Laghetto dell’Eur

Laghetto dell’Eur, which appears on cadastral maps under the name Parco Centrale del Lago, occupies the valley floor between Viale America and Viale Umberto Tupini, in the Europa district of Rome, Municipio IX. Admission is free, the park has no gates or ticket office and you can cross it at any hour, although at night the lighting covers only the main avenues well. There are two metro stops, both on Line B and less than 200 meters from each other: EUR Palasport and EUR Fermi, both on Viale America, on opposite sides of Via Cristoforo Colombo. It is managed by EUR S.p.A., which states a surface area of 165,130 square meters for the park, of which 85,120 are taken up by the water. The basin is about one kilometer long, 60 to 130 meters wide, two to four meters deep, and holds 220,000 cubic meters of water. For the Giardino delle Cascate, the monumental part of the park facing Via Cristoforo Colombo side, the hours change with the season and should be checked on the EUR S.p.A. website before you show up at the gate.

If you are coming here for the first time looking for the Rationalist district as a whole, you will find the full picture on the page dedicated to EUR: here we talk about the lake, the park around it and what you do there.

A premise that helps set the scale of the place. Laghetto dell’Eur is not a little lake. The word, which entered Roman usage out of affection and habit, suggests a public garden pond, but this is a basin one kilometer long that, laid end to end, would cover the distance between Piazza Venezia and the Colosseum by way of the Forums. It is the largest artificial body of water inside the Grande Raccordo Anulare, and it remains the only place in Rome where you can walk for a good 20 minutes with the water always on your left.

Where Laghetto dell’Eur is and how to get there

The park occupies the natural depression that the E42 urban planners found ready-made between the two carriageways of the old Via Imperiale, today Via Cristoforo Colombo, at the point where the road splits as it heads down toward the sea. That hollow was not dug from scratch: it was tamed, waterproofed and filled. Anyone looking at a relief map understands right away why the lake ended up there and not elsewhere.

Getting to Laghetto dell’Eur by Metro Line B

Line B has two stops facing the northern edge of the park, along Viale America. EUR Palasport, which was originally called EUR Marconi, serves the right side of Via Cristoforo Colombo for those arriving from the city. EUR Fermi serves the left side. They are less than 200 meters apart, and both entered service on February 9, 1955, the day the first stretch of subway ever opened in Rome was inaugurated. It's a detail worth keeping in mind: when the first train passed underneath here, the lake had only just been filled.

The practical advice is simple and it matters: get off at EUR Palasport if you want to start from the monumental side, with the waterfalls and the Palazzo dello Sport in front of you. Get off at EUR Fermi if you want to start from the flat water and the cherry trees. They are two entrances with two different characters, and if you go in from the wrong side you miss the theatrical effect the designers had worked out.

Laghetto dell’Eur by car, by bike and on foot

By car you arrive from Via Cristoforo Colombo, which cuts the park in two and passes over it at the highest point. Parking exists on the side streets, but on event days at the Palazzo dello Sport it fills up fast, and wild parking under the plane trees is regularly fined. By bicycle the best approach is from Viale Europa or from the path that comes down from Viale dell’Oceano Pacifico. On foot, from the center of the district, it is a 10 minute walk down from Piazza Guglielmo Marconi.

The full loop around the basin, walking without hurrying and without stopping to take photos, takes between 40 and 50 minutes. By bicycle, respecting pedestrians, 15 are enough. The route is almost entirely flat: the only real climb is the rise toward the Palazzo dello Sport, which is worth the effort because from up there you can read the whole lake.

What Laghetto dell’Eur really is: the numbers

The figures for this place were repeated for decades in conflicting versions, and it is best to pin them down. EUR S.p.A., which manages the park, gives 165,130 square meters of total surface area and 85,120 square meters of water surface. That means the water takes up just over half of the park: the green that remains, about 80,000 square meters, is a long, narrow strip that follows the banks and widens only where the ground rises.

The dimensions of the Laghetto dell’Eur basin

Length around one kilometer, width varying between 60 and 130 meters, depth between two and four meters, storage volume of 220,000 cubic meters. These are numbers for a hydraulic work, not for urban decor. The variation in width is no accident: the basin narrows where the design wanted a canal effect and widens where a broad reflecting surface was needed, in front of the main buildings. Anyone walking along the bank senses that rhythm without even knowing it.

The depth of Laghetto dell’Eur and why you can't swim in it

Two to four meters is enough to make the lake dangerous for anyone who ends up in it with their clothes on, and not enough to guarantee swimmable water quality. The basin is not a swimming pool: it is a technical reservoir with a landscaping function. Swimming is forbidden, and the ban is not a bureaucratic formality. In many stretches the banks drop straight down and have nothing to hold on to.

What the water of Laghetto dell’Eur is for

Here is the part almost nobody tells visitors. The water of Laghetto dell’Eur is not just decorative. The basin is part of the district's water system and feeds the fire-fighting reserve of the surrounding buildings, as well as supplying the water to irrigate the park itself. The waterfalls and fountains that run down toward the lake have a precise function: they oxygenate the water and keep it from stagnating. When the pumps stop for maintenance, within a few days the surface changes color and anyone passing by can tell. It is an ecosystem kept alive by a plant, and that is the least romantic and most interesting truth about the place.

The history of Laghetto dell’Eur, from E42 to the Olympics

The story of this basin spans 24 years and runs through two different Italies. It begins with a regime planning a universal exposition and ends with a republic hosting an Olympic Games. In between there is a war that stops everything.

The 1936 plan and the Palazzo dell’Acqua e della Luce

When work began in 1936 on the plan for the Universal Exposition scheduled for 1942, the area between the two carriageways of Via Imperiale was already set aside as a park in 1937. It was not filler. That hollow was meant to work as a perspective backdrop for those arriving from Rome: the visitor would walk down the avenue, see the ground open up, and at the far end find a monumental building. That building had a precise name, Palazzo dell’Acqua e della Luce, and it was never built. 20 years later, the Palazzo dello Sport rose on its site. The scenic idea outlived the project that had generated it: the backdrop is still there, only the building that occupies it changed.

