The Rome IndexWalking the EUR district
A self-guided walk through Rome's strangest neighbourhood — rationalist Rome at full scale.
What you're looking at
EUR was designed as a showcase of Fascist-era Italian modernity for a 1942 world's fair that the Second World War cancelled. The result is a complete planned district of wide boulevards, symmetrical marble buildings and artificial lakes — never quite finished and never quite normal.
The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana
The six-storey square Colosseum — nicknamed the "Square Colosseum" — is the district's defining image, now used as the Fendi headquarters. No interior access without a specific event, but the exterior is striking from any angle.
The lakes and walk
The artificial lakes at the southern end of the district are surrounded by parks — a calm, undervisited place for a walk that feels completely unlike the rest of Rome.