Busy, busy, busy

It's been a couple crazy days here at the Centro.  I'm beginning to see why Anna warned me that there wouldn't be very much time to yourself.  But of course I say this right before the start of my first weekend at the program which are largely unscheduled.  Tomorrow there is a trip to the Villa Guilia to see the Etruscan artifacts, which I plan to follow up with a further visit of the nearby Villa Borghese.  But that's tomorrow.  What have I been up to?  Well,

Yep, repeated trips to the Forum Romanum!  This is a shot taken from near the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina (shhhh, it doesn't exist yet.) of the land that once held the Domus Publica.  That is, the official residence of the Pontifex Maximus.  And the most famous one of those (perhaps) was Julius Caesar.  So on this spot, Julius Caesar once lived and owned a house.  But that doesn't exist yet either.  Still, pretty cool, eh?

Otherwise, we've been gallivanting about the countryside to witness the magnificence that was Etruria.  So yesterday was a day trip up to Tarquinia to see the museum, the Etruscan tombs and necropolis nearby, and a second Etruscan town at Cerveteri  (pronounced with a 'ch' at the beginning).  These monumental tombs were most often carved out of the living rock and then occasionally embellished with paintings and sculpture.  There were some fantastic paintings, which I couldn't take pictures of, so you'll have to settle for a shot of the interior of the Tomb of the Capitals from Cerveteri.

Notice here that the column itself is carved into the Tufo rock of the Tomb.  So that whole structure is just one giant piece of stone carefully carved out to resemble a set of bedrooms for the deceased.  Way cool?  Certainly these bystanders from the group seem to think so.  (Sorry about the flash, guys)

Today was even more travel by bus.  First up to Lavinium, where we saw the famous 12 altars (apparently they discovered another 2 recently) of the supposed Latin League and the 'Heroon of Aeneas'.  Yes, Aeneas is buried there.  I even stopped in a coffee shop named the Caffe 'Enea which proved the identification.  The Lavinium Museum was a bit silly, designed to appeal to schoolchildren and get them interested in the history of their area - but even so had some interesting artifacts.  Then we rushed off to see Lake Nemi and the famous ships of mad emperor Caligula.  (Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed there.)  The real tragedy is that these ships, which were recovered in the 1930s, were burned up by the retreating Germans during World War 2.  On that account, the museum now holds 1/5 size models - and even those were impressively sized.  I cannot imagine what the full ships must have looked like.  Just gigantic.

Finally, on our last stop of the day, we parked the bus next to an example of a Roman aqueduct, the Aqua Claudia.  I won't say much about these, except of course that they are awesome example of very practical architecture.  But it was extraordinary that even today the modern city of Rome runs a gigantic water pipe along the exact same course.  I suppose when modern and ancient peoples have the same problems, they tend to find very similar solutions. 

With that said, I think I am heading to bed.  The Villa Guilia and Villa Borghese tomorrow!