Raffaele De Vico, the man who designed the gardens of Rome

The name that matters, standing in front of Laghetto dell’Eur, is Raffaele De Vico. Born in Penne on April 18, 1881 and died in Rome on August 15, 1969, De Vico came to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome in 1907, won a municipal competition in 1913, became the city's chief surveyor in 1921 and graduated in architecture in 1923. For 30 years he was the one who decided what the public gardens of this city looked like. His are the Parco della Rimembranza of Villa Glori, 28 hectares between 1923 and 1924, the Colle Oppio Park between 1926 and 1932, and the Orange Garden on the Aventine, from 1931. In 1939, on the recommendation of Marcello Piacentini, he was appointed general consultant for the parks and gardens of E42.

Anyone who knows the Giardino degli Aranci and then finds themselves on the Passeggiata del Giappone recognizes the same hand: the same care in framing the view instead of offering it all at once, the same restraint in effects. De Vico worked on the EUR parks from 1955 to 1961, that is, until eight years before he died. Laghetto dell’Eur is, strictly speaking, one of his last works and one of the largest.

Marcello Piacentini and the E42 commission

Marcello Piacentini chaired the commission that examined the projects for EUR and is the figure who holds the entire urban planning operation together. EUR S.p.A. credits him with conceiving the basin. The most widespread historical reconstruction ties the design of the park and the lake to him and De Vico together, with distinct roles, Piacentini on the urban framework and De Vico on the greenery. Besides the park, the initial project also included an aquarium, and it was part of a broader plan that envisaged eight parks in the new district.

1939, the war and the halted construction site

The executive working group was formed in 1939 under De Vico's consultancy, with the State Forestry Corps in charge of the afforestation and its executive plan. Then Italy enters the war, the 1942 exposition is not held, and in 1943 the construction site stops completely. For years the district remains a skeleton of white marble in the middle of the countryside, with buildings that have no window frames and the lake's hollow empty. Anyone who has seen the photographs from those years has trouble recognizing the place.

The postwar period, Giorgio Biuso and the completion in 1955

After the war it is De Vico again who takes the project back in hand, alongside the engineer Giorgio Biuso, director of the architecture and urban planning services of the Ente EUR and in charge of the hydraulic and structural side. The solution adopted is the basin set at right angles to the axis of Via Imperiale that we see today. The artery, conceived to connect Rome to the coast, was built after the war under the name Via Cristoforo Colombo. The lake was completed in 1955, the same year the metro opened, and from that moment the district had its center of gravity.

The 1960 Olympics and Laghetto dell’Eur

The final push came from the Games of the XVII Olympiad. Within a few years the sports facilities that still define its profile rose around the basin: on the hill the Palazzo dello Sport, built between 1958 and 1960 and inaugurated on June 3, 1960. On the northwest front the Piscina delle Rose, designed in 1958 and completed in 1960. The greenery around the lake was completed in the same span of years, and the Giardino delle Cascate opened on June 29, 1961, 10 months after the Olympics had ended.

A firm opinion, and I own it: the EUR of the Olympics is worth more than the EUR of the Exposition that was never held. The 1942 architecture is rhetorical and predictable. The 1960 architecture, Nervi first among them, is pure engineering turning into form. The lake acts as a hinge between the two eras, and anyone walking around it sees both in the same walk.

A curiosity about Laghetto dell’Eur

The real curiosity is not about the lake, it is about the date of its completion and what happened the same year 200 meters away, underground. The basin was closed and filled in 1955. On February 9, 1955 the first stretch of the Rome metro entered service, and two of its stations, EUR Marconi and EUR Fermi, face Viale America less than 200 meters from each other, along the northern edge of the park. The first of the two is now called EUR Palasport, and it changed its name for a building that did not yet exist in 1955.

It is worth dwelling on that name. The station was christened EUR Marconi in honor of Guglielmo Marconi, to whom the district had already dedicated its main square and the obelisk. When the Palazzo dello Sport became the visual landmark of that corner of EUR, the working place name adapted to the architecture. It is a rare and instructive case: usually stations give their names to neighborhoods, here it happened the other way around.

There is a second layer, and it concerns the decision to build a metro before there was even a full need for one. The first Roman stretch was born as service infrastructure for a universal exposition that never took place: the tunnel between Termini and EUR had been conceived to carry the 1942 visitors to the new district. When the train actually started running, 13 years later, the exposition was a memory, Fascism had fallen, and the line served ministry clerks and beachgoers headed to Ostia. Laghetto dell’Eur was born inside this same logic: a work conceived for an event that never happened and which survived because it was a good idea anyway. Few things in Rome tell the distance between the intentions of those who plan and the uses of those who inherit any better.

The Giardino delle Cascate, the masterpiece overlooking Laghetto dell’Eur

On the western side of the basin, at the foot of the Palazzo dello Sport hill, opens the part of the park that is worth the trip even for those not interested in the lake. The Giardino delle Cascate covers about 42,000 square meters and was inaugurated on June 29, 1961, to a design by Raffaele De Vico. EUR S.p.A. describes it as an articulated system of waterfalls, fountains, pools and green areas, enriched by rock formations and differentiated botanical plantings.

How the Giardino delle Cascate of Laghetto dell’Eur is laid out

The compositional principle is that of the Italian garden turned upside down: instead of climbing toward a building, you descend toward the water. De Vico makes use of the difference in level between the square of the Palazzo dello Sport and the lake shore to build a sequence of drops, pools and channels that lead the visitor downward. The rock is not natural, it is built: these are concrete and stone constructions assembled to imitate a layered rock face. Recognizing the artifice takes nothing away from the effect, on the contrary it makes it more interesting, because you understand how much staging there is behind something that looks spontaneous.

