In Rome there are many green areas and parks, areas that make the Eternal City an urban center full of greenery. Often, here in Rome, the parks can be extraordinary, different from what you might expect and this is, perhaps, one of the most famous ones. Here is the famous Laghetto dell'Eur, so called by Roman citizens although, officially, it should be named Central Park of the Lake. A true icon of the city, without shadow of a doubt.

This is the mirror of water of the very famous district south of Rome, today both residential and commercial, especially with the presence of offices, which is perhaps one of the most iconic points of the grandiose project wanted in the 1930s by Mussolini On the occasion of the World Fair of the 1942, which should have been held in Rome, Mussolini wanted to build a new exhibition center from scratch in a position south of the Eternal City which, ideally, could connect the latter with the sea. What today is Eur, therefore, is the son of Mussolini’s intention to show, in the eyes of the whole world, how much Fascist Italy was advanced and dedicated to progress. The buildings that today support the whole area are in the vast majority of cases the original ones but, at the same time, the large part of these buildings was not completed in the 1930s or 1940s. The outbreak of the World War II, in fact, prevented designers, architects and engineers from completing an urban planning project that was certainly exceptional in terms of costs and human work. After the war was lost, however, everything stopped until the 1960, when Rome hosted the Olympics. The original project of the central lake here at Eur was given to Marcello Piacentini and Raffaele De Vico, two archistars with whom they wanted to be on the safe side. In reality it was part of a much larger project that involved the construction of eight parks, but this was always considered the main one. As mentioned, the war stopped everything, but then the work restarted with some changes to the original designs that led to the implementation of what we still see today: an artificial basin practically one kilometer long which, as was the practice at that era, had as a scenic and urban background a large building, in this case the unmistakable sports hall (or Palazzetto Nervi), with its unmistakable circular shape.

The other buildings, that one of the ENI company and that of the Unicredit Bank, are also from those years, especially the 1960s. A green corner of Rome, a beautiful lake surrounded by promenades, trees and waterfalls, which was a jewel in the crown of the Rome that hosted the Olympics. The historic Rose Pool was also created specifically to host some Olympic competitions. Recently, the Giardino delle Cascate was reopened to the public, ideally connecting the sports hall to the pond. The result of the works and drawings of De Vico, it gives a truly magnificent glance. Finally, among the beauties of the pond there is the so-called Japanese Walk: imagine 2500 sakura (the famous Japanese cherry trees in bloom) given by the Japanese Kishi in 1959, and imagine the colors and scents during their flowering... A unique beauty, which makes the lake even more beautiful, with the tree-lined paths and gardens, waterfalls and water features that surely give the Eur lake in Rome an incredible atmosphere.