Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button below.
Doors in Roma – Part 1
After admiring the many Roman doors posted over the years by blog buddy Manja from her frequent visits to the eternal city, I knew that on my first visit to Rome I’d be in for a treat.
We arrived on an overcast afternoon but the brief intermittent showers certainly didn’t deter us from wanting to drop off our luggage and get out to explore on foot.
Looking at these images now I have to say that the even light from the overcast conditions actually made for some pretty shots.
The most impressive thing I found about Rome was how well it all works together:
The old and the new,
the modern and the ancient,
the shiny and the rundown
The variety alone is enough to keep a door lover smiling for days.
The magical thing is that each one is unique, and plain ordinary doors are a rarity except on commercial buildings.
It did make it hard to get anywhere on foot especially at first, because I was stopping so often to capture each one.
One danger that I must admit to though is that eventually even an enthusiastic door lover can get jaded.
By the second day I was finding myself shrugging an unimpressed “meh” at doors my wife was pointing out to me; doors that less than 24 hours prior I had been hopping up and down snapping shots of, like an over-excited kid on a sugar high.
Perhaps instead of becoming jaded, I could say that thanks to Rome I was gaining experience and learning to become more selective.
All the same, however you define it, too much beauty is a wonderful problem to have.
As always, thanks so much for visiting 🙂
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Holy Rome!!! That’s a wack of impressive doors!!! That ghost door, tho….!!
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Love those doors. The fourth one looks drawers.
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I love the doors with the rounded tops, but my favorite one is the blue one. So much beauty indeed! 🙂
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I have experienced similar jaded feelings – or just a bit of being “done”
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and the selection here was outstanding and you showed so much diversity and it does work together – the heavily graffiti door was my fav – the crumbling brick – the green – and the vibe –
and then the ghost doors are freaky…
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Thank you so much. There was a lot there to fall in love 🙂
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🙂 I cannot wait to go myself someday
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Wowee!
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Funny, that’s sound like me while we were there 😉
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You posted a great selection, Norm. Rome is definitely not short of interesting doors, that’s for sure. Love the arches, too.
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Thanks Jean. Rome was an overload of doorliciousness 😀
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A lovely set Norm. I’ll resume doors after a pause to reflect..
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Thanks Sherry. There are more important things in life than blogging. Please take care of yourself. We’ll see you here whenever you’re up to it.
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👌
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Every door was a feast for my eyes. Thank you, Norm.
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Glad you enjoyed these Jennie 🙂
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Indeed I did. 🙂
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Too much beauty is indeed a good problem to have! These are all incredible, why it’s just like being at Manja’s place 😉 I love, love, love, the graffiti set with the vines. WOW.
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Yeah, a LOT like being at Manja’s place 😀
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These are great Norm, cloudy skies equals no shadows!
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Yes indeed, no shadow and even lighting does have its benefits. Thanks!
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It’s funny that you mention becoming jaded because of the amount of amazing doors. I found that same problem on my trip to Paris. We wouldn’t have made any forward movement if I’d stopped to photograph all the ones that I found interesting. I thought 116 would be my favorite, but I also really like the vibrant greenery surrounding the grafittied door. It’s like an injection of life into the worn out. I also like the element of the mail protruding on the final photo. This is a great collection Norm. 🙂
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Thanks Amy. I’m hoping that we can do Paris and a bit more of France next year. If we do I’ll have to circle back and re-read your posts from your time there.
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Wow, you found and collected a great selection of doors, Norm! I’ll bet the ones that you later “de-selected” were also worthy of a TD post, too. And, thank heaven for SD memory cards or you would have had rolls and rolls of film, not to mention the expense of processing them. I hope you had an opportunity to look up, sideways and behind you, too, for the other sights of Rome; I have only seen the Rome airport terminal and train station while passing through so this is a future destination for me someday.
Manja might want to think about going into business by doing TD Door tours in Italy; there are certainly enough door enthusiasts that would hire her.