The reopening of the lower part of the garden

The lower portion of the Giardino delle Cascate stayed closed to the public for more than 55 years and became accessible again in 2017. For over half a century Romans looked at those waterfalls from below, from the lake shore, without being able to walk among them. If you only know the place by sight and haven't been back since the reopening, you have seen half of what is there.

The Soprintendenza protection on the garden

The Giardino delle Cascate is subject to protection by the archaeological Soprintendenza under the cultural heritage legislation. It is not a formal detail: it means that every intervention, from structural pruning to the rebuilding of the systems, goes through an authorization. It also explains the slowness with which maintenance proceeds, which regular park-goers comment on every summer.

When to visit the Giardino delle Cascate

Access hours depend on the season and on the flow of the systems, and should be checked on the EUR S.p.A. website: unlike the rest of the park, the garden has gates and it closes. The best time is late morning on a sunny day, when the light comes in from the east and passes through the jets, creating the rainbow on the intermediate pools. In the late afternoon the wall goes into shadow and the garden loses quite a lot.

Something nobody tells you about Laghetto dell’Eur

Along the northern edge of the park, on Viale America, there is an enormous building that nobody will ever point out to you and that almost no guide mentions: the aquarium. It is called Mediterraneum, work began in 2008 under EUR S.p.A., the surface area is about 14,000 square meters, the opening was scheduled for June 2012 and was postponed because of technical problems. To date the structure is not open to the public. An aquarium of 14,000 square meters on the edge of a city park, idle for more than a decade.

What makes the story instructive is that the aquarium is not a 2008 idea. An aquarium was planned in the original project for the park, the one from the 1930s signed by De Vico and Piacentini. The district was supposed to have its great building dedicated to water and marine life, consistent with the artificial lake and with the Mediterranean theme of the exposition. That idea was taken up again 70 years later with a completely different project, and it ran aground again. The Palazzo dell’Acqua e della Luce was never built in the 1940s. The Mediterraneum did not open in the 2010s. Between the two failures to build there are 80 years and the same stubbornness.

There is a second piece of information that you only find out by walking and that nobody writes down: the park has no main entrance. There is no monumental gate, no ticket office, no information point. You enter through about 10 different openings, some of which are simple gaps in the hedge along Viale America or unmarked staircases coming down from Viale Umberto Tupini. This explains why very many Romans who have worked in EUR for years only know the stretch of shore closest to their office and don't realize that the full loop closes. If you come for the first time, enter from Viale America at the level of the metro and keep the water on your right: the route closes by itself and there is no way to get it wrong.

The Japanese cherry trees and the Passeggiata del Giappone

The pedestrian and bicycle road that runs through the park along the shore is called the Passeggiata del Giappone. The name is not a generic nod to exoticism: it records a precise diplomatic fact. In July 1959 the then Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, on an official visit to Italy, donated to Rome on behalf of his government 2,500 sakura, Japanese flowering cherry trees of the species prunus serrulata. Many of those trees were planted right here, along the shore of the lake. The layout of the promenade bears the signature of Raffaele De Vico, who conceived it as a connecting ring between the different parts of the garden.

The 1959 Japanese gift

2,500 trees is a gift of political proportions, not ornamental ones. In 1959 Japan was emerging from postwar reconstruction and was rebuilding its network of international relations. The donation of sakura was and remains the quintessential Japanese diplomatic instrument, the same one used in Washington in 1912. That Rome entered that circuit in the year before the Olympics is no coincidence: the city was getting ready to host the world, and Japan was getting ready to do the same in turn, four years later, with the Tokyo Games of 1964.

Hanami at Laghetto dell’Eur

For some years now Rome too has celebrated hanami, the Japanese custom of admiring flowers. It takes place during the sakura blossom season, between mid-March and early April, and consists of strolling under the trees and often of eating a meal in the shade of the branches. There is no shortage of people who show up in a kimono. The phenomenon has grown a lot and on peak-bloom weekends the Passeggiata del Giappone is walked by a crowd that has nothing to envy of the one on the streets of the center.

When the cherry trees bloom at Laghetto dell’Eur

The useful window is narrow and runs from mid-March to early April, with variations of about 10 days depending on the winter just past. Full bloom lasts a very short time, roughly a week, and a thunderstorm ends it in one night. The practical advice: don't plan the visit a month ahead for a fixed date. Keep an eye on how the March temperatures are going and decide three or four days in advance. If you arrive the wrong week you find bare branches and there is nothing to be done.

How to behave under the sakura

Two rules that matter and that are cheerfully ignored. The first: the branches of flowering cherry trees are fragile and you don't pull them down to take a picture of yourself under the petals. Every spring dozens of them snap. The second: you take the picnic away with you, napkins and caps included. The park doesn't have a number of bins comparable to the crowds of the bloom days, and on the Monday after the hanami Sunday the shore is a dump. These are 2,500 trees donated by a foreign head of government: they deserve a minimum of decorum.

My advice for visiting Laghetto dell’Eur

The advice is one, and it is worth more than anything else I will write below: come to Laghetto dell’Eur early in the morning, between 7:30 and 9:00, and start from the waterfalls side. There are three reasons and they are all concrete.

The first concerns the light. The basin runs roughly northwest to southeast, and in the early hours the low sun lights up the opposite shore and leaves in shadow the one you are walking on: this is the condition in which the reflection of the Palazzo dello Sport on the water is sharpest and the surface is stillest, because the wind usually picks up after 10:00. At noon the same view is flat and gives you nothing back.

The second concerns people. After 10:00 the park fills up with runners, strollers, school groups headed to the Palazzo dello Sport and, on concert days, lines that already form by mid-morning. Before 9:00 the place belongs to those who live and work there, and you walk without dodging anyone.

The third concerns the way you walk it. Do the full loop, counterclockwise, entering from Via Cristoforo Colombo side. Go up first to the square of the Palazzo dello Sport to look at the lake from above, go down into the Giardino delle Cascate, take the Passeggiata del Giappone along the shore, and close the ring on the ENI side. It is just under two kilometers and an hour and a half if you stop to look. Done the other way around the route works much less well, because the final climb arrives when your legs no longer feel like it and you lose the view from above.

