Magnificant Mosaics in Villa Romana del Casale

We are currently at a campsite near San Giorgio (N38°10’9” E14°56’56”), having gone from the south of Sicily to the north in 2 days (just over 200 miles).  The campsite is right next to the Tirreno sea overlooking the beautiful Aeolian Islands.

The Aeolian Islands on the Tirreno Sea

And the tip of Sicily and mainland Italy beyond, the other way

Leaving Marina di Ragusa the scenery changed dramatically, as we left the coastline behind that we have been following since arriving on Sicily and cut across the middle of the country on the SS117.  Many of the fields are farmed and as the olive and grape vines disappeared, we encountered many prickly wild cactus plants.  Lots of large ones growing wild on the side of the road and others that were being cultivated.

Prickly wild cacti

and we came across these derricks, possibly drilling for black gold!

Derricks digging for black gold in Sicily

First stop going north was The Villa Romana del Casale, 3kms outside Piazza Armerina.  It was built between 330 and 360 AD and was used as a hunting lodge up until the 12^th century when it was largely covered by a mudslide.  The Villa is recognised as the best-preserved villas from anywhere in the Roman Empire, with 3,500 square metres of mosaics on the floors and some surviving wall paintings. Many of the mosaics are said to be influenced by the North African motifs of the Romans.

The identity of its owner remains a subject of debate the guides saying that it belonged to a Roman emperor, Maximianus Herculeus but recently it has been suggested that the owner was a senatorial aristocrat and landowner who possibly supplied Rome with grain as well as wild beasts.  In the Roman world a marble floor was considered more prestigious than a pavement of mosaics, suggesting the owner didn’t rank high in Roman society.  Hard to imagine that these beautiful mosaics were once considered second best!

The main entrance leads down to where the thermae (baths), where you can still see the heating system.

Roman Baths at Villa Romana del Casale

A greenhouse-like structure, along with steel has been built to protect the site after it was first properly excavated during the fifties.  A massive pillared courtyard, whose corridors are decorated with animal-head mosaics leads you into the villa.

The Roman mosaics are very impressive and they have sympathetically restored the rooms to how they would have looked thousands of years ago.  Below is just a small sample of the photos we took!

The Great Hunt – a 60 metre strip of perfect mosaics decorating the floor of a long hall.  It is one continuous scene in which groups of armed and shield-bearing men track down and capture wild animals (tigers, ostriches elephants and rhinos) in India and North Africa before transporting them by boat to Rome. Made in the early 4^th century AD.  Ithas never been chopped up or moved, which in itself is incredible.

Mel looking down from one of the balcony’s, thinking... I wonder if one of these would work well on the floor on Sonny, the motorhome – or maybe not!

Female athletes wearing only bikinis exercising with dumbbells, running and throwing balls and the discus – could easily be something out of the 20^th century!

Tiny racing chariots pulled by colourful birds

Mosaic depicting the 4 seasons in one of the bedrooms

There are no campsites inland, and most of the Sostas are just mixed car parks in the towns, so we had a bit of a change and stayed on an Agritourismo site, which are sited on farms/rural sites.  We have seen quite a few signs for these since travelling through Italy/Sicilly and thought we would give them a try.  Agriturismo Agricasale was about 10kms from the villa in the middle of nowhere, lovely and quiet with plenty of shade, a swimming pool and restaurant.

Sonny (the motorhome) enjoying his retreat under the trees at Agriturismo Agricasale.

Swimming pool at Agriturismo Agricasale

Leaving Piazza Armerina we passed another forest fire, presumably caused by the immense heat.

Forest fire as the heat of the sun reaches 40° by mid morning

And passed a few towns built into the rock, like this one at Leonforte.

Leonforte

Looking at the map we thought we would skirt around the town but good old ‘shat-nav’ took us right through the narrow streets of the town!

Breath in Sonny!

The roads continue to be bad but the SS117 was shocking, with plenty of subsidence and potholes. The scenery more than made up for it though!

There was evidence that they had started to build another road across but looking at it this must have been started years ago, probably run out of money and has just been abandoned.

As the temperatures have been soaring outside, so they have inside poor old Sonny. So we have invested in a portable air con system – well a table fan to be more precise but it does the job!

34.3° inside the motorhome and 36.6° out at 18:16!

Still very hot at 18:16 - 36.6°!

Sally x