Day 46 (5/6/11)

Today is our first Friday group trip so we all met down at the bus nice and early. We are going to Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este, both of which are important examples of this pretty cool building type. I am especially excited for Hadrian’s Villa because we learned a lot about it and it seemed pretty awesome. So after our bus ride we got off and got to stand in a zoo filled with a bunch of groups of the Italian youth. They are truly the most obnoxious kids that I have met, and it was actually pretty fun to watch them. After skipped the line per the usual, we started our walk up a pretty grand road towards the beginning of the Villa.
Along with Trajan, Hadrian was one of the most important emperors in Roman history, and he used this Villa to reflect that. Sitting on 120 hectares of man-made site, the “Villa” is really a collection of many different buildings and other architectural elements that he saw during his travels (he made it a point to go to nearly every province in the empire!). There are temples, colonnades, various water features, palaces, baths, and theaters. One cool feature was the tunnel system that ran throughout the man-made hill, which allowed the servants to travel quickly from one region of the Villa to the other. There were also warehouses built in to store all the food needed to supply the complex. Our first stop was just outside the main wall to a small little building that held a scaled model of the entire complex, which was craziness. It is basically the size of one of the many hill towns we have visited! Sadly, the majority of the complex has yet to be unearthed, so while we were able to get an idea of the scale of this space, there is so much we haven’t seen.
We wandered around together for a little bit by the entrance where there were some awesome colonnades, crazy axes that run out to the edge of the hill leading to awesome views, and although everything around was in a pretty sever state of decay, it was an awe-inspiring space. We were then given a few hours to wander on our own so I put my iPod on and just enjoyed the sites. From giant temple-like structures to personal piazzas to giant architectonic spaces that suggested massive buildings, this complex had everything! I think that the most amazing part of this is actually the decay of the site. It is tough to say how much of the green space here was original or if most of it just comes from nature reclaiming the area, but the combination of the massive areas of beautiful landscape with the haunting ruins of past achievements really highlights something I said recently about beautiful artwork in the decay of architecture. While the ruins were nothing compared to some of the others we have seen like the Baths of Caracalla or the Fora, there was something about the freedom and the wild state of this area that set it apart from the exhibit style display of the others.
After checking out a neat little exhibit of original statues and some artwork done of the site (there was a series of sculptures displayed throughout the ruins as well which I thought was pretty fantastic!), I took a small path off towards the other end. After a pretty fantastic walk through a grove of trees along this path I came to a very intact temple-like structure! The dome inside was in perfect condition and it was pretty awesome to find this little gem just chilling out in the wilderness apart from the main complex. The best part was being able to get on top to a viewing platform which gave a breath-taking 360 degree view of the surrounding area and the parts of the Villa that pop out of the trees. After staying here for a while I went back and sat by a pool of water and had lunch and relaxed for a while before heading back to the bus.
From here we left for Tivoli, home of some great architecture and some amazing density on a hill that we didn’t get to explore and the Villa d’Este, which we did. The first space we entered was a nice little courtyard that was made even better by the cramped little entry space we came through. From here we moved through some small rooms and amazingly linear hallways that seemed to carry us through the entire complex until we came to the main balcony. The Villa is built on the top of a hill (not man made) with a great series of gardens extending down it. The view down was almost as good as the sights out to the valley below and the mountains above us. We split up here for a few hours to explore so we all started trickling down the many paths towards the end. The garden was made up of many amazing avenues with a ton of different fountain complexes spread out.
The first one, although swarmed by the Italian youth, was pretty great and started to not only merge with the garden around it but with the edge of the Villa as well. Its placement at the edge of the hill also gave it a fantastic backdrop and allowed it to cap one axis in very grand fashion. One cool note is that the water runs down through the entire complex using gravity, so along each set of stairs the handrails all have water running down them. We just walked around for a while enjoying the various spaces and the very pretty sites before heading up to a fountain that we were told to go see. Apparently it plays the organ using water that runs through it, so we were expecting a cool show. When we got to the fountain there were tons of people (mostly the youth) standing and waiting so we were optimistic. Sadly, we would have spent our time better had we just stared at a wall and listened to music. Nothing happened and the music sounded like a recording of some very off-key organ. After that disappointment we stayed up here and enjoyed the great view out to the main axis of the garden and did a quick scribble before moving down to the center to do another. The main fountain of the gardens, which sat just below the “magic organ”, was amazing! It was a huge natural style fountain that had a waterfall surrounded by many smaller fountains.
After a pretty great couple of hours we walked back to the bus to ride back home. When we got back we stopped at the grocery store to get some last minute supplies for our group dinner tonight! Word spread so now all 26 of us plus two Italians from Ascoli and someone’s boyfriend are coming over for a giant potluck. Aside from the purchase of various supplies my main responsibility was to make lime chips, so we bought lots of piadina (tortilla), chopped them up and baked them! They turned out fantastic, and they went so fast that most people didn’t get very many. I also helped make guacamole which turned out amazing as well, I never knew how easy it is! By the time everyone had assembled, we had a pot of guacamole, a tub of pico di gallo, mango salsa, black bean and corn salsa, three different tubs of meat, spicy cheesy potatoes, cheesy bean goop, a cheese lattice plate that I put together (made by taking cheese slices and cutting them into strips), various veggies and amazing cinnamon sugar chips with hot nutella for dessert! The dinner was a huge success and we ended up being able to make all 29 of us full to bursting. After a lot of fun we cleaned up the apartment and went to bed after a pretty amazing day!