Last Wednesday for class, we went to Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este in Tivoli. We took a chartered bus about an hour away from the city out into the beautiful Italian countryside. Hadrian's Villa was spectacular, sprawled over something like a 1 square mile complex surrounded with olive trees. It was built for the emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century. For this site, the pictures will truly do all the talking!
original mosaics!
After Hadrian's Villa, we got back on our charter bus and drove about 10 minutes to the heart of Tivoli. We stopped for a much needed lunch and then headed over to the beautiful Villa d'Este. Historically, the Villa d'Este wasn't connected with what we have been learning about but Profe wanted us to see it because it is such a beautiful site and it was convenient for us since we were already out there. The villa was commissioned in the 1570s by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, who was the grandson of Pope Alexander VI. A river runs through the site, so the builders used the natural flow of the land to create hundreds of fountains in the villa's gardens.
This fountain had a hydraulic organ that played every half hour. Very cool!
This fountain has a lot of references to Rome. The cardinal planned this on purpose to tie Tivoli to Rome.
me and Shannon
Gorgeous!
Thursday was pretty uneventful. We had some problems with our washing machine (it was full of water and leaking on the kitchen floor), so we had to wait around most of the afternoon for a plumber to come and fix it. Luckily everything was fixed and its running fine now. Thursday night the roommates and I plus Erin and Christine had dinner at a restaurant in the same piazza as the Pantheon.
Friday morning we got up early and took a train to Siena. The train ride was about 2 and a half hours. The weather in Siena was sunny and warm and we all walked around without our coats on!
Christine, Erin, and I at lunch.
Enjoying the sunshine!
The main campo in Siena
This is Santa Maria della Scala, a huge and beautiful cathedral. We went to its museum, crypt, and cathedral and also climbed the tower...
Climbing the narrow spiral stairway up the tower
The view from the top of the staircase
View from the top!
Inside the cathedral..
We stayed in a cute little hotel just off the main campo. On Saturday morning, we got up early and took an hour's bus ride to San Gimignano.
San Gimignano was pretty empty, but there were tons of leather and pottery shops and we climbed a medieval tower.
These are the stairs we climbed to the top, and then......
This little ladder took us the rest of the way up.
All of us at the top of the tower!
This is the tower we climbed.
We got back from Siena late Saturday night and crashed early. Sunday I got groceries, finished my reading and prepared for Monday's class.
This week in class, we're learning about the Roman Empire's shift from Paganism to Christianity. We went out and saw the sites of some of the first Christian churches in the world. In the early years of the religion, Christians were heavily persecuted so they didn't have any formal, public meeting places. They congregated instead in private homes. The places that we visited today were all former house-churches where an early Christian figure had been martyred and a new church had been built in their honor. For the first few sites, we climbed up the Aventine hill (3 down, 4 to go Dad!).
This is Santa Sabina, one of the first Christian churches modelled on the ancient Roman basilica. In later years, it became associated with St. Dominican.
Inside.
Original column from the domus that was here before the church.
Altar
This is the church of Sant' Alessio
View from the Aventine, that's St. Peter's in the distance.
Me and Sam
This is the Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the church that is in the movie Roman Holiday!! And if you are familiar with that movie, you will certainly recognize this...
The Mouth of Truth!
Ciao!
2 comments:
Thanks for the update Elise!!!!
Love,
Mum and Dad
Elise love your photos and blog! I want to move there! Look foward to more photos and news. love chris
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