7. Italy : Travelling South to Sicily

From Tivoli, just 35 km north-east of Rome, we set off down the autostrada for the 300km drive to Paestum in the Campania region.
The highway skirted around the back of Naples and Mount Vesuvius, not that you could see much because of the smog.  We were told this wasn't really smog but dust brought up by the Sirocco, the southerly wind that blows from northern Africa.  That may be so further south, but around Naples I'm convinced it was smog.

Paestum is an amazing place, located south of Salerno which itself is at the southern end of the Amalfi Coast. It was a major ancient Greek city in Magna Graecia. The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order, dating from about 600 to 450 BC, which are in a very good state of preservation.

The city walls and amphitheatre are largely intact, and the bottom of the walls of many other structures remain, as well as paved roads. What you see here is 2,500 years old.

After its foundation by Greek colonists Paestum was eventually conquered by the local Lucanians and later the Romans. It was abandoned in the Early Middle Ages and left undisturbed and largely forgotten until the eighteenth century.
We had a lovely B&B for $76AUS which, thankfully was upwind of the buffalo diary; we found a great beach and a had a wonderful meal - homemade gnocchi and fried seafood for Paul and fresh artichokes followed by artichoke pizza, for me.

From Paestum we drove 150 km south, down the coast road, which took just as long as the previous 300km on the autostrada.

It is rugged country and you can definitely see the African dust in the air.

Our next overnight stop was Praia a Mare in the Basilicata region which I thought would be great because it is close to Maratea, said to be the Amalfi Coast of the South.  It certainly looked prosperous enough and this lovely walkway outside our B&B was absolutely packed for passeggiata for three hours in the evening. Alas however, Praia was really just a typical Italian seaside town where we struggled to find anything decent to eat.

Forward another 250 km and we found lovely Scilla.  A mediaeval village almost at the tip of Italy's boot in Calabria and only 20km from the ferry port of Villa San Giovani where we would get the ferry to Sicily.
Not much room for cars here in Scilla although the locals manage well enough. We left our car further up the hill and came down to our B&B with our luggage in a three wheeled Ape.  Pronounced 'uppay' this motor scooter with a utility tray replaced the donkey and became the mainstay of commerce, building and agriculture in tight ancient towns.
Talking about donkeys reminds me that when Paul and I first went to Positano on our honeymoon in 1998, there we no Apes. Donkeys still carried tourists' luggage up the steep laneways to the cliffside apartments and also carried up everything needed by the cliffside businesses, often in the same load.

But I diverge ...... back to lovely Scilla where tourists are important and there is never enough floor space.  So they just build out! Eating here over the water would be lovely - but you wouldn't catch me on the section balancing only on the acrow props.

The houses along the "main road" are three or four stories high and two or three houses deep. So about every 20 metres you come to a gap between the buildings that leads to the water. Most of these alleyways are ramped and would originally have had fishing boats winched up between the houses.  But these days there are no fish left in the Mediterranean, so fishing is no longer an occupation and is for fun only and the alleyways have been stepped to provide humans with access to the water.

Some are narrower and steeper than others.

Two buildings along from our B&B, a building has been demolished and a new build seems to be  underway. Access is so prohibitive that I can see this build taking years.The mini excavator was parked in a tiny lay-by just allowing the bobcat to get past.  The concrete mixer bucket on the front of the bobcat carries one load at a time from a mixing site up the hill. In the photo the bobcat is inching its way through the gap between the buildings and is about to swing into the building site to drop its load.

Here is the happy crew with the fresh load of concrete which they are bucketing into  a "hole" to stabilise the rear wall. Judging by that sag in the structure above, and the depth of the "hole" they are filling, it is going to take a lot more buckets before they are done.

From the tiny port you can see the old town caressing the bay on the lower level and the new (ugly) town on the top of the ridge, separated by the main access road.

From the tiny port of Scilla we walked around the edge of a rocky headland that had a fort on the top, and came to the beach of Scilla.

Looking back from the beach you can see the great rocky outcrop with the old fortress on top.

Farewelling Scilla we wound our way up another mountain then dropped down to sea level again to catch the ferry to Sicily.

6. Tivoli: Villa Adriana & Villa D'Este

According to Paul's phone we walked 68 km during our eight days in Rome. 
That's a lot for me, so it's no wonder I was quite happy to laze in the passenger seat while Paul tried out his new toy - a Citroen C4 Cactus. Not that he had much of a chance because Tivoli is only about 35 km north east of Rome and it was local traffic all the way.

