La Dolce Vita: Fellini's Rome

La Dolce Vita opens with a helicopter carrying a statue of Christ over an ancient Roman aqueduct and into the city. Marcello's news helicopter follows it, and he shrugs and keeps following the statue to Saint Peter's Square. Later he suggests a tour of St Peter's for the film star Sylvia, though the dome and its staircase were built as a set. The real dome still dominates the skyline of Rome, and it is the best landmark for starting this route.

Visitor guidance: The square and basilica are public landmarks; the film's dome staircase was a studio set, so the real climb will differ.

That evening the infatuated Marcello dances with the film star Sylvia among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. Her natural sensuality sets off raucous partying, while her bored fiancé Robert draws caricatures and reads a newspaper. The baths were inaugurated in AD 216, so Fellini's revellers danced in a complex more than seventeen centuries old. Today the baths are a tourist attraction, and the ruins can be visited.

Visitor guidance: A tourist attraction today.

Later that night Marcello and Sylvia wade into the Trevi Fountain. Dawn arrives at the very moment Sylvia playfully "anoints" Marcello's head with fountain water. The scene was shot over a week in winter. The fountain itself, designed by Nicola Salvi and completed by Giuseppe Pannini in 1762, stands in the Trevi district and is the largest Baroque fountain in the world, as well as one of the most famous.

Visitor guidance: The fountain is a public landmark in the Trevi district.

Marcello meets his father, visiting Rome, on the Via Veneto. They go to the Cha-Cha Club, where Marcello introduces him to Fanny, a dancer. Later Fanny comes out upset because his father has become ill; weakened, he takes a taxi to catch the first train to Cesena. The street was the international centre of la dolce vita, but set designer Piero Gherardi built the film's Via Veneto as one of his more than eighty sets. The real street is open to walk.

Visitor guidance: The real street is open to walk; the film's version was a set.

Marcello and his friends are driven to a castle owned by aristocrats at Bassano di Sutri, outside Rome. There Maddalena seats him in a vast room, closets herself in another room connected by an echo chamber, and asks him to marry her. Fellini filmed the party in the real Bassano di Sutri palace, and some of the servants, waiters and guests were played by real aristocrats. The village, a hamlet since about 1000, is now called Bassano Romano.

Location precision: The pin marks the town of Bassano Romano, not the palace itself.

After the group breaks into a Fregene beach house, they reach the shore at dawn and find a bloated, sea ray-like creature caught in the fishermen's nets. Paola, the young waitress from the seaside restaurant in Fregene, calls to Marcello from across an estuary, but their words are drowned out by the crashing waves. The last scenes were shot at Passo Oscuro, a small resort on the coast 30 kilometres from Rome.

Location precision: The story places the scene near Fregene; the pin marks Passo Oscuro, where the final scenes were filmed.