Frequently asked questions about Laghetto dell’Eur

Is Laghetto dell’Eur natural or artificial?

Laghetto dell’Eur is artificial: the basin was built in the floor of a preexisting depression between the two carriageways of today's Via Cristoforo Colombo, and was closed and filled in 1955 as part of the works for the 1960 Rome Olympics.

How much does it cost to enter Laghetto dell’Eur?

Entering Laghetto dell’Eur costs nothing, because the Parco Centrale del Lago is a public park with free admission and no ticket office. The only area with gates and hours is the Giardino delle Cascate, which is free all the same.

What can you do at Laghetto dell’Eur?

At Laghetto dell’Eur you can stroll along the Passeggiata del Giappone, and on the basin there are rowing and canoe clubs that are based at the Piscina delle Rose and use the adjacent stretch of water. It is the oldest and most characteristic sporting activity of the park.

Is Laghetto dell’Eur suitable for children?

Laghetto dell’Eur is one of the Roman parks that works best with small children: the paths are wide and almost all flat, the stroller rolls along without problems and there are no road crossings along the loop. The shores, however, are not protected, so you need to stay attentive near the water.

Is Laghetto dell’Eur wheelchair accessible?

Laghetto dell’Eur is largely accessible: the main avenues and the Passeggiata del Giappone have a compact surface and moderate gradients, and the circuit of the basin can be done in a wheelchair with the help of an accompanying person. The connection between the shore and the square of the Palazzo dello Sport, however, overcomes a significant difference in level with staircases.

When is the best time to visit Laghetto dell’Eur?

Spring is the queen season for Laghetto dell’Eur, especially between mid-March and early April, when the Japanese cherry trees bloom along the Passeggiata del Giappone. April and May are still excellent even without the blossom, while summer is not the best time because the flow of the waterfalls drops and the water turns cloudy.

Where do the Japanese cherry trees of Laghetto dell’Eur come from?

The Japanese cherry trees of Laghetto dell’Eur were donated to Rome in July 1959 by the then Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, on an official visit to Italy, on behalf of his government: 2,500 sakura of the species prunus serrulata, from which the Passeggiata del Giappone takes its name.

How do you get to Laghetto dell’Eur?

Laghetto dell’Eur is located in the depression between the two carriageways of Via Cristoforo Colombo, in EUR, and is served by the metro with the stations EUR Marconi and EUR Fermi, which entered service on February 9, 1955, less than 200 meters from each other along the edge of the basin.

Something nobody says: Laghetto dell’Eur is one of the very few places in Rome where you can take in, in a single walk with no tickets and no lines, the Rationalism of the 1930s, the engineering of the 1960s and contemporary architecture. Those who organize thematic itineraries or professional accompaniment for groups know this well, and anyone who wants to build a serious guided visit around it can turn to licensed professionals such as those at TourLeaderPro in Rome.

The buildings reflected in Laghetto dell’Eur

The basin is closed off on its two short sides by two large office headquarters and dominated, on the side toward the sea, by the hill of the Palazzo dello Sport. This built frame is as much a part of the landscape as the water, and walking along the shore means reading 60 years of Italian architecture in sequence.

The Palazzo dello Sport above Laghetto dell’Eur

At the top of the hill, along the visual axis of Via Cristoforo Colombo, stands the Palazzo dello Sport, known to Romans as PalaEur or PalaSport. It was designed by Marcello Piacentini for the architectural part and Pier Luigi Nervi for the structural part, between 1958 and 1960, and was inaugurated on June 3, 1960. It holds about 12,000 seats on two tiers of stands. The fact that leaves open-mouthed anyone hearing it for the first time concerns the dome: a spherical concrete shell almost 100 meters across at its widest, nine centimeters thick. Nine. Supported by inclined pillars and closed by a continuous glass wall that gives it the cylindrical look recognizable from afar.

At the 1960 Olympics the basketball and boxing competitions were held there. Since then the building has become the largest concert hall in the city, and the names that have passed through it would fill a phone book. Anyone looking at the lake from the square in front has the best overall view of the district.

The waterfalls at the foot of the Palazzo dello Sport

The perspective view along the axis of Via Cristoforo Colombo, with your back to the city, shows the Palazzo dello Sport towering over a waterfall that feeds the lake and a series of smaller side fountains and waterfalls. These works underwent a first renovation in 2003 and a second, deeper intervention at the end of that decade. Besides their scenic role, their function is twofold: to guarantee the supply of oxygen to the ecosystem of the basin and, in connection with the district's water system, to ensure the feeding of the fire-fighting systems of the nearby buildings and the irrigation of the park.

The Piscina delle Rose on the north front of Laghetto dell’Eur

On the northwest front of the basin, at the end of Viale America, stands the Piscina delle Rose, designed in 1958 and completed in 1960 by the architect Sergio Buonamico with the engineers Guido Gigli and Giorgio Biuso. The name of Biuso comes back: he is the same man who had signed the hydraulic part of the lake. The main pool measures 50 meters by 25, in reinforced concrete, and the facility sits about eight meters below street level. In 1960 it hosted the training of the Olympic swimmers and the matches of the preliminary rounds of the water polo tournament. After the modernization works of 2007 it also includes a covered pool, a gym and a restaurant, and it hosts the rowing and canoe clubs that use the adjacent lake.

The ENI tower and the UniCredit building

The two short sides of the basin are bounded on the southeast by the headquarters building of ENI, built between 1959 and 1962, and on the northwest, toward Viale Umberto Tupini, by the building of the UniCredit bank, formerly the headquarters of the Banco di Roma. They are two buildings that tell the story of the Italy of the economic miracle better than many museums: the first is the seat of a state company that in those years was redrawing national energy policy, the second the nerve center of one of the city's historic banks. Their reflection on the water, on still days, doubles the perceived height and closes the basin like two theater wings.

