Southern Rome - Rome - page 514

Exploring Rome's Christian burial catacombs, such as the Catacombe di San Se-
bastiano .
Wandering around the ingenious location for the overflow from the Capitoline Mu-
seums: Centrale Montemartini .
Buying, eating and dreaming about food at Eataly .
Feeling dwarfed by the majesty of San Paolo Fuori Le Mura .
Explore: Southern Rome
Southern Rome is a sprawling neighbourhood that comprises four distinct areas: the Via
Appia Antica, famous for its catacombs; trendy Via Ostiense; picturesque Garbatella; and
EUR, Mussolini's futuristic building development. It's all quite spread out, but public
transport connections are good.
Heading southeast from Porta San Sebastiano, Via Appia Antica (the Appian Way) is
one of the world's oldest roads and a much-prized Roman address. It's a beautiful part of
town, with crumbling ruins set amid pea-green fields and towering umbrella pines.
To the west, Via Ostiense presents a very different picture. Busy and traffic-clogged, it
runs through one of the capital's hippest districts. Disused factories and warehouses har-
bour restaurants, pubs, clubs and bars, and the huge Eataly, a restaurant and Italian food-
stuffs complex, opened here in 2012. Planned redevelopments for the ex-Mercati Generali
as a 'City of Youth' - comprising leisure, cultural and office space and designed by Rem
Koolhaas - are still on the table, but will upgrade the neighbourhood even further if they
ever come to fruition.
Ostiense also harbours a couple of gem-like sights: Centrale Montemartini, a disused
power plant housing superb classical statuary, and Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le Mura,
the world's third-largest church. Over the road, the character-filled Garbatella district mer-
its exploration for its original architecture, while further south, EUR is a world apart. Built
by Mussolini as a showcase for his Fascist regime, it's a fascinating, Orwellian quarter of
wide boulevards and linear buildings.