Friday 20 June 2008

Grubby Garbatella

Yesterday bel ragazzo and I went to view our potential new house in Garbatella. It was ok...but only ok. The fact that there was a drunk homeless man hanging around the doorway did not help with the first impression.

There was no air conditioning (I said yesterday I am not fussy but we have to live and work there so it has to be cool and summer time in Rome is so hot and humid!) there was no balcony, there was not much light and the place was a little ugly to be honest.

I am not a superficial person, however bel ragazzo and I now realise we have been spoilt with our current abusivo apartment. Our roof may be illegal, we may have to walk up 6 flights of stairs as the lift is often out of order, we may have to put up with a bit of water leaking here and there when it rains, and we may have to wake up at 5.30am every morning when the sun rises as we have no shutters or black out curtains (every other apartment in Rome has shutters...if you live here look around. Ours is the only apartment in the city without them.) So aside from living in a possible 'illegally' built house, we have been spoilt. We have a nice long balcony, massive bedroom with a king size bed, bright and spacious kitchen and living room, and air conditioning throughout.

So do you see what I mean?

Bel ragazzo and I have to put our 'practical thinking hats' on here as the apartment is only going to be ours until the end of October when we say ci vediamo Roma. We need to think of the people who will be here after us, our colleagues who are not a couple and will need one bedroom each...and maybe one bathroom each (did I mention that the new place has 2 brand new bathrooms? his and hers perhaps?)

This website is all about Garbatella so I borrowed some photos from it to show you.








Lovely - isn't it? They actually they make it look a little like a fairy tale town (well in Rome standards.)

I did not see any of the above however. This is the Garbatella I saw:




(the ugly brown block in the background is ours)



Who knows...who knows....we have to think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You will find something I'm sure of it! When do you have to move out of your current apartment?

It's been so long since I was in Rome...what areas of Rome are considered "not so safe" nowadays? The photos on the site are so colorful and alive and the other ones are dark and a bit scary!

Sending you good luck vibes to find the perfect place!! :)

Leanne was in Italy now in Australia said...

Hi Lulu,
We have to be out by mid august so we have a little time up our sleves.
With regards to safe areas well...who knows these days what is safe and not. Rome I guess is like any big city that most of the areas are ok to live in but you have to keep your sense about you!