Fuksas's Nuvola, a stone's throw from Laghetto dell’Eur

A little higher up, in the block between Via Cristoforo Colombo, Viale Europa, Viale Shakespeare and Viale Asia, stands the new convention center designed by Massimiliano Fuksas and universally called La Nuvola. The international competition dates to 1998, and Fuksas's project was declared the winner on February 16, 2000 by a jury chaired by Norman Foster. The first stone was laid on December 11, 2007, work started in February 2008 and the inauguration took place on October 29, 2016. The complex covers about 55,000 square meters, the auditorium suspended inside the glass case has 1,850 seats on 1,900 square meters, and the hotel next to it, called La Lama, has 441 rooms on 17 floors for a height of 56 meters. The cost, estimated at 275 million euros and contracted at 272, came to 467 million.

Adalberto Libera's Palazzo dei Congressi

A few hundred meters from the park, on Viale della Civiltà del Lavoro, stands the Palazzo dei Congressi, designed by Adalberto Libera for the 1942 Exposition. 30,000 square meters in total, a base of 75 meters by 135 and 15 meters high, the Salone della Cultura of 45 meters per side and 27 in height. The Auditorium Capitalis has 792 seats. The first floor reaches 26 meeting rooms. The terraces measure 1,085 square meters at the front and 774 at the back, where a marble amphitheater of 500 seats opens. Artists such as Achille Funi and Gino Severini worked inside. Between the Palazzo dei Congressi and La Nuvola, a few hundred meters apart, run 74 years: it is the cheapest architecture lesson Rome offers.

The Mediterraneum, the aquarium of Laghetto dell’Eur

Along the northern edge of the lake, the bulk of the Mediterraneum takes up about 14,000 square meters. Work began in 2008 under EUR S.p.A., the opening was expected for June 2012 and was postponed. To date the facility is not open to the public. In fact it is the largest unused building in the district.

Another well-known fact, yet not often cited

Everyone knows the EUR lake is artificial. Almost nobody asks why it was dug right there, and the answer changes the way you look at it. The basin does not sit on top of the ground: it occupies the floor of a preexisting valley, the depression that separated the two branches of Via Imperiale at the point where the road split as it went down toward the coast. The E42 planners did not invent a landscape, they took a natural dip and made it waterproof and regular. The elongated shape, at right angles to the road axis, is a design choice, but the elevation is a geological given.

Everything else follows from this. It follows that the lake has always been, and still is, the collection point for the waters of that sector of the district. Its technical function as a fire-fighting reserve and irrigation tank follows. It follows that the waterfalls are not an aesthetic whim but a necessary oxygenation system, because a reservoir two meters deep with no water movement in a Roman summer becomes unusable within a few weeks. And, finally, there follows the choice to connect the hydraulic circuit of the park to the district system that is headed by the large elevated tank Romans know as the Fungo.

There is a practical consequence for the visitor. In the months of intense heat, when the flow of the waterfalls is reduced to contain consumption, the surface of the lake changes look, covers itself with green algae in the most sheltered stretches and the color shifts. It is not decay, it is hydraulics. Whoever arrives in August and finds the water opaque is seeing a system working at minimum, not an abandoned park. If you want the lake like a mirror, you have to come between October and May.

What you do at Laghetto dell’Eur

The park is not an open-air museum to cross in silence. It is a sports and recreational facility used every day by thousands of people, and it is worth knowing what you can do there before you arrive.

Canoeing, kayaking and rowing on Laghetto dell’Eur

On the basin there are rowing and canoe clubs that are based at the Piscina delle Rose and use the adjacent stretch of water. It is the oldest and most continuous sporting use of the lake: one kilometer of still water, with no current and no traffic, is an ideal gym for rowers. In the early hours of the morning and in the late afternoon you see doubles and singles go by, and the sound of the blades on the water is the only one that covers the traffic noise of Via Cristoforo Colombo. To sign up or to try it you need to contact the clubs directly: terms, fees and time slots change and must be checked with them.

Pedal boats and boats on Laghetto dell’Eur

The rental of pleasure boats on the lake is a service that has changed operator and periods of operation several times over the years, generally concentrated in the good season. Before organizing an afternoon on a pedal boat with the kids it is worth checking that the service is running, because it is not guaranteed all year. What is certain, instead, is the ban on entering the water: no swimming, no diving, no private craft.

Running and cycling around Laghetto dell’Eur

The circuit of the basin is one of the most popular running loops in southern Rome. Just under two kilometers per loop, mixed surface of asphalt and packed earth, flat except for the ramp toward the Palazzo dello Sport. Those training for distance do four or five laps. Those running to stay fit do two and finish with the climb. For bicycles, the Passeggiata del Giappone is shared with pedestrians, so you go slowly: on spring weekends it is in fact impassable at a sustained pace.

A warning about dogs: the park is very popular with dog walkers and the leash rules apply here as everywhere. The shore has no continuous barriers and an off-leash dog chasing the ducks ends up in the water more easily than you would imagine.

Picnics and rest on the shores of Laghetto dell’Eur

The lawn along the southern shore is the best place to sit, because it gets sun until late and has a strip of trees behind it. The vegetation of the park is Mediterranean with ornamental additions: holm oaks, poplars, magnolias, olive trees and maples, as well as, naturally, the Japanese cherry trees. On windy days the west-facing side gets gusts that are no joke, and the blankets fly.

The right photo to take at Laghetto dell’Eur

The photograph that defines this place is only one and it has a precise position: stand on the eastern shore of the basin, at the level of the middle of the Passeggiata del Giappone, with your back to the ENI building, and frame the Palazzo dello Sport closing the perspective above the waterfall. That is the view the EUR designers had in mind when they conceived the hollow as a scenic backdrop along the axis of Via Imperiale. It is not a tourist photo: it is the viewpoint around which the district was built.

