The Facchino Drinking Fountain

One of the fountains that I have used almost every day of class to fill my water bottle is the Fontanella del Facchino. The statue is of a chubby man holding onto a wine barrel. The Barrel has a gash in it and that is where the water flows out of. According to the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide,  the statue is one of Rome's talking statues like that of the Pasquino. The fountain was created around 1590 and was moved from the Corso, to where it is located now along the wall of Banco Di Roma. The statue most likely represents a member of the Universita Degli Acquaroli, which was a fraternity of water carriers. It is also thought that the statue could represent Martin Luther, or the porter Abbondio Rizzio, who died carrying a barrel. I cannot count the number of times I've visited this statue to get a drink. It is conveniently located about 20 feet from the door to our classroom, so every break we get my fellow classmates and I all run to fill up. I've nicknamed him the Buddha because of his round figure and wise face. A couple of my friends have actually started calling him that too, so when thirsty, refer to Buddha!

The Pineapple Fountain

Near the Capitol Hill along Piazza Venezia across the street from the Victor Emmanuel Monument, there is a very unique watering trough. Shaped like a pineapple with two spickets so far this is my favorite watering hole. Not only does it look awesome, for some reason the water that comes out of this statue is ice cold. I've drank out of a number of watering holes, and every single one has a different temperature of water. I'm not positive but a lot of them have different tasting water as well, the taste might have something to do with the temperature I can't be completely sure. I find it very interesting how there are so many and they are all very different. It is very remarkable that many of these troughs are fed by the same aqueduct system that was used thousands of years ago. As the days mount that i've lived in this city, I've really taken note of how remarkable it is that the abundance of these watering troughs are fed by water from mountains that are up to 50 miles away.  I definitely think that this particular fountain has the most character out of all the ones i've seen. As you can see by the picture, the pineapple fountain isn't exactly the cleanest of all the fountains i've seen, but I can definitely say that the water was delicious!