A busy road that cuts through Rome’s ancient forum to the Colosseum was blocked to private traffic on Saturday, in the first stage of a plan to pedestrianise the area that has angered some locals but which the mayor says is of global importance.
In the hours before the closure, motorbikes and cars circled the Colosseum beeping their horns and taking photos to mark the last time they would take a route immortalised by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s scooter ride in the 1953 film Roman Holiday.
The almost 2,000-year old arena, where gladiators fought bloody battles for the entertainment of vast crowds, has been blackened with exhaust from heavy traffic that for years passed close to its walls.
By closing most of the Fori Imperiali road that runs 0.7 miles from the Colosseum to the giant marble Victor Emaneule monument, centre-left Mayor Ignazio Marino hopes to eventually turn the whole area into an archaeological park.
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