The ideal conditions are three and all must be met. First: still water, so before 9:30 in the morning or in the last half hour before sunset, because with wind the reflection is lost and the photograph becomes banal. Second: a sky not completely clear, because a thin veil of cloud gives volume back to Nervi's dome, which with the sun directly overhead looks flat. Third: waterfalls running, a condition that is not always met and that you can only verify by looking.

The other framings that work at Laghetto dell’Eur

From the square of the Palazzo dello Sport you get the overhead view of the basin, with the lake stretching toward the city and the two office towers making the frame. It is the best photograph for understanding the scale of the park, and it is the one I recommend as your second image.

Inside the Giardino delle Cascate, on the other hand, it is best to forget the wide angle. The intermediate pools and the drops of water come out well with a medium focal length, getting very close and working on the detail of the wet rock: the garden as a whole is hard to render and almost always comes out confused.

In spring the photograph of the cherry trees works backlit, with the low sun behind the branches and the water in the background. Avoid the pose under a branch bent by hand: it ruins the tree and it comes out badly.

One last piece of contrarian advice. The most interesting photograph of Laghetto dell'Eur is not the summer sunrise, it's a January morning with low fog. It happens a few times a year, the vapor rests on the water and the Rationalist buildings emerge with no base. Locals know it, and on those days there are more cameras than joggers on the shore.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

The first event, in chronological order, is the birth of the project itself. In 1937, with the 1942 Universal Exposition already announced, the area between the two carriageways of Via Imperiale is designated as a park. That is the act that founded Laghetto dell'Eur, two years before the executive working group is formed and six years before everything stops.

The second is from 1939, when the State Forestry Corps receives the assignment of afforesting the area and the executive working group is set up under the consultancy of Raffaele De Vico. At that point the neighborhood is a gigantic construction site, the largest in Europe, and the idea that within three years it would host millions of visitors is still credible.

The third event is an interruption: 1943. Italy's entry into the war and the fall of Fascism stop the work. The neighborhood is left unfinished, some buildings without roofs, and in the months of the German occupation and then the arrival of the Allies the area is used for purposes that have nothing to do with the universal exposition. The basin of the lake, in those years, is bare ground.

The fourth is 1955, and it counts double. It's the year the basin is completed, and on February 9 of the same year the first stretch of the Rome metro enters service, with Viale America stations. Within a few months the park has water and the neighborhood has a link to the center: EUR stops being a project and becomes a piece of the city.

The fifth is 1960. On June 3 the Palazzo dello Sport is inaugurated on the hill overlooking the lake. A few weeks later, at the end of August, the Games of the XVII Olympiad begin. On the shores of Laghetto dell'Eur, in those weeks, the basketball and boxing competitions at the Palazzo dello Sport, the swimmers' training and the water polo preliminaries at the Piscina delle Rose are concentrated. For two weeks this park is one of the sports centers of the world.

The sixth is June 29, 1961, the inauguration date of the Giardino delle Cascate: 42,000 square meters of water garden handed over to the city on a design by De Vico. It is the completion of the landscape plan started 24 years earlier, and the last great public work of a designer who would die eight years later.

The seventh is recent and has the flavor of a restitution: in 2017 the lower part of the Giardino delle Cascate became accessible again after more than 55 years of closure. A whole generation of Romans crossed the park without being able to go down into the garden that made it famous.

Among these, a minor but significant event: the renaming of the station from EUR Marconi to EUR Palasport. A place name giving way to a piece of architecture built half a century after the square it referred to.

Who Passed Through Laghetto dell'Eur

The people who left a mark on this piece of the city are not emperors or popes, and that needs to be said right away: Laghetto dell'Eur is a 20th-century place, and its protagonists are architects, engineers, heads of government and film directors.

The first name is Raffaele De Vico (Penne, April 18, 1881, Rome, August 15, 1969). General consultant for the parks and gardens of E42 from 1939 on Piacentini's recommendation, he returns to work on this area in the postwar period and works on the EUR parks between 1955 and 1961. Before arriving here he had designed the Remembrance Park at Villa Glori, the Colle Oppio Park and the Orange Garden on the Aventine: anyone walking along the lake is walking inside the late work of the most important garden architect Rome had in the 20th century.

The second is Marcello Piacentini, chairman of the commission that judged the EUR projects, originator of the basin according to the information sheet of the body that manages the park and co-author, with Pier Luigi Nervi, of the Palazzo dello Sport between 1958 and 1960. Piacentini is the director of the whole neighborhood, and the lake is perhaps his most successful urban-planning invention, because it is the only element of the plan that still works exactly as it was conceived.

The third is Pier Luigi Nervi, who here signs one of his most famous domes: a spherical concrete shell almost 100 meters wide and nine centimeters thick, on inclined pillars. Nervi in Rome also worked on the Palazzetto dello Sport on Viale Tiziano and the Flaminio Stadium, all Olympic construction projects, but it is at the PalaEur that his research on structural lightness reaches its largest scale.

The fourth is the engineer Giorgio Biuso, director of the architecture and urban planning services of the Ente EUR, responsible for the hydraulic and structural part of the basin in the postwar period and, with Sergio Buonamico and Guido Gigli, among the designers of the Piscina delle Rose. He is the least known name on this list and the one who made the lake physically possible.

The fifth is Adalberto Libera, author of the Palazzo dei Congressi a few hundred meters away, whose Salone della Cultura, 45 meters per side, remains the most admired piece of Italian Rationalism in the neighborhood.

The sixth is Nobusuke Kishi, prime minister of Japan, who in July 1959, on an official visit to Italy, gave Rome on behalf of his government 2,500 Japanese flowering cherry trees. Many of those trees are still here, and the road that runs through the park bears the name of his country.

The seventh is Massimiliano Fuksas, who built a few hundred meters from the lake the convention center inaugurated on October 29, 2016, and his project was chosen in 2000 by an international jury chaired by Norman Foster: two names of worldwide contemporary architecture tied to this corner of Rome.

