Friday: Get yourself over to Castel Sant’Angelo tonight at 9pm as the first cars of the Mille Miglia roll into town. This classic car rally started way up in Brescia on Wednesday, and rolls into Rome for the southernmost stop on the 1,000 mile circuit. Close to 400 cars are participating, so expect to see some classic Bugatti, Officine Meccaniche, Fiat, Talbot and Mercedes models cruising by the castle tonight. In fact, one of the qualifying criteria to participate in the race is that the car must be a model that drove in the original incarnation of the Mille Miglia – an annual event from 1927 through 1957, before it was revived in the 1970’s.
Saturday: The annual Notte dei Musei takes place tomorrow night, as the great majority of Italy’s museums and archaeological sites go nocturnal and free for the day. Most sites are open until 2am, with last entrance at 1:30. There are also quite a few concerts and special events going on in conjunction with the evening, so check out the Musei in Comune site for a full list. If you’re more into calcio than Caravaggio, don’t forget the Champions League final is Saturday night at 8:45pm – you can count on most pubs (Scholars, Abbey, etc) to be showing the Chelsea/Bayern match.
Sunday: Sunday is the final day of the Festival del Verde e del Paessagio, a three-day festival dedicated to the greening of Rome through urban and home landscaping. The event is taking place up at the Parco della Musica, and features a mile long stroll which various gardeners, garden designers, landscape architects, nurserymen and craftsmen, have enhanced with their sustainable design solutions. Apparently there area lot of hanging gardens involved, which just sounds magical. Additionally, the BNL Internazionali Tennis Tournament concludes today with both the men’s and women’s finals. This information isn’t particularly helpful, because tickets are sold out, but it will explain the traffic you’ll encounter trying to get up to the Parco della Musica.