Tivoli is located at the falls of the Aniene river, where it issues from the Sabine hills.
In ancient times, around 90 BC, the city became a resort area famed for its beauty and its good water which gushed from many, many natural springs.  It was an area enriched by many Roman villas. The most famous one, of which the ruins remain, is the Villa Adriana (Hadrian's Villa).

The villa was constructed at Tivoli as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD. Hadrian is said to have disliked the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, leading to the construction of this retreat. It was traditional that the Roman emperor constructed a villa for himself as a place to relax from everyday life.

During the later years of his reign, Hadrian actually governed the empire from the villa. He started using the villa as his official residence around AD 128. A large court therefore lived there permanently and large numbers of visitors and bureaucrats would have had to have been entertained and temporarily housed on site. The postal service kept it in contact with Rome where the various government departments were located.

It isn't known if Hadrian's wife lived at the villa either on a temporary or permanent basis – his relations with her were apparently rather strained or distant, possibly due to his ambiguous sexuality. The photo above is the grand bath complex for staff. The emperor and his special guests had a smaller but more luxurious affair. There is nothing much left of the emperor's palace. Because it was so sumptuous the materials were much sort after and much was destroyed in wars.

From the 16th century Tivoli saw further construction of villas. The most famous of these is the Villa d'Este, a UNESCO World Heritage site, whose construction was started in 1550 by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este and which was richly decorated.

It had fountains and water features both inside and out.

I remember hearing about the Tivoli water gardens as a child.  I fancy Grandma may have had a tea towel with illustrations.The villa is built on a very steep site and its vast gardens seem to tumble in a never-ending cascade down the hill.

The first of about eight or ten garden levels, each down another substantial flight of stairs.

Originally all of the fountains were gravity fed from natural springs - no pumps in those days.

You can see the different building materials and styles as the villa was added to by successive owners.

A drawing of the original Fountain of Tivoli built in 1566. (I can see tea-towel writ large here.)

And this is how it looks today, nearly 500 years later.

We came up to this huge fountain from the rear. Its vertical water columns are the greatest in the gardens.

We then walked down below to see the fountain from the front (with hundreds of other people, some of whom got into my photos).

Looking out over the old town of Tivoli from the Villa D'Este I spotted this beautiful bell tower.

It turned out to be the bell tower of the duomo and our B&B was facing the church and bell tower and looking down into the piazza. That's our black car on the far left wedged into a short spot between a pot plant and a scaffolded wall.

That archway in the far brick wall is the main road into the square - thank goodness it's one way!

But if you're thinking that's narrow you should have seen what Paul has manoeuvred this car through since we've been travelling down the west coast from one medieval village to another.

But the thing is - it's really hard to take photos when your heart is in your mouth and your eyes are squeezed shut and you've stopped breathing. Or when you are outside the car estimating how many millimetres he can move backwards or forwards in order to get out of (or in to) a parking spot or to get around a right angled corner on a stone wall where cars are parked right up to the edges and there is no room to swing.

Thank goodness he's Italian and thinks it's all fun!

5. Rome: Ostia Antica

The Scavi Archeologici di Ostia Antica is an engrossing archeological site - like a smaller version of Pompeii - showcasing the remarkably well-preserved ruins of ancient Rome’s sea port.
The site is noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics.

Ostia is a derivation of the Latin word for "mouth" and is situated at the mouth of the River Tiber, 25 km from the modern city.

The original military function of the river port of Ostia was soon replaced by the commercial imperative to service the needs of the city of Rome.

Because the size and draught of sea-going cargo ships was too great to enter the Tiber, they were unloaded a little further up the coast and the cargo transferred to medium-tonnage ships that could enter the port of Ostia. Here, after the necessary layover at the warehouses, the goods were transported to Rome on barges suitable for navigating the Tiber.

Roman cities are always cited either North-South or East-West according to the topology. The long road through Ostia runs east-west along the river Tiber while the main north-south road is much  shorter and leads to and from the river and the main cargo landing wharves.  The photo above is the north-south road with the river to the north (in front). The road is lined with merchants shops and offices, the most prominent businesses being closest to the docks.

