Volare! Entertainment at Villa Romana del Casale
Volare
I awake to the sounds of birds. I think they are swallows. Or swifts. I am never sure what the difference is. I look outside and there are hundreds of them swooping and soaring in circles just above the surrounding buildings. The town is gently coming awake firstly with the street sweepers who amble along armed with straw brushes, followed by the refuse trucks which impossibly manage to navigate the ever so slightly wider 'main' streets. I am thinking there is wizard magic at play here. It comes out at night to assist the functional vehicles to go about their work. The next morning I see a refrigerated truck manage to make its way through. Knowing how we fared I am just amazed.
Pino has left us breakfast supplies but he returns with pastries - chocolate and jam-filled cornets, the Italian equivalent of croissants, and brioches. Tragedy. We have no means to make hot day-starting drinks of any kind. The apartment is not in regular use and the gas has been disconnected apart from a small bottle for hot water. Somehow this is a different supply to the stove. And there is no kettle. Our breakfast supplies include a bottle of iced tea. We are going to have to do something about that later.
Today we are going to a town about an hour away called Piazza Armerina. I have read that nearby is an incredibly well-preserved Roman Villa with a large number of intact mosaic floors. Pino is one step ahead of us and has already put it on our must see list. The town itself is not far away and as we arrive we pull over for coffee. There is a bit of confusion over whether we are having a macchiato, a caffe con latte or something else entirely. We will need to drill down on what to ask for to get the coffee we are expecting but the tiny shot with a dash of milk on this morning will get us going at least.
I awake to the sounds of birds. I think they are swallows. Or swifts. I am never sure what the difference is. I look outside and there are hundreds of them swooping and soaring in circles just above the surrounding buildings. The town is gently coming awake firstly with the street sweepers who amble along armed with straw brushes, followed by the refuse trucks which impossibly manage to navigate the ever so slightly wider 'main' streets. I am thinking there is wizard magic at play here. It comes out at night to assist the functional vehicles to go about their work. The next morning I see a refrigerated truck manage to make its way through. Knowing how we fared I am just amazed.
Pino has left us breakfast supplies but he returns with pastries - chocolate and jam-filled cornets, the Italian equivalent of croissants, and brioches. Tragedy. We have no means to make hot day-starting drinks of any kind. The apartment is not in regular use and the gas has been disconnected apart from a small bottle for hot water. Somehow this is a different supply to the stove. And there is no kettle. Our breakfast supplies include a bottle of iced tea. We are going to have to do something about that later.
Today we are going to a town about an hour away called Piazza Armerina. I have read that nearby is an incredibly well-preserved Roman Villa with a large number of intact mosaic floors. Pino is one step ahead of us and has already put it on our must see list. The town itself is not far away and as we arrive we pull over for coffee. There is a bit of confusion over whether we are having a macchiato, a caffe con latte or something else entirely. We will need to drill down on what to ask for to get the coffee we are expecting but the tiny shot with a dash of milk on this morning will get us going at least.
Onward to the Villa Romana del Casale. Wow! This place is incredible. As someone who has dabbled in creating extremely simple mosaic works I am blown away by what I see. The Villa must have been amazing in its day. There are bath houses with different rooms. The main mansion has many rooms for dressing and resting, food preparation, worship and general living. And a 60 metre hall. The functions of the rooms are depicted in the mosaic floors. One room contains an image of a man being attended to by four other men and has been interpreted as a massage room. Even the attendants are in luxurious robes. The details of muscle definition, folds of clothing and curls in hair are all picked out in varying coloured tesserae. The floor mosaic in the grand hall depicts numerous exotic animals, lions, antelope, buffalo, elephants involved in various actions. There is a room filled with the images of children chasing barnyard animals. I don't have enough adjectives in my vocabulary to do this place justice.
Having reached sensory overload we take some refreshments under some trees in the courtyard of the nearby cafe. There is a man playing accordion and singing accompanied by a vendor from a stall selling small watercolours. Jeremy strikes up a conversation with them and before long they have launched into Volare with the kids providing the extra oomph for the chorus. Are you ready to book a trip to Sicily?
Unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside the buildings here so the image I have included below is from Wikimedia Commons.
Having reached sensory overload we take some refreshments under some trees in the courtyard of the nearby cafe. There is a man playing accordion and singing accompanied by a vendor from a stall selling small watercolours. Jeremy strikes up a conversation with them and before long they have launched into Volare with the kids providing the extra oomph for the chorus. Are you ready to book a trip to Sicily?
Unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside the buildings here so the image I have included below is from Wikimedia Commons.
"Mosaic in Villa Romana del Casale, by Jerzy Strzelecki, 06" by Jerzy Strzelecki - Own work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
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