The eighth is not an architect but a film director. Michelangelo Antonioni shot L'eclisse at EUR, released in 1962 and awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 15th Cannes Film Festival, ex aequo with Robert Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc. Antonioni used the cold geometries of the neighborhood as a measure of the incommunicability of his characters, and in the final 10 minutes of the film the architecture stays on screen alone, without actors. It's the most famous portrait that cinema has made of this piece of Rome, and anyone who knows the film recognizes, while walking, the corners Antonioni chose.

I add a collective name, which counts as much as the others: the thousands of athletes who passed through here in August 1960. Basketball players and boxers at the Palazzo dello Sport, swimmers and water polo players at the Piscina delle Rose. For two weeks the perimeter of Laghetto dell’Eur was one of the most watched places in the world.

Laghetto dell’Eur with kids

It's one of the Roman parks that work best with small children. The reasons are practical: the paths are wide and almost all flat, the stroller glides, there are no road crossings along the loop and the ducks on the basin guarantee 20 minutes of attention for any child under six.

What to keep in mind

The banks aren't protected along the whole perimeter. There are stretches with a railing and stretches where the lawn ends directly in the water, which there is already a couple of meters deep. With children who run, this should be kept in mind, especially on the side of the Passeggiata del Giappone.

Bread for the ducks should be avoided: it's bad for the animals and fuels the proliferation of gulls, which at the lake are plentiful and not shy. If you want a well-done animal-themed activity, the Bioparco di Roma is on the other side of the city but is designed for exactly that.

Alternatives in the neighborhood for a family day

If the loop of the lake runs out sooner than expected, the neighborhood offers other possibilities within walking distance or one metro stop away: the EUR Social Park for the youngest, and the museums of the Civiltà complex, where the Museo Pigorini remains one of the most important prehistoric and ethnographic collections in Europe.

Accessibility of Laghetto dell’Eur

The park is largely accessible: the main avenues and the Passeggiata del Giappone have a compact surface and moderate slopes, and the circuit of the basin can be done in a wheelchair with the help of another person. There are two critical points. The first is the connection between the bank and the forecourt of the Palazzo dello Sport, which overcomes a significant change in elevation and in some stretches does so with staircases. The second is the Giardino delle Cascate, which by its nature is built on changes of level and stone paths: some parts cannot be navigated with a wheelchair.

The two Line B metro stations on Viale America don't all have the same level of equipment for barrier-free access, and the elevator situation changes over time. If you travel in a wheelchair, check ahead with the public transport service before choosing the stop.

When to Go to Laghetto dell'Eur

Spring

It's the queen of the seasons, for one reason only: the cherry trees. Between mid-March and early April the Passeggiata del Giappone is the most beautiful place in southern Rome and one of the most crowded. April and May remain excellent even without the blossoms, with the lawn still green and the right temperatures for the full loop.

Summer

The lake in August is not at its best: the flow of the waterfalls drops, the water clouds over in the still stretches and the exposed banks don't have enough shade. Early morning and late evening remain good, when the park fills with people looking for relief. The Roman summer brings the neighborhood many outdoor festivals, from Ninfeo Village to Fiesta: they are held in the nearby parks, not on the shores of the lake, but the audience getting off the metro is the same.

Autumn

It's the season I recommend to anyone who wants to take photos. Still water, low light, maple and poplar foliage, a park half empty on weekdays. Between the end of October and mid-November Laghetto dell'Eur is at its best with the least crowding.

Winter

Short days and a stiff wind along the western bank, but also the only low-fog mornings of the year, which are worth an alarm at dawn on their own. In winter the Giardino delle Cascate reduces its opening hours: it's best to check them beforehand.

What to See Around Laghetto dell'Eur

Within a quarter of an hour on foot, the neighborhood offers more than its reputation as an office district would suggest. The Museum of Civilizations brings together in Piazza Guglielmo Marconi prehistoric, ethnographic and folk art collections of national importance. A little further, toward Garbatella, the Museo della Via Ostiense tells the story of the road that connected Rome to the river port. To the south, beyond Viale Beethoven, you reach on a walk the Tre Fontane Abbey, a monastic complex that seems 100 kilometers away from Rationalism and is instead a couple of bus stops away.

Anyone with a whole day who wants to stretch toward the sea will find the terminus of the line to the coast a few steps away, and in half an hour is at Ostia Antica, which remains the archaeological visit with the best ratio between breadth and crowding in the whole Roman area. In the opposite direction, the Aqueducts Park and the Appian Way Park complete the picture of the large green spaces of the southern quadrant.

Eating and Drinking near Laghetto dell'Eur

Inside the park the offer is limited to kiosks whose opening depends on the season. The surrounding neighborhood, Viale Europa and the side streets off Viale America, has a density of bars and restaurants designed for office workers: that means good breakfast and good lunch on weekdays, many shutters down on Sunday and in the month of August. If you plan a Sunday lunch after the walk, check ahead, because the risk of finding it closed is real.

Quick Questions about Laghetto dell'Eur

How Much Does It Cost to Enter Laghetto dell'Eur

Nothing. Parco Centrale del Lago is a public park with free admission, with no ticket office. The only area with gates and hours is the Giardino delle Cascate, which is still free.

Is Laghetto dell'Eur Natural or Artificial

Artificial. The basin was built in the bottom of a preexisting depression between the two carriageways of today's Via Cristoforo Colombo and completed in 1955. It holds 220,000 cubic meters of water.

How Big Is Laghetto dell'Eur

The park measures 165,130 square meters, the water surface 85,120. The lake is about one kilometer long and 60 to 130 meters wide.

How Deep Is Laghetto dell'Eur

Between two and four meters, with variations along the basin.

How Long Does It Take to Walk around Laghetto dell'Eur

The full circuit at a normal pace takes between 40 and 50 minutes. With stops and a detour into the Giardino delle Cascate you easily reach an hour and a half.

How Do You Get to Laghetto dell'Eur by Metro

Take Line B, stops EUR Palasport or EUR Fermi, both on Viale America and less than 200 meters from each other.

