The Blonde Roman Tiber

So it was called in Rome, the Blonde Tiber, with its history of 3 thousand years.

Since its birth, the Tiber was considered the soul of Rome. A history began when Aeneas, fugitive of Troy, looking for a new country, going up the mouth of the Tiber reached a place inhabited by shepherds. There will be founded Rome.

The fact that the City owes its own being to the Tiber, is also described in the first scene of the legend of the foundation of Rome, with "Romulus and Remus in the basket that stranded in the river under a fig tree, suck the sweet nectar of the fruit dripping, waiting for a real feeding".

Were given to it different names over the years, the current one derives by the tradition of the Latin King Tiberino which would be drowned into.

Like many rivers it had a vital importance for the ancient Romans, the River itself was considered a divinity personified in Pater Tiberinus,with a feast and a temple dedicated. It was used for many centuries as a way of communication, all materials of Roman works, goods and agricultural products passed through here.

This water belt that divided the left bank, the old Rome from the right that was once called the periphery, was considered for long a sort of impassable border for Romans that for the countryside trips chose to move to the right bank of the river, in the now area of Trastevere.

A water belt not always conveniet, because of alluvions which often hit the city with tributes of deaths and devastation. Historical figures as Julius Caesar and Garibaldi presented plans to change the big course of the river, today it is protected by great walls. Do you know the fountain in the middle of Spain Steps? It was carved in 1629 by Bernini. Pope Urban VII was so impressed from a boat there hurled by the fury of the river during one of the many floods and wanted it to remain memory in the shape of the fountain. For the Romans it is nicknamed the "Barcaccia".

Tiber is a river of 400 km that born in 1268 meters height on the top of Mount Fumaiolo, in Tuscany and goes through Umbria and Lazio, reaching the Tyrrhenian Sea. Next to the source, a trickle of crystal-clear water, in the Thirties was built an ancient column dominated by the Imperial Roman Eagle turned towards Roma and an inscription on a marble plaque that says

"Here born the sacred river to the destiny of Rome".