Our trip to Villa Adriana

I’ve been quite sick for the past week. But I’m all better now and am raring to blog again!

Anyway, last weekend was cultural week in Italy, which means that entry to many museums and monuments are free! Cart and I took the opportunity to visit Villa Adriana.

Villa Adriana is about 45 minutes drive out of central Rome. When you think that Adriana, you’d think of a girl’s name right? But Cart told me that translated, Villa Adriana means something like “Hadrian’s House.”

In any case, the Emperor Hadrian constructed the area as a respite from the palatine palace in Rome to an area which  reflected to his own taste.

By the way, even though entry was free on the day, the strange thing is, you’d still need to have a ticket to enter. Same thing as our last visit to the museums here and here.

In any case, it’s rather confusing for the first timer going around Villa Adriana though. Even with the map, I was clueless at where to go and see first. It was a really large area. And in the end, I thought that it was best to just go with the flow.

One thing that you’ll notice as you enter the area was that there are loads of olive trees. I’m not sure if it was the right season for them but nevertheless, there were both green as well as olives which was starting to turn purple.

They looked so charming, being all in a row like that. There were interesting holes in the tree, making it seem enchanted and for me, it felt as if I was in a fairy tale come to life. The only thing missing is probably a food basket and a red cape. Cart can be the nice wolf

Camwhore time!

As you can see, I’m wearing my really sexeh jeans! 

Ok, let’s explore the Villa proper!

Gosh, I feel like Lara Croft (she’s an archaeologist by the way ) walking around the area. All that I’m missing is brown shorts and a blue top … (and maybe some guns too)

This is the area called “Teatro Greco”. The emperor was influenced by a lot of Grecian as well as Egyptian architecture. And this was the open theater that he had.

Just imagine how it would have looked like when it was pristine!

Next, we walked towards the heart of the villa where the pool were. See this wall here? It’s amazing isn’t it? That it still stands after so many many many years.

In any case, the walls looked interesting to me. It sticked out like a hedgehog spikes somehow. But this was an example of laying of the bricks as how ancient Romans did it.

Could you just imagine walking around this pool? The orange fences are ruining the picture though, but nevertheless, it’s so peaceful and tranquil here. Man, the emperor really knew how to live it up!

I’m not sure what the rest of the monuments are, so … ehm … I’ll just leave the rest of these pictures uncaptioned 

Oh! And by the way, there are some modern pieces every now and then, decorating the area. Like this grandma statue, chilling out by the trees.

Oh, and this tripping pegasus figure with some beheaded greek statues and a chopped hand … the artist was probably high! (on creativity)

AAA! Medusa! However does she shampoo?

We walked deeper in towards another large pool. This was the area where Emperor used to have his lunch at.

Can you just imagine if your dining area looked like this? I’d be working up a nice appetite just before I get to the table!

And right in the middle here was where he’d lie down on his side while having his lunch. It was the fashionable thing to do for rich to do. Commoners like us would have to eat sitting down.

We continued walking and stumbled upon this area. Cart was telling me that there was a thermal bath around there. This was possibly one of the areas where you changed outfits I suppose. It looked pretty spacious. I wonder if there were doors or they had to suffer as I did

The area was amazingly large. The roof of this building for example, you could stack at least 8 people on their heads before they touch the roof.

So much energy and work dedicated into building these.

Cart was telling me about this particular area which he liked. He was here before with a group of friends and they were able to enter this place below.

Today it is closed because of the danger of falling rocks. But Cart told me that this was a good place to be during the warm days as it was constructed specifically for keeping cool.

Nope, can’t explore in there

And then we walked to yet another area. By this time, I’ve totally given up on looking at the map to know where we were.

This is quite cool. I imagine that the area were houses for the servants to the emperor. See the brick formation? And we were free to walk inside the space! And I tried to visualise how it would have looked like then.

And before you knew it, 2 hours has passed by  and we were approaching closing time. One of the last monuments that we managed to see was Piazza D’Oro. (Gold Piazza)

I think if you are ever in Villa Adriana, you shouldn’t miss this. This place really feels very tranquil and peaceful. It was really relaxing to see the hill and the rolling clouds in the background.

And now visualise white marble pillars in front of you. And people walking around with toga.

But before we knew it, it was time to go. And we had to say goodbye to this amazing place.

To end this post, I’m also going to put up this picture which I spotted on our way to Villa Adriana

Look! It’s an Italian Pentagon!