As you can tell from the title of this post, a lot has happened since I last posted on here. I'm not gonna waste any time, so I'm gonna dive right on in. On Monday my class and I all woke up and made our way to the Pyramid Train station. This train station is very unique. It is literally nestled between an ancient pyramid and a castle. This is something that I never thought could exist, but it does! Not to ramble on, we finally found our professor at the meeting point; however, the bus was not easily located. My professor was on the phone with the driver, who only spoke Italian, for several minutes. We thought we found the bus parked several blocks away, so I pulled out my camera and zoomed in to see if it was the correct bus. It was so we made our way across the road to load up. We finally left Rome about 15 minutes late and headed for the town of Bomarzo.
We arrived at our location in Bomarzo, the Parco dei Mostri. This translates as the Park of Monsters. The park was originally designed by a man whose lover had died. As a tribute to her, he used the stone of the surrounding terrain to carve odd sculptures. These included a mouth to Hell, a ravenous dolphin, a turtle, a leaning house, and battling figures. We spent several hours in the Parco dei Mostri sketching and figuring out what makes it a successful park. My professor gave us a lecture inside of the Mouth of Hell. He later admitted that this was one of the coolest places he had ever lectured a class. I would have to agree! The heat was beginning to get to all of us in the park, so we finished up our activities and hit the road again.
Just before dark, our bus pulled into the farm that we would spend the next few nights. This was a very unique farm to say the least. Several guest houses were situated around the property. The owners of this farm must have been very wealthy. Each house appeared to have been recently remodeled, there was a large swimming pool, the main house was huge with an entire restaurant inside, and several hundred acres surrounded everything. The farm produces olive oil, fruits and vegetables, and hosts agrotourism tours. Every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the farm served all of us food that had been produced on the farm or very close by. Each of these meals was several courses in size and VERY filling. I felt as if I gained several pounds during our stay there.
A slight mix up occurred the following morning, therefore we had nothing scheduled until late in the afternoon. I and all of my classmates took advantage of the situation and went to spend time at the pool. It was great to be able to cool off in the pool when it was so hot outside. The fun had to come to an end, so we finally left for our excursion to the cities of Sardinia and Viterbo. Sardinia is home to several historic churches and gorgeous landscapes. Viterbo was mainly a stop to explore a mountain top city. In Viterbo we grabbed a bite to eat and wandered around the city. After it got dark, we headed back to the farm. It was two people's Birthdays, so we headed back out to the pool for a midnight dip. My professor brought out his guitar and we all sang while he played along. It is so much fun to have his guitar along.
The following day, we loaded up the van early in the morning. Bagnaia was the destination on this day. Bagnaia is home to the Villa Lante`. Villa Lante` is a garden villa that we had learned about in our landscape history class. It is an amazing design that is based around the idea of the taming of nature into the manicured gardens of earlier times. This is accomplished through the use of an elaborate fountain system that links the entire garden together from the top to the bottom. The top begins as a dense forest and then works its way down a hill into a parterre garden at the bottom. The attached video shows a few of the fountains that are found in this garden.
After our visit to Villa Lante` we met back up with our bus driver at a nearby restaurant. Now here is were a whole other story begins. The bus driver was a man that I could tell was a little off his rocker when we first met up with him. When we first found him on the first morning of the trip, he was looking the girls in my class up and down. I didn't think much of it because that is the way most of the men are over here in Italy. Well as time progressed, I could tell this man was trying to take us. He was being provided housing for while on the trip. That was a given. He was also fed with us as well. Well, back to where I left off at Bagnaia. We come down the hill and arrived at the restaurant. The bus driver is sitting at a table with several other tables reserved. I was thinking, "Okay, he reserved tables for us so we can make our orders." Well to my surprise and also my professor's, when we realized that the waiters were not bringing us menus, our food began to be delivered to our tables. Appetizer, a bottle of wine for each table, first course, second course, third course, and finally dessert! What was supposed to be a meal of around 10 Euros per person, turned into a meal that was much more expensive. I didn't appreciate the driver ordering an expensive meal for himself and everyone else. I guess it's done now, so I can't complain because the meal was good and the school paid for it! You can see from the faces of the girls in the photo, he was a creep.
We finally made it back to Rome later in the day. I began to pack my clothes for my trip to Spain. A fireworks show was supposed to take place somewhere in the city. My roommates and I all went out to find a hill to watch the show. The one place where another hill was, was where the fireworks were. We could only see the tops of some of the larger explosions. Oh well, I ended up getting some great photos of the Roman Forum while we were out and about. I came back and went to bed so I could get up for my early flight to Spain in the morning.
We arrived at our location in Bomarzo, the Parco dei Mostri. This translates as the Park of Monsters. The park was originally designed by a man whose lover had died. As a tribute to her, he used the stone of the surrounding terrain to carve odd sculptures. These included a mouth to Hell, a ravenous dolphin, a turtle, a leaning house, and battling figures. We spent several hours in the Parco dei Mostri sketching and figuring out what makes it a successful park. My professor gave us a lecture inside of the Mouth of Hell. He later admitted that this was one of the coolest places he had ever lectured a class. I would have to agree! The heat was beginning to get to all of us in the park, so we finished up our activities and hit the road again.
A slight mix up occurred the following morning, therefore we had nothing scheduled until late in the afternoon. I and all of my classmates took advantage of the situation and went to spend time at the pool. It was great to be able to cool off in the pool when it was so hot outside. The fun had to come to an end, so we finally left for our excursion to the cities of Sardinia and Viterbo. Sardinia is home to several historic churches and gorgeous landscapes. Viterbo was mainly a stop to explore a mountain top city. In Viterbo we grabbed a bite to eat and wandered around the city. After it got dark, we headed back to the farm. It was two people's Birthdays, so we headed back out to the pool for a midnight dip. My professor brought out his guitar and we all sang while he played along. It is so much fun to have his guitar along.
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