Right next door is the commercial market - a huge piazza surrounded on four sides by porticoed colonnades and home to 58 secured warehouses with barrel vaulted ceilings (like the modern ones here). Archeologists don't know exactly what these warehouses stored but they do know it wasn't grain as the storage areas don't reflect the tiered systems required for maintaining dry and clean grain.

Here is a major warehouse complex over three levels, incorporating many small storage rooms that were probably leased to small businesses. Two thousand years old and still standing in this condition. Amazing!

The public and residential areas of the city were further away from the river. Every Roman city has its baths. The biggest in Ostia was the Terme di Nettuno, built in the 2nd-century with striking floor mosaics that are still in very good condition. Here you can see Neptune in his chariot together with all the creatures of the sea. 

Bath complexes always included recreational areas such as a gymnasium, an outdoor area for exercise.

The gymnasium area.  The buildings on the far side housed the fire brigade and you can see three very deep, rectangular holding tanks for water which were siphoned out for emergency purposes. I wonder if they had water carts or whether many, many men had to run to the fire with buckets.

Still keeping the people happy ...... just down the road from the baths is the theatre complex with very steeply stacked seating.

The theatre complex was very large. It included a small temple in the middle of a park and surrounded on three sides by a colonnaded walkway and about 70 shops that sold luxury goods.

Outside each shop was a sign, inlaid into the footpath, describing what was on sale at the shop or who its owner was.  This shop sold fish, dates and olive oil from Morocco.  We saw shops importing goods from Narbonne in France, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Greece and more.

There was also a cafe called the Thermopolium, where apparently you can make out traces of a menu frescoed on the wall. But we couldn't find it.

All of the public buildings like the Forum, the law courts and temples were faced with marble like this. It must have looked magnificent.

Burial and the afterlife were important and Rome was fiercely broadminded about religion.  There were all sorts of sects operating in the city.  This beautiful carving on a sarcophagus was one of dozens we saw in the museum.

Next day we went out to the airport on the train to pick up our lease car. And having a car we thought we'd better go somewhere - so we went to Ostia Lido, the coastal area about 4km from the ancient city of Ostia Antica .

The sea was wild, it was raining but I'm told that "it just had to be done!"

4. Rome: Villa Borghese

We went back up the Pincian Hill, not one of the original seven hills of Rome, but a steep enough climb all the same, to the Villa Borghese (pronounced Bor-gay-see).

Villa Borghese is a landscaped garden containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions. It is the third largest public park in Rome.  The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana (the Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill) in 1605, for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, patron of Bernini and collector of Caravaggio, who used it as a country villa and to house his art collection. 

The grand mansion is now a museum called Galleria Borghese and the art collection and decoration is jaw-dropping.

Many of the sculptures are displayed in the spaces for which they were originally intended.

The sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which comprise a significant percentage of the artist's output of secular sculpture, include David (above) and are considered seminal works of baroque sculpture.

Meet Pauline Borghese Bonaparte. In 1808, Prince Camillo Borghese, husband of Pauline and brother-in-law of Emperor Napoleon fell on tough times and was forced to sell many of the Borghese Roman sculptures and antiquities to Napoleon. The result is that many of the best of the Borghese sculptures are now in the Louvre.

Even so, those remaining are magnificent. Bernini 's Apollo and Dafne.

Bernini again - The Rape of Persephone.

The magnificent space for which it was commissioned.

A Roman floor mosaic from 2nd Century acquired (read probably 'stolen') from an ancient site.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese himself, by Bernini.

Considerably more handsome is this unnamed woman in black marble.

You'd really think these figures and decorations were actually sitting up there on a ledge; but this is painted on the ceiling cornice.

The Caravaggio's are stunning. David with the head of Goliath.

Madonna and Child with Serpent.

Boy with a Basket of Fruit.

Saint Jerome Writing.

This is called Girl with the Unicorn by Raffaello and is said to have inspired Michelangelo to paint Mona Lisa. It was under glass in a poorly lit area, hence the reflections.

The path to the magnificent bird cage is flanked with fragrant potted citrus.

Huge lemon blossoms.

We ended our visit with some silliness and hired a four wheeled electric cycle for an hour to tear up and down the roads and tracks in the hilly park. 

In the little Temple of Diana.

We walked all the way home - again! Passed the United States embassy in via Veneto. It covers a whole city block and looks magnificent.

Pink and red cyclamens are everywhere..... even in the grass on via Veneto.