Our first stop today is Domus Aurea, only open at the weekends on a guided tour and undergoing a €39m restoration. This is Nero’s Golden House, a huge villa complex of banqueting rooms, baths and gardens with a facade that was supposed to be coated in solid gold, a revolving dining room which scattered petals and scent over the guests and a huge statue of Nero as a sun god requiring 24 elephants to put the base in place! The villa was torn down after his death, all the precious marble covering the walls was removed and the Colosseum and Trajans Baths built on top of part of the complex.
We put on hard hats for our tour and saw the excavations of a banqueting villa which had been filled with earth and used as foundations, accessed by holes in the roof in the Rennaissance and thought to be grottos by visiting artists of the day who copied the designs seen in the frescos to begin a style called grotesque which can be seen reproduced in almost every villas and palazzo of the time.
This is definitely work in progress and a mammoth task to secure the site from damage from the garden above where the weight of soil and penetration of roots and water are continuing to undermine the structure.
Walking through the rooms alone would have been a disappointment as just a few small areas of fresco have been cleaned, and most has been badly damaged but fortunately our excellent guide, the video and the 3D reconstruction of the site with headsets really made the Domus Aurea come to life.
The afternoon was to have been spent at a football match … but it’s the end of the season with Roma playing Juventus and tickets proved rather expensive … almost as much as going to Liverpool for the weekend which would be Chris’s first choice … so we changed our minds.
With our remaining days already planned to take in the must-see sights of Rome, I was interested in finding some less-known gem and came up with Art Noveau Rome. Firstly we made our way to the Quartiere Coppede, which was designed by Florentine architect Gino Coppede in the C19. Piazza Mincio is surrounded by whimsical collection of buildings with turrets, columns and grotesque faces, surrounding a fountain topped with frogs.
From here, we walked to the Villa Torlonia, set in parkland and once lived in by Mussolini. In the grounds is Casina Delle Civette or small house of owls, a Liberty-style house full of Art Noveau features created in 1917 for Prince Torlonia, with owls above the door.
Unfortunately it became quite dilapidated before being restored but now contains a huge collection of stained glass, some original to the house, some remade from original drawings and other glass collected from the period.
Across the road we saw a large gathering of people holding gelato … always a good sign … and went to look. The tubs of gelato in the counter all had their own beater churning to keep the gelato at perfect consistency! Keeping the theme from the morning, I chose Nero Chocolate from Modica and Red Orange – an inspired combo if I say so myself … and Chris had surprisingly coffee, pistachio and mango! Well Guttilla has surpassed all the gelato we have had so far … so might be the best in Rome … but we do have two days to go!
As for getting back to the B&B, with a limited metro system, the Google bus information has been invaluable, telling us the best route and showing us where the bus stop is and even the time of the next bus and it also works for trams, so we got a ride back on this green one!
Off Travelling Together 