Hadrian's Villa

We drove about 25 miles east of Rome, up slightly into the Appenine foothills, to the ancient town of Tivoli, one of the summer playgrounds of "elite" Romans of the classical era. The Piazza del Cimiterio in Tivoli afforded us free if occasionally noisy parking for three nights while we explored the area's major sights--Tivoli itself, Hadrian's Villa, and the Renaissance Villa d'Este.

Elite Romans had been moving to the countryside since the first century BCE, building villas and plantations and such ("Rancho Deluxe") to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities. Hadrian would count as an elite Roman: emperor early in the second century, presiding over the empire's greatest extent, a traveler, a general, a scholar, a lover of all things Greek. We have bumped into him at his Wall in Britain, his birthplace at Italica, near Seville, at battle sites in Romania, at his tunnel (diverting a river) near Antioch, all over Greece, and at his Forum and Column and Pantheon in Rome. He was the third of the Five Good Emperors, and, next to Augustus, I'd say, best of them all. Anyhow, his villa, near Tivoli, is certainly the biggest of them all, a city in itself, with a palace, guest quarters, three Baths, both Latin and Greek libraries, huge warehouses and administrator/servant/soldier quarters, and some of the most striking water features of the ancient world. I'll just post some of the better pix, without comment.

Ciao!

We reluctantly left Rome on Monday the 16th of May. Even after nearly four weeks for me, three for Vicki, and seven for the Grey Wanderer, it was hard to leave. Our camping situation at the Prato Smeralda, while not ideal, was at least secure and very cheap, and the commute into the Eternal City was a snap. And then there is Rome, with all its sights, major and minor, food and drink, and just the thrill of being in one of the world's oldest and still most vibrant cities. Our leaving was at least helped along by the decision to keep the Grey Wanderer in Europe, rather than shipping it back to the States this summer. We like our mode of travel very much and want to be able to continue it in Europe in future years.

Our place at Prato Smeraldo, camper-stop, -storage, -service

Giovanni's roses

We'll be back!

Porta Portese

For our last day in Rome we ventured out to the Sunday flea market at Porta Portese, near Trastevere, a walk along the Tiber, and associated sights.

The Tiber, the Island, and the 2,000 year-old Roman bridge

Sometimes the sights are just other people, other tourists,

including a young couple carrying a blow-up kangaroo down

the Via Lungoterre Anguillara

They're from Australia (duh) and the roo's name

is Skip; "he goes everywhere with us"

They simply close off one of the big boulevards for the weekly

Porta Portese market, it goes on and on, for nearly a mile, I

would guess; unfortunately, it's almost entirely the cheap crap

that most flea markets world-wide consist of nowadays; there

were a few items of interest nonetheless

The Native American shoppe

The vege-matic shoppe; actually, multi-bladed scissors

The Americano license plate shoppe

And the army surplus shoppe

Vicki by the Piramide

Capitoline Museum II

Reliefs like this beautiful example have

provided historians with many clues about

Roman history, architecture, et cetera

Over-sized Mars, a very popular god with the

Romans

The dying Gaul; a favorite subject in Hellenistic and Roman

art; but always executed with empathy

Muy importante: the Lex de Imperio

Vespasiani, a hugely important tablet,

historically, that set forth the roles, duties,

and rights of the emperor

A beautiful marble Amazon (sans Kindle)

Incredible things done with marble

Pink marble Dionysus

In the Hall of the Philosophers (all bearded, of course) 

Capitoline Venus

In the Tabularium, the archives of ancient Rome

And, after a modest dinner in the area, back to the Metro

Colosseo

Capitoline Museum I

Rome has a dozen or more world-class museums, and even on this more or less extended visit, we saw only a few. The Capitoline Museum is one of the great ones, and after considerable heavy editing, I will limit myself to just two posts on it.

Steps leading up to the Capitoline Hill, the Piazza

Campidoglio; the great Capitoline Museum flanks the Piazza

Inside, the great bronze statue of Marcus

Aurelius (and his horse); the largest equine

statue of antiquity

Bust of an Amazon; winner of a scultpure

contest in Ephesus

Beautiful marble caryatids

Tablets listing consuls (the CEOs of the Republic) over the

centuries

The very, very famous 5th century BCE bronze she-wolf (the

twins are a Renaissance addition)

Boy removing thorn from foot, also very famous

Another Artemis from Ephesus, but a

particularly beautiful one

The Emperor Commodus dressed as (his hero)

Hercules

Fragment of the immense bronze sculpture of

Constantine that once stood in the Forum; a

hand and two feet also survive

Interestingly, the Capitoline also has a fair

number of paintings, and not Roman; this is the

very famous and (to some) controversial self-

portrait of of Velazquez, who worked in Rome

for a time; I'm skipping the Caravaggio....

More Caravaggio (and a Random Rafael)

Vicki has really gotten into Caravaggio, so we are seeking his paintings out at every opportunity. I can't remember all the churches (I am relatively sure they are all of the St. Mary of the Whatever franchise) and all the paintings' names, but here are a few more...

Adoration of the Persons with Sticks and Big
Butt

On a column in the nave of this St. Mary

church, an apparently random Rafael, his

Elijah, as I recall; thank goodness they left it
as it was

Caravaggio's Matthew and the Angel; Guido
Reni's still the best Matthew, if you ask me

And in the Santa Maria della Francesca church (the French

church in Rome), the martyrdom of Matthew; both this and
the Calling of Matthew (below) face each other in a
fenced-off side chapel; one can only see these masterpieces
from an awkward angle and below; and poorly lit too; good
representations are at the numerous sites on the web, e.g.,
caravaggio.com 

The Calling of Matthew, one of C's biggest hits; no doubt the

guy was a transformational genius; the first "painter of light";

maybe it's just me, but I think he had a real compositional

problem with buttocks--they are almost always in the forefront,

often comically; and, unlike Michaelangelo or Bernini, he did

not do sculpture nor architecture; nor did he do fresco; still, a

genius, whose effect on later painting is profound and

undeniable

More, Or Less, St. Peter's

So it was Saturday and we figured the great church might be free of Masses for a while...think again, Pagan Breath...

The Beatification stuff was still everywhere; note use of the

Piazza for a tour bus parking lot

We fell in line right behind a group of nuns and friends from

Croatia, singing and chanting all the way; I was actually moved

(slightly) by their evident emotion

Looking across the great Piazza

We did get to see the new JP2 Beato shrine

Up closer

But they were already beginning to mass for

another Mass, and it was clear that we would

not see the forecastle and bow on this trip; I

did take some consolation in passing through

the north-side west doors and their apparent

instruction manual on how to persecute

Christians

On our way out we visited the JP2 exposition, which I found

quite informative and enjoyable

A collection of JP2's many books; I guess he didn't have much

of a problem with agents or editors or publishers

And so we left, but not without promenading

one more time through Bernini's four-deep

colonnade, one of the grandest of architectual

wonders