1) The closest town is Piazza Armerina. There are no direct buses to Piazza Armerina and we had to deal with reduced schedules for Saturday and Sunday.
2) The site is 5 km from town. No local buses this time of the year. We walked.
3) At 700+m high, PA was cold. A number of old ladies were sporting their fur coats.
4) There is hotel selection to speak of.
The mosaics were worth every bit of trouble.
Laid in the 4th century Ad, preserved by a mud slide from 1200s to 1800s, unlike bible stories in medieval church mosaics, these were hunting & games scenes, mythology scenes, not to mention geometric designs. They went on and on. Most of the mosaics are in an incredible state of preservation, as well as the whole villa itself, with its unique layout. This site had it all. Now I am wondering whether there is any point in going around seeing anything else. It would just be so anticlimactic.
Photo notes: One, all of the mosaics are embedded in the villa's floors and my photos are from platforms above. Most of the human figures are close to life size. Two, the mix of natural light and electric lighting was difficult to balance.
A corner of the famous hunting scene where it looks like "the kill" will be made with a large rock.
And in another corner, bird watching of sorts.
One of the mosaics is several hundred feet long and features the capture of wild animals in Africa and their loading onto ships for transport to Rome.
Bedroom.
The famous Athletic Women.
In one part of the villa, The Basilica, the was floor was covered with marble mosaics.
The Cathedral of Piazza Armenina.
Street food! Panini Caprese with fries please.
They were renovating it when I was there. Looks a lot better from your photos. Did they get rid of the horrible plastic roof?
ReplyDeleteWOW again. This must make your whole trip worthwhile. Being so isolated must help to preserve it. Appears the UL corner of Athletic Women is turned over. How can that be? I thought these to be ceramic mosaics set into walls and floor.
ReplyDelete@Kathy, there was only one area, the oval Hercules scene, still has the clear roof. Everything else has a solid roof, that shields the mosaic from the sun. We can see how they have improved from the descriptions in an older guidebook.
ReplyDelete@Crash, I think it's the mudslide that buried the site did most of the preservation. You have very sharp eyes! On that particular floor, it originally had a geometric design, then remodeled to have the "bikini ladies" scene. That's extravagance!