It turns out, “villas” of Rome really meant full, self-contained estates. Kyla, Dwayne, and I took our day trip out of the city to visit Adriana Villa (Hadrian’s Villa for us English-speaking barbarians) and D’Este gardens.

Hadrian was an emperor with the mostest–the most hubris, at least. He’s considered one of The Five Good Emperors but I think it could be argued that he was great, but not really good*. He may be one of the few rulers that visited the entire Empire and was definitely a second century Rennassance man–he wrote versus, designed several buildings, and rebuilt the Pantheon all while running ancient Rome. He also habitually executed senators who disagreed with him. Hadrian built an estate approximately the size of Pompeii that required about a thousand servants, with underground tunnels to keep the workers away from people who needed them but didn’t want to have bother of seeing them. What’s notable about Hadrian’s Villa, less than an hour out of Rome, is how peaceful and lush it is. Birds can be heard chirping, and there’s a stillness among the old statues and pavillians.

More interesting to me was the D’Este Gardens a few minutes away. It is also a grand house, but by this point, we have seen lots of places with extravagantly painted walls and gilded ceilings. Its history includes being a convent until a cardinal came to visit and liked it so much he kicked out all the nuns and declared it his palace. I swear, it is harder and harder to find Christianity in the Church’s historical footprint**.

What is neat-o about this place is the land slopes down, and a river runs near. Dwayne (probably) in a former life built a canal off the river and cleverly ran it through the back forty to create oodles of fountains, ponds, and streams before returning the water to the river at the bottom of the estate. To match the lushness of the waters, the garden is green and vibrant. I’m not saying everything was in excellent taste (and the water organ was clever but truly awful sounding), but I apprecate the level of commitment to spectacular gardening.

Excuse me, I have to go buy land along a river.

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*I give him slack though, as one of my favorite characters is named Hadrian, from Michael Sullivan’s Rierya Chronicles and Revelations. Not only is Hadrian an excellent and entertaining protagonist, but he is truly a good man. Okay, and a thief and deadliest soldier. Hmm, I’m not making my case very well, but you should pick up the books anyway.

**Not easy to find it contemporarily as well, but now I’m extra-editorializing.

Dwayne and I choose carefully which activities are mandatory for all the kids and a private guided tour of the Colosseum and adjacent Forum made the cut. Between having a great guide who was excellent with “this-is-going-to-be-boring” kid attitudes and a pretty cool place to visit, it was a pretty decent day*.

One of the best parts of the tour was that it came with a booklet of artists’ depictions of what the Colloseum looked like back in its heyday and how it was used. Unfortunately, we lost the pictures before we left, but it helped understand what we were looking at now and how it was used then.

We got to be on the floor, overlooking the underground animal cages. There were pulley systems and trap doors to not only get the animals up to the flighting floor, but also to have them pop out of unexpected locations for better thrilling entertainment.

I loved our guide but he did like to ruin the Hollywood gladiator myths. There is no evidence of an emperor’s thumbs up or down. Gladiators were too expensive to train and replace to casually kill them off, and each only fought 1-2 times a year. And if the Colloseum ever did have full size boat battles, it would have happened in its first ten years before the underground labyrinth was constructed. Also, the stadium was designed to get thousands of people in and out quickly, but not so much for ships. How disappointing. Luckily, our girls were happy to break the rules and give Gladiator Papa a life or death sentence after falling to the champion, Wirey Wes.

The Forum, basically the public meeting place, was a field of lovely ruins adjacent to the Colloseum and Palantine Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, and where the town was mythically born. It’s pretty fun to look out and see all these ancient Lego pieces cast around.

Sometimes us famous archeologists have to create new statues to show how the originals may have appeared.

We were only here for a few hours, but it finally felt like we had “done” Rome.

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*Graded on a curve, “pretty decent day” translates to “phenomenal” sightseeing.

We’re in Rome! After stomping through the ruins of the ancient Empire, we are finally at its heart.

This four-month trip was designed to be a “Round the World as Far as Covid-Restrictions Will Allow” adventure, but other than Kenya, it turned out to be a Grand Tour of the ancient Roman Empire. Not a complaint, just a stubbed toe for all the Roman ruins we have stumbled over for two months.

Observation #1: Rome is crowded.

Corollary: Rain cleans up the streets quite well. Here are the Spanish Steps (leading up to the French church), first on a sunny afternoon, and the next day during a shower.

Observation #2: Ancient Rome was obsessed with Ancienter Egypt. Two thousand years before Great Britain was, ahem, “saving” Egyptian antiquities, Rome was pilfering their favorite souvenirs. Rome, just as a city, has more Egyptian obelisks than Egypt does. The obelisks doubled as race markers for chariots to round as they rode hell-bent around cobbled streets to cheering crowds. The richest families built palaces on the race route for the best vantage points.

Observation #3: Rome rocks water. Of course, the many public fountains are filled with water from aqueducts, with Trevi being the most famous*. But there are good drinking fountains as well. One of our guides showed us that some of the fountains have a small hole facing upward. If you use a finger to cover up the spout, water comes out the top hole like a drinking fountain. Neat engineering!

Observation #4: Just because it’s a marble (or similar) statue doesn’t make it beautiful. Honestly, we’ve learned this many times. The Naples museum ruined us because each sculpture was a thing of beauty.

Observation #5: The Pantheon [all + gods] is worth seeing and it’s free. This building is the most intact structure of ancient Rome since its rebuild in 1_AD because of its continual use, first as a Roman temple and then, in the 7th century, a Catholic church. The columns in front belie the circular structure of the inside. The dome is open (final picture) to allow light long before electricity was an option. And yes, it absolutely rains through the open ceiling, making useful the many floor drains. I believe the first two Italian kings are interred here, but I found it interesting that this is also the final resting place of the Raphael (under Mary & Child in first picture).

Our hotel was within walking distance of many of The Sights, and I enjoyed walking around our five days here, holding on to my pockets whenever we walked by Trevi Fountain and glimpsing the Colosseum while looking for a restaurant. I won’t go out of my way to return, but I bet Rome and I will meet again.

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*The legend is that if you take a coin and toss it over your opposite shoulder, you will return to Rome. None of us bothered. However, they collect thousands of Euros a day for charity from Trevi alone, so I approve.