Halloween Suggestions

Great news: Halloween is coming! Even though this is not properly a traditional italian holiday, in the past few years Romans seemed to enjoy the celebration. Here are some gloomy places to spend you Halloween at.

Firs of all, the Protestant Cemetery, near the Piramide Cestia: the whole complex was built in Eighteenth century to allow not-catholic people – who couldn’t be buried neither Catholic churches nor in consecrated ground – to get eternal rest under the pyramid’s shadow. Afterwards even comedians, dancers and artists got their graves in this peaceful and fascinating place oddly located in the noisy heart of the city.

Get a walk in this pleasant place, which is not only for dark souls, but for everyone in love with art and literature. Illustrious names are inscribed on tombstones in gothic and neoclassic style: Romantic poets Shelley and Keats’ remains are laying here, very close to English actress Belinda Lee; Italian politician and philosopher Antonio Gramsci rests in that ground, with Italian writer Carlo Emilio Gadda and American poet Gregory Corso; the cemetery also hosts a large cat colony.

If you instead prefer extend a greeting to stars of Italian cinema, you can visit the Verano monumental cemetery, burial place for at least twenty centuries, situated on via Tiburtina: right there, under the cypresses, you can find graves of famous actors, among others, Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman, and director Roberto Rossellini’s. You also can join one of several free guided tours to discover this amazing open-air museum.

Lastly, in order to round this horrific journey off, you have to visit Capuchins’ Crypt under Santa Maria Immacolata church, alongside via Veneto. This spooktacular chapel is decorated with bones of some 4000 Capuchin friars, collected between XVI and XIX century: patterns of stars and flowers, a clock and even a chandelier, everything is bones-made! And some mummified friars’ corpses in their ancient vests gaze at you, with their empty eyes…

So, what are you waiting for? Instead of locking yourselves inside of an irish pub with your friends and getting the worst hangover of your lives, why don’t you try to celebrate Halloween in an original way while discovering some hidden (and scary) part of the city?

Have a Happy Halloween and… stay scared!