Diary from Roma, Italy. 2nd Episode: Pineto Park, Street Art and Forest
All the places, the magic, the secrets no tour guide will ever show you
Pineto Park extends in the northwest sector of Roma, among Via Trionfale, Via di Pineta Sacchetti and Valle Aurelia. All the Street Art is located around the Park and inside it. Most of Pineto murales have been painted in 2016 thanks to the “Pinacci nostri” association. The people who brought Street Art near and inside Pineto Park are the same who periodically organize the cleaning of Pineto Park with the help of volunteers. Close to the Park, there are many artworks, on the walls, on cement columns, on iron structures. We can find many murales inside the Park as well, like the blue mice painted by the Street Artist Pino Volpino.
When you enter the Park from Via di Pineta Sacchetti, Pineto looks like a beautiful park where people go and have a walk, with or without dogs, and where people of any age can play. But, on the backside, there’s one of the best natural reserve of Roma, consisting of a great valley known as Valley of Hell (ironic name, considering St. Peter’s proximity) once extended to the Vatican Walls and used, until 150 years ago, as a limestone cave with the nearby kiln named the Fabric of St. Peter. In the uncontaminated landscape of the Park forest, you can find the traces of a hundred million years of geological events, from the deep tropical sea to the Volcano Sabatino eruptions, through the sands and gravel.
The Park vegetable heritage is mainly made of Mediterranean scrub (arbutus, lentisk, three heaths, cistus, myrtle) holm oak, and cork tree woods. The wildlife populations are rich as well: we can find the dormouse, hedgehog, red squirrel, fox, weasel, wild boar, wild rabbit, grass snake, frog, and many kinds of birds.
In 1987 it became Regional Park, protected by the Lazio region and connected to projects against concrete, to keep Park’s natural life safe. In Via di Pineta Sacchetti 78, at the entrance of the Park, we can see the eighteenth-century cottage, named Casale del Giannotto, known as Casina del Parco, in which is located one of the Roman public libraries, dedicated to natural-environmental issues and the history of Pineto.
From the highest part of the Park, as it was a Belvedere, we can see St. Peter’s Dome, and many paths descend downward. The lower you go the louder you hear the sound of running water until you cross many creeks, waterfalls, ponds, trees interlaced with other plants like a wild forest, canyons, even quicksand in clay, and everything’s quite close to Vatican City. It’s like being in the jungle, but still in the city centre.
Walking from the top of Pineto Park to its bottom, through the forest, is a real trip, a kind of journey through time for your body and soul. Something unusual and very regenerating.
All Photos by Sandra Azzaroni