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Thanks Gordon. Yes indeed Manja and her amore Marco are great tour guides and hosts. We were lucky enough to spend 4 full days with them in Tuscany and thanks to their local knowledge we got to see and do so many things we would have never even thought of.
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When in Rome, do as the Romans do…Not sure how that applied to your doorscursion in Rome, Norm but had to stick the phrase in. There are some beautiful doors here, but my personal preferance from a photography perspective was the one with the green vines up the top and the little plaque up above as well as the mysterious ghost door. I hadn’t noticed the high mail slot in the last photo until I’d read the comments.
BTW I went on my first ever doorscursion this week. On Tuesday, among other places, I went back to Sydney University. I was there 1988-1991 and I probably took more photos than most back in the day but I never photographed the beautiful buildings in any detail and my photographic skills are also much improved. I also went looking for doors, and even found them in unexpected places like the Grafitti Tunnel which is coming up. You can think you know a place, but there are so many nooks and crannies there.
Best wishes,
Rowena
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Thanks Rowena. Glad to hear you made it out on an official doorscursion. Be warned though, once you start noticing nice doors, it really is hard to stop 😉
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Here is my contribution:
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Thanks for joining us this week. Reminder: links go on the link-up list, not in the comments. Just look for the blue froggie button in my post and follow the simple steps. I’m sure you’ll get a lot more views that way. Cheers 🙂
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No matter where you are, you’ll find the greatest doors! Though in Rome or Montreal they maybe easier to find:) My favorites are no.116 and Chiesa Christiana for their distinct design! Hope you also got to see some of the work of the classical artists like Leonardo da Vinci, etc. And who knows maybe you even went to the Vatican city!
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We certainly saw lots of wonderful art and architecture and walked around outside the Vatican.
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Beautiful doors and wonderful contrasts! Italian doors are fabulous.
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I’m always amazed that you’re able to capture so many great pictures of doors without running into an irate homeowner! You must have nine lives!
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Thanks Jan. Well most of these are apartments or condos so it’s not likely I’d be confronted by an irate owner. It did happen to me once here in Montreal though. The lady wasn’t irate but certainly puzzled and rather insistent on knowing why I was taking pictures of her home. The conversation ended well though 🙂
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Beautiful. But the “ghost” ones are the best 🙂
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I’ve been a big fan of ghost doors for quite some time.
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Even the graffiti doors are cool in another country! The one brown door reminded me of a chocolate bar… I feel a snack break coming on.
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Thanks Tara. Yes somehow graffiti IS cool when it’s in another country 🙂
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My favourite is No. 116. Doors that want to be chests of drawers with the lovely glowing glass at the top.
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I hadn’t noticed it but now that you mention it yes, #116 could be a chest of drawers.
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The wooden doors may be the prettiest, but I love how you interjected several plain doors. There is beauty in their simplicity and age. Thanks!
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Thanks for noticing that. Yes sometimes simple can be beautiful too 🙂
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I love those doors with a big bit on one side and a little bit on the other. A wonderful selection. I like the way you turned “spoiled for choice” into “education in selectivity.” 🙂
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“Education in selectivity” yeah, yeah…I like that. That’s what I was going for, yeah… 😉
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LOL
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Especially liked that 4the door, love the slit. And someone tagged someone elses front door, wow! Who does that!! That must of made the owner teally mad.
Pat
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Thanks Pat. I’m pretty sure they’re all entrance to apartments or condos so there’d be at least several people mad about the tagging.
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For sure.
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Some truly beautiful doors, the stone archways above them are wonderful. That graffiti one with the overhead greenery…Love that one 🙂
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I HAD to include that graffiti one in this collection 🙂
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Absolutely! 🙂
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They are all nice and tall, and door knockers, better sounding than dull door bells
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Thanks Alice. I find door knockers are a lot more common there than they are here in North America.
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Yes, you seldom see them anymore
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It is like being in door heaven when travelling in Europe! So many to chose from!
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Thanks Lynn. At times it was hard to capture them, especially en route when we had to be somewhere and they just kept appearing 🙂
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I prefer doors with kick plates. The first two have them, but other doors show what happens when there isn’t a kick plate. Fine set of photographs, Norm.
