Italians love their football. After a final pizza party at the school, we ventured out to see the football game that was playing on a big screen in Piazza del Popolo. When we left the school, we definitely noticed there weren’t as many people out on the streets. Kind of one of those walking dead moments when you wonder if you’re the only one left in the world. Then you find out that everyone has just been eaten up by Piazza del Popolo. As we got closer, more people came into view…all going in the same direction with their white, red, and green on and some Peronis. I’m not a big fan of Peroni..sorry to say. Kind of tastes like watered down rolling rock to me. But anyway, faces painted, flags in hand we heard a huge scream erupting from the crowd and watched everyone switch to sprinting mode headed straight for the Piazza. This included all of the people I was with. By the time I got my camera out I was left to fend for myself. The crowd was huge. Most of Rome seemed to be there and all were fixed to the Italy vs. Germany game.
It’s funny now looking back. I wanted to capture it so bad that I didn’t really watch the game. However, I did see the championship game between Italy and Spain..and unfortunately Italy sadly failed to keep up with the Spaniards. It’s also funny that in lot of the photos that my friends and I took, although we weren’t together or had any idea where the other was, we still ended up in each others’ photos. At one point I was climbing up some stairs taking pictures of people sitting on a wall and five minutes later I realized it was my boyfriend.
Honestly though, you didn’t really have to watch the game to know when something good or bad happened. You could always tell by the reactions of the huge crowd. They were very responsive. There really was pretty much no standing room. It was madness. People were everywhere. I decided to climb up to a spot that I’m not sure a lot of the people that I was in Rome with knew about. If you’re facing the Flaminio metro in the piazza, there are steps on the right side outside of the piazza wall. If you climb up there, you can get a pretty neat view of Piazza del Popolo and a lot of Rome. Definitely something worth checking out. With this view comes a villa you can explore. Lots of couples making out and stuff. But seriously, it’s a neat park. It reminds me a lot of villa Borghese but on a smaller scale and I think it even connects to Borghese.
Back to football. from this spot I saw all those crazy Romans loving up on their team. I’m glad I was back at the bottom when they won though. There was lots of crazyness happening. And there were small fireworks. Always a plus.
