Villa Adriana, Etc.

There was once a time I thought Emperor Hadrian must have been a real ass for having such a huge villa, because I assumed he built it for himself and his friends. As it turns out, he actually built it as a sort of Camp David for his court and their families so they could govern Rome from afar. 

(That is only half of it)

For all the money Hadrian had, he really wasn't interested in getting brown-nosed by all the people in the city of Rome. He actually preferred to be alone, which is why he built the villa, and specifically this area in his villa called the "Maritime Theater." It was his own tiny private island; exactly what every introvert dreams of.

I first saw a lecture on the Maritime Theater during freshman year in college, and I swore that I would stand on the island someday, but much to my dismay, it was fenced off when we got there. 

So we jumped over the fence. Carpe Diem. 

The designer of the island was really clever because they put Hadrian's private pools on the edge of the island, right next to the moat around the whole thing. When you're standing in the sunken area where the pools once were, your face is about 4" away from the water of the moat. They must have been doing something right, because even a thousand years later, those 4" thick walls still hold back all the water of the moat.

The villa has a huge bath complex, only a tiny bit of which you can see in this photo. The Romans loved baths, and according to my professors, they would go just about every day. The first pool they would go to was the caldarium so the hot water would open their pores and clean out the junk, then they would move on to the tepidarium, and lastly they would visit the frigidarium to close up their pores again before they left. So far I haven't experienced the heat of Rome, but I've heard is very extreme in the summer, which means that the cold pools in the bath were hard to keep cool.

The Romans, being much smarter than many modern designers, took advantage of nature to create a cool zone over the frigidarium and warmer zones over the tepidarium and caldarium.  They generally arranged the baths so that the frigidarium was on the more northern wall of the bath, and the caldarium was southern. Above the whole complex there was commonly either one large vault, which allowed cooler northern air to flow into the south-facing side, then sink down over the frigidarium and move gradually upward and across the bath complex toward the caldarium as the temperature of the air increased. Once the hot air reached the most southern side of the complex, it exited out of the south side of the vault, creating a vacuum that sucked in more cool air from the northern side. 

The Romans often constructed walls by making two thin "formwork" walls out of brick, then they poured concrete between the two walls of brick. Although it may be more initially expensive than our modern methods with wood formwork for concrete, I think it's more sustainable because the formwork doesn't get thrown out after the concrete cures.

On a less technical note, the feral cats at the villa are so friendly. This one followed us around for a solid hour and a half.

Despite all the impressive domes and baths and mosaics at the villa, this bug was possibly more fascinating than anything else we saw. Nobody has any idea what it is. I guess even Hadrian can't outdo nature.

Ostia Antica, etc.

On Friday we visited Ostia Antica, which are the ruins of Rome's old port city.

The ruins of Ostia Antica suggest that the people there LOVED taking baths. The city had at least three extensive bath complexes, and many of the floors in the bath houses are hollow to allow hot air to pass beneath to heat the caldariums. 

In some of the surviving structures, you can still see the clay ducts that carried hot air through the walls to heat the space even more.

Currently the only inhabitants of Ostia Antica are the homeless cats, which are not at all afraid of humans. This one followed our group for a good 20 minutes, going from room to room with us. 

* * *

We took a little walk to the top of Janiculum Hill, which is essentially the backyard of our neighborhood, Trastevere. This is the hill from which they fire the cannons every day at noon so the churches all ring their bells simultaneously. 

The hill is full of all sorts of monuments. This one is the newest, and someone has already christened it with the grit of Rome.

Anita Garibaldi has a statue at the top commemorating her badassery. She fought alongside her husband to defend Rome in 1849... While she was pregnant. Here she is depicted as a great multi-tasker -- riding a rearing stallion sidesaddle, in a dress, while nursing a baby and shooting her pistol into the sky.  

This photo has nothing to do with anything else. I just really like the cobblestones in Rome. They're dark basalt, and they're worn so smooth I want to suck on them like hard candies.

First few days in Rome

Here's the view from my apartment in Rome

Believe it or not, our apartment doesn't have a teapot, so I have to steep my tea leaves in a pot like witch's cauldron.

Here in Italy they have so little space that they try to use as many surfaces as possible for cooking, including the stove top. Our stove had a glass surface that would come down so you could use it for food prep when you aren't cooking on it, but you have to lift up the glass before you use the stove.

We weren't even in the apartment for a week before someone forgot and turned on the stove with the glass still down. 

It exploded like a bomb, and scared the living daylights out of all of us.

Last day in London

On our last day in London, we saw one of the oldest buildings, and one of the newest buildings.

In the morning, we saw the Tower of London.

This is probably the oldest hinge I have ever seen:

This is one thing I didn't expect from London... The grass is SO GREEN. This photo wasn't edited or filtered at all. The lawn actually looked neon green.

Instead of carving into this old tree that everyone else carved into at Hyde Park, we left $0.17 USD so that someday a little kid could dig it up and their parents could explain to them how American money is worth basically nothing compared to the pound.  

And we took some obligatory photos at Buckingham Palace. 

London has some of the prettiest puddles you will ever see.

If you ever want to see the view from the Shard, but you don't want to pay the money to get to the observation deck, just sneak into the bar:

If you look closely at this picture, you can see that the designers of this building cleverly encased the steel columns in mirrors so they blend in with the view.

On the way home, we found this undulating facade that may or may not be a fancy storage unit.

London

London only has a few hours of sunlight everyday, so it's lucky it is so pretty in the dark.

We visited a restaurant called Joe's, which was lovely, and I thought my sister would like it, so I sniped a few photos.

Justin & St. Paul's.

Along the Thames we stopped to watch the skateboarders.

The Eye was sort of expensive, but the machine itself is really cool.

And of course, an obligatory photo of Big Ben.