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As popular wisdom would have it, real estate agents believe in three things - location, location and location - true when you are choosing your lifetime home, but equally true when you are choosing your vacation accommodation! The Navona Garden Suites are within easy walking distance of Rome's celebrated sights - the Pantheon with its wonderfully engineered dome, the Trevi Fountain of Dolce Vita fame, St Peter's Basilica just across the river and the splendid Piazza Navona, dominated by Bernini's baroque masterpiece , the central Fountain of the Four Rivers. Not to be missed is the Church of St. Ivo, baroque masterpiece of another famous architect, Bernini's rival, Borromini. The uniquely shaped dome, spiralling skywards represents a bee's sting and was inspired by the heraldic bee of the Barberini popes.
The Parione district where the Navona Garden Suites are located attracts the returning Roman visitor and the first time traveler alike, not only for its history, its abundance of traditional and modern eateries, shops, market stalls and late night hot spots, but for its neighbourhood atmosphere, a place where 'real Romans' still live and work in its ancient buildings and traditional shops. Links with crafts past and present are to be found in the street names - Via dei Leutari - the street of the lute makers, Via dei Librai, the bookbinders, dei Chiavari, the locksmiths and many, many more.
The district has a dark past too. The fiery tempered Renaissance painter Caravaggio, whose work can be seen in the nearby churches of San Luigi dei Francesi and Sant' Agostino, roamed these streets looking for trouble - and finding it - while life in the Campo de' Fiori, dictated by the rhythms of the flower, fruit and vegetable market by day and the hip crowd by night, goes on in the shadow of the grim statue of the hooded heretic, Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake on this very spot in 1600.
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