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       lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
       
       
       ARTICLE VIEW: 
       
       Mussolini’s wartime bunker opens to the public in Rome
       
       Julia Buckley, CNN
       
       Updated: 
       
       9:05 AM EDT, Tue April 16, 2024
       
       Source: CNN
       
       June, 1940. Italy enters World War II, and Fascist dictator Benito
       Mussolini promptly sets about constructing air raid shelters for
       himself at , his grand Rome residence since 1929. 
       
       In total, the fascists build three underground structures to protect
       Mussolini and his family. The first, in 1940, was an adaptation of an
       old wine cellar in the grounds of Villa Torlonia. A year later, an air
       raid shelter was built in the basement of the Casino Nobile, one of the
       buildings in the grounds of the villa. Its rooms were clad with 120
       centimeters (four feet) of reinforced concrete, and had anti-gas doors
       and an air purification and exchange system.
       
       Meanwhile as the war progressed, Mussolini planned an armored bunker,
       located underground in front of the Casino Nobile. 
       
       Located six meters (nearly 20 feet) underground, it was built in a
       cross shape with corridors 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) long and 2.5
       meters (8 feet) wide, reinforced with four-meter-thick (13 feet)
       reinforced concrete. Construction started in December 1942, and the
       bunker was unfinished – lacking watertight doors, a final ventilation
       system and a toilet – when the dictator was arrested on July 25,
       1943.
       
       The bunker was first opened to the public in 2006, but closed two years
       later, before undergoing temporary openings in the coming years. 
       
       After its last closure in 2021, it has now reopened for guided tours of
       the air raid shelter and the bunker. The complex now includes a
       multimedia exhibition about Rome during World War II, air raid systems
       for civilians, and the series of 51 Allied bombings that pummeled the
       city between July 1943 and May 1944. There is a special focus on the
       1943 bombing of the San Lorenzo neighborhood, thought to have killed
       over 3,000 civilians. Guided, 50-minute tours take visitors underground
       and through the exhibition, before they experience a recreated air raid
       in Mussolini’s unfinished bunker. 
       
       Tours – which are not accessible for those with mobility issues –
       take 50 minutes and run from Fridays through Sundays, with a tour in
       English each Saturday at 11 a.m. Tickets cost 12 euros ($12.80) and are
       bookable .
       
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