Is Laghetto dell'Eur Open at Night

The park has no continuous fence or closing hours and can be crossed in the evening too, but the lighting is concentrated on the main avenues and the banks stay dark. The Giardino delle Cascate, on the other hand, closes.

Can You Swim in Laghetto dell'Eur

No. Swimming is prohibited and the water is not meant for that use. In many stretches the banks are steep and without handholds.

Can You Rent Pedal Boats or Boats at Laghetto dell'Eur

The rental service on the lake has been active in periods and with different operators, generally in the warm season. It's not guaranteed all year and it's best to verify it before planning the afternoon.

Can You Canoe on Laghetto dell'Eur

Yes, through the rowing and canoe clubs based at the Piscina delle Rose that use the adjacent stretch of water. Individual access with your own craft is not allowed.

Can You Ride a Bike at Laghetto dell'Eur

Yes. The Passeggiata del Giappone is open to pedestrians and bicycles. On spring weekends, sharing the space with pedestrians means going at walking pace.

Can You Run around Laghetto dell'Eur

It's one of the most used running circuits in southern Rome: just under two kilometers per loop, almost all flat, with the only climb toward the Palazzo dello Sport.

When Do the Cherry Trees Bloom at Laghetto dell'Eur

Between mid-March and early April, with a spread of about 10 days depending on the winter. Full bloom lasts about a week.

Why Are There Japanese Cherry Trees at Laghetto dell'Eur

Because in July 1959 the Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, on an official visit to Italy, donated 2,500 sakura to Rome on behalf of his government. Many were planted in the park, and the road that runs through it is called Passeggiata del Giappone.

What Is the Giardino delle Cascate

It's the monumental part of the park, about 42,000 square meters designed by Raffaele De Vico and inaugurated on June 29, 1961, with a system of waterfalls, fountains, basins and green areas. The lower part became accessible again in 2017 after more than 55 years of closure.

Does the Giardino delle Cascate Have Opening Hours

Yes, and they change with the season: check them on the EUR S.p.A. website before your visit. Admission is free.

Is Laghetto dell'Eur Wheelchair Accessible

The main avenues and the walk along the bank, yes, with a compact surface and moderate slopes. The connection with the forecourt of the Palazzo dello Sport and some parts of the Giardino delle Cascate have staircases and changes of level.

Is Laghetto dell'Eur Good for Children

Very much, thanks to the width of the paths and the absence of road crossings along the loop. Watch out for the unprotected banks, where the lawn ends directly in the water.

Can You Bring Dogs to Laghetto dell'Eur

Yes, with the ordinary rules on leashes and picking up waste. Given the shape of the banks, letting a dog off the leash to chase water birds is a bad deal.

Are There Public Restrooms at Laghetto dell'Eur

Facilities inside the park are limited and depend on the kiosks being open. The practical advice is to take care of it at the bars on Viale America before starting the loop.

What Is the Difference between Laghetto dell'Eur and Parco Centrale del Lago

None, they are the same thing. Parco Centrale del Lago is the official name used by the body that manages it, Laghetto dell'Eur is the name Romans call it by.

Who Manages Laghetto dell'Eur

EUR S.p.A., the company that administers the real estate and green areas of the neighborhood.

Why Does the EUR Lake Have Waterfalls

For two reasons together. The first is scenic, because the waterfall closes the perspective of Via Cristoforo Colombo under the Palazzo dello Sport. The second is technical: the movement of the water oxygenates the basin and prevents stagnation, and the circuit is connected to the neighborhood's water system that feeds the fire-fighting systems and irrigation.

Can You Visit the Palazzo dello Sport

It's not a monument open for visits: it's a sports venue and a concert hall, and you enter it for events. From the outside, though, the forecourt offers the best view of the lake.

Is the EUR Aquarium Open

No. The Mediterraneum, about 14,000 square meters on the northern edge of the lake, has been under construction since 2008 and has never been open to the public.

Are There Events at Laghetto dell'Eur in Summer

Every summer the neighborhood hosts several outdoor festivals, held in the nearby parks and spaces more than on the shores of the basin. Programs and dates change from year to year and should be checked on the calendar of current events.

Is It Worth Coming to Laghetto dell'Eur If You Have Little Time in Rome

If you have two days and have never seen the historic center, no. If you're coming back to Rome for the second or third time and want to understand how the 20th-century city is built, yes, and I recommend combining it with a visit to the Rationalist neighborhood. If you're planning your itinerary in English, you'll find a general overview in the guide Best Things to Do in Rome and, for free things, in the list Rome Free Things to Do.

Can You Visit Laghetto dell'Eur with a Guide

Yes, and for groups it makes sense: without someone to tell the story of the project, the park risks looking like just a nice place to run. Professional accompaniment for groups and companies is the job of organizations like TourLeaderPro.

How Far Is Laghetto dell'Eur from the Center of Rome

About 20 minutes by metro from Termini on Line B, with no transfers.

The Verdict on Laghetto dell'Eur

In our view, it's the most underrated place in Rome. Not because it's beautiful in the conventional sense, it isn't: it's a rectangular basin in the middle of office buildings. It's that here you can see, within the space of two kilometers, everything 20th-century Italy knew and didn't know how to do. A universal exposition designed and never held. A lake dug for one purpose and ended up serving another. A dome of nine centimeters of concrete that holds up 100 meters of span. An aquarium of 14,000 square meters closed for more than 10 years. 2,500 cherry trees arrived from Tokyo that every March fill with people a promenade designed by an architect from Abruzzo born in 1881.

To finish, it's best to come on an October morning, early, with a coffee drunk standing at Viale America and no hurry. Do the loop in the right direction, go up to the forecourt, go down into the waterfalls. If after an hour and a half you aren't convinced, Laghetto dell'Eur isn't for you. If instead it got inside you, go back in March when the sakura bloom: it's another city.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

Planning a trip to Rome? The English-language guides to visiting the city are on ItalyPlanner.com.