars on offer, we’ve made transformative travel the norm for a whole group of savvy travelers. (Stay tuned for our opening in Prague, Budapest, and Vienna later this month.)
Still, Rome remains the heart and soul of Context. Not only do we run more walks here than anywhere else (with Paris a close second) the city embodies the kind of deep culture and heritage that make our hearts quicken. We’re most at home among the archaeologists, art historians, and other scholars who gravitate to a city like Rome.
Personally, Rome is my favorite city in the world. And, although I now live in Philadelphia and spend much of time visiting Context programs in Beijing, Istanbul, and other far flung places, returning to Rome is always a homecoming for me. My first two daughters were born here, and strolling down one of the city’s cobblestoned byways holds an inextricable, soul-touching power.
On my most recent visit, last week, I retraced my footsteps through the Monti and the Esquiline neighborhoods where Context began. As I crisscrossed this area up behind the Colosseum, I made some mental notes of favorite places where the spirit of this city, untrammeled by modern tourism, is alive and well, and where personal memories intersect with the past. Herewith, a selective, conceptual passeggiata through Rome.
A simple walk through Monti takes one through an incredibly beautiful but oddly quiet part of the city. Odd because it’s just a block or two off busy, bustling Via Cavour. And, yet, it’s quite common to find oneself strolling along a street with just a few Italians and no tourists in sight. One of my favorite routes is to climb the hill behind the Markets of Trajan and take a right on Sant’Agata dei Goti. Passing here last week I nearly tripped over the puggy, black and white dog that has been guarding the car park at the top of this street for a decade. Memories flooded over me, as our office used to be located at the far end of the street where it intersects with Via Baccina, and I once passed this dog daily, with my labrador retriever, Sadie, in tow. The two would do their ritual sniff and nod before moving on.
Via Baccina is worth a stroll. With bougainvillea draped over several facades and little traffic, you can be forgiven for thinking that you’ve stepped back in time here. Of course, this find tangible expression at the far end where Baccina runs into the large tufa wall erected by Augustus Casear to protect his new forum from fire—an awe-inspiring piece of engineering still standing after two millennia. My course takes me in the opposite direction towards Via Serpenti where a small detour to the north brings me to Vino al Vino, one of the best enoteche (wine bars) in the city and where we hold our Italian Language Workshop and numerous Context parties. Giacomo, the proprietor, can always be counted on for a great local wine and some of his mother’s homemade caponata.
Through Piazza Madonna ai Monti, next stop is for a gelato at the Sicilian Ciuri Ciuri: a double scoop of dark chocolate and more (black raspberry), which emboldens us for the walk uphill. Instead of taking the direct route on Via Giovanni Lanza, I opt for the detour up Via in Selci. Why? Because all along the right (south) side of the street you can see some great fourth or fifth century arches embedded into the side of the monastery of Santa Lucia in Selci—a kind of whisper from the late antique, winking through the ages, that one only gets in Rome. History speaks to us directly here, and a key ingredient to walking through the city is knowing when to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities.
At the top of the hill I arrive on the Esquiline Hill. Here, too, memories resound. Our second daughter, Cleo was born in an apartment at the top of Via Giovanni Lanza, and the first Context office was in our kitchen. Like Monti, the Esquiline is filled with all sorts of hidden pieces of old Rome, including a number of ancient fragments. For example, in the auto repair shop near our first apartment in Rome (on Via Angelo Poliziano) there were the remnants of the Servian Wall, one of the oldest structures in the city.
During the empire the Esquiline hill was littered with villas of the artistocracy. At the time of Augustus, several key people lived here, including Maecenas, a friend of the emperor and informally in charge of the arts. The patron of Vergil, Maecenas’ villa attracted the major thinkers and creators of the day in a Symposium-like reverie on beauty. Lucky for us, a piece of that villa, Maecenas’ auditorium, still stands, adorned with frescoes, along the Via Merulana just down the street from Santa Maria Maggiore. Although closed to the public except irregularly, Context runs frequent special visits, including one coming up on April 20.
At this point it’s time for a pick me up. Where better than the exquisite bread shop, Panella, across the street. They serve a fastastic espresso with an authentic crema—espresso whipped with sugar. Or perhaps I opt for the shekerato, which is a cold, sweetened espresso shake, and lose a good hour watching the people go by on Via Merulana, far from the bustle of Rome. For me, these are the must-see sites and experiences of this magical city.
Posted by Paul Bennett | This post has 7 comments
April 2nd, 2012 under City Life, Rome.
Each spring, the tidal basin of Washington, D.C. becomes a veritable sea of pink, the air replete with the sweet scent of cherry blossoms, the pathways busy with awe-filled tourists and Washingtonians alike. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the remarkable gift of 3,000 cherry trees given to the city of Washington from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo. (In the 100 years that have elapsed, the number of trees has grown to approximately 3,750 of 16 varieties.) The symbolic gift of friendship and goodwill marks an important act of cultural diplomacy between the two countries, and the enduring tradition speaks well of the continued amity.
Read more »
Posted by Liz Tunick | This post has no comments
March 29th, 2012 under City Life, Culture, Museums and Monuments, Special Events, Washington.
In the past four months I was fortunate enough to visit seven different countries and meet lots of lovely people. Along with business meetings and cultural visits, I also got a chance to try some spectacular food. Here is a brief summary of my favorite meals and snacks: Read more »
Posted by Petulia | This post has no comments
March 27th, 2012 under Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, City Life, Food and Wine, Istanbul, Madrid, Paris.
Everyone has their favorite season for visiting New York City, but we think the early spring, when the trees and flowers are starting to bud and bloom, and before the heat sets in, is prime time for a weekend trip. If you already have a weekend booked, or are considering a last minute trip, here are some of our top activity picks you won’t want to miss.
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Posted by Carolyn | This post has 3 comments
March 15th, 2012 under Architecture, Art, Budget Conscious Travel, City Life, Culture, Family Travel, Food and Wine, History, Museums and Monuments, New York, Special Events, Uncategorized.