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Thanks Ian. Excellent observation about the missing kick plates.
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I’m quite perplexed by the height of the mail slot on the last door; seems rather impractical for the postie and the recipient. But I do quite like the contrast between the graffitied door and all that greenery above it. Ghost doors I always find intriguing too!
I was on a doorscursion today, and can relate to this “selective” feeling, but I think it was more because a lot of the doors I saw were quite similar.
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Yes the height of that mail slot makes no sense to me either.
Ghost doors are the best!
Here’s to successful doorscursions 🙂
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Wow. Love the graffiti door with the ivy cascading down – all wonderful doors.
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Thank you 🙂
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Welcome back, Norm! I know what you mean about stopping all the time and then even getting just a bit jaded with the wealth of variety. I’m glad you had such a good time and I’m sure you saw a lot of wonderful things that weren’t doors, too! But wait until you see what I found! 🙂
janet
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Thanks Janet. We saw and experienced so many wonderful things, I’m still pinching myself to confirm that it all actually happened 🙂
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That’s how I feel after every trip to France, even though I visit a not-well-known area and am not in any large cities. But my s-i-l knows all the history and I’m immersed in everyday life there, which is also wonderful.
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Handsome array of doors. Looking at them made me realize how in cold country, we’ve moved towards steel doors made to look like wood which is never quite the same. I’d also like to know how tall one has to be to reach the mail slot on the last door. 🙂 The graffiti made me smile thinking of the massive amounts of it in Rome from ground to however far up the person could reach for blocks and blocks. Street art I thoroughly enjoy but just plain old graffiti not so much.
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Yes the mail slot placement on the last one is downright bizarre.
Sadly graffiti, trash everywhere. and air pollution from Vespa & diesel fumes, were my biggest disappointments in both Rome and Naples.
Luckily the food, the history and the architecture were more than enough to make up for it. If I ever moved to Italy it would be to a small town in the countryside, somewhere away from, but still with easy access to the bigger cities.
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These are such great doors, Norm. I really like the 1/3 2/3 split (maybe more like 1/4 3/4) with the iron work in the transom. That would be a wonderful door to enter. The graffiti on these doors is a little sad to see, those doors deserve better, but I’m glad you included them.
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Thanks Dan. Those odd split doors are quite common there so you’ll be seeing a fair number of them in upcoming posts.
In order to appreciate the architecture and the history both In Rome and in Naples, I tried to see past the graffiti and the trash – sadly there’s a lot of both in the big cities 😦
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I’m good with that, Norm. I really do like them.
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Thank you for the shout out, Norm. I’m glad you got to see them for yourself. This is a fine Roman door study. Given the quantity of doors there I’m not surprised that neither rings a particular bell but seeing them all together made me realise that I have major luck in door geography. But I knew that and now so do you. 🙂 More selective sounds better than a door snob, but that’s how we get here, if we like it or not.
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After seeing it for myself I’m now 100% certain you’ll be able to visit Rome for years and not photograph the same gorgeous door twice.
And this was just from the afternoon when we first arrived at the beginning of the trip! I have still all the ones I took from the last 4 days in Rome after we left your place. I suspect I’m going to be posting Italian doors well into 2019 😀
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That’s great to hear. 🙂 I thought these doors were from all your days in Rome, not just the first.
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Wonderful doors! I love the ones with the arches above.
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Thanks. It was fun afternoon of discovery.
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A big spread: all the way from no. 8 to no. 154. And all of them very photographable.
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Glad you enjoyed these. I had lots of fun finding them 🙂
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I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but almost all of the doors you selected have arched tops – yay! And some with a transom window – double yay!
My favourite is the ghost door that was really short … with what looks like a ghost window above it. What the …? It’s even arched! Wonder what that one was for?
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It wasn’t intentional but it does confirm an unconscious preference, I guess 😀
Yes that second ghost door has a ghost window too! Perhaps I should’ve put more emphasis on that one.
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Nice to see you featured it on IG. The tiny size adds to its interest.
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