Rome - Italy 2025
What do you do when you are in the midst of roofing renovations? You pack your packs and head off to Italy. Wonderful. Well, there’s more to it as you’ll find out at the end of this travelogue.
So, Geoff and I left Brisbane at the end of October and flew straight to Rome. Why? To do a tour with Academy Travel through Puglia.
Let the journey begin.
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| Flying towards Rome |
Rome outside Termini - our hotel UNA, second on right
a corner in which to be extremely vigilant...
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| Eataly snack |
Wednesday, 22 October
We visited two museums within a 3-minute walk from our hotel and Termini.
The first, Palazzo Massimo, at the Museo Nazionale Romano, houses treasures that we were to see in situ a few days later. It abounds with priceless mosaics, sculptures, wall paintings, vases and figurines.
Museo Nazionale Romano
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| Palazzo Massimo |
.HEIC) |
| Just 3 mins walk from our hotel. |
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| Hellenistic Prince |
.HEIC)
.HEIC) |
| The boxer |
.HEIC) |
| Aphrodite of Menophantos |
.HEIC) | ||
A young girl from Ostia depicted as goddess Artemis .HEIC) a citharist* Apollo *player on a cithara (strummed string instrument)
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.HEIC)
patterns
Faces
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| pondering |
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| happy |
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| dubious? |
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Wall paintings and frescoes
creatures
Villa of Lilia garden fresco
Vases
.HEIC) |
| I love staircases, the first of many... |
Termini to the right, Terme di Diocleziano to the left
Terme di Diocleziano
.HEIC)
The public baths in ancient Rome. Named after Emperor Diocletian and built from 298 to 306, they were the largest of the imperial baths. The project was initially commissioned by Maximian upon his return to Rome in autumn 298 and was continued after Diocletian’s abdication under Constantius, father of Constante.
The baths were opened until c 537, when the Ostrogoths cut off the aqueducts to the city of Rome. The site houses the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, built within the 16th-century ruins, the Church of San Berardo alle Terme, and part of the National Roman Museum.
Apart from sculptures and mosaics, and remnants of grandiose structures and arches, you can glimpse the past magnificence of awe-inspiring architecture.
Opposite Termini
.HEIC) |
| Exiting the Terme |
Romans combine their cultural heritage with technology, as evidenced by this little robotic cleaner, a dear little thing that kept trying to run me over.
.HEIC)
Dear Reader, if you switch to my page 2025 Puglia to Pompeii, you can follow our travels through Puglia.
Friday, 7 November
We returned from the most amazingly enriching tour of Southern Italy to Fiumicino airport to spend the next few days in this wonderful city before flying home.
Geoff wondering where home is!
Saturday, 8 November
When in Rome, go to the Forum...
Museo Leonardo Da Vinci - Galeria Agostiniana
This Museum brings to life Leonardo's genius as an inventor, artist, scientist, anatomist, engineer and architect.
Leonardo Da Vinci's fighting vehicle
More than 50 interactive machines are crafted by Italian artisans from Leonardo's codices, studies of his most famous Renaissance art, anatomical sketches, in-depth videos and an immersive room with 270-degree projections. All within walking distance from our hotel.
The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, 1499-1508?
Mona Lisa, 1503-1517?
Galleria D'Arte Moderna
The main artistic trends at the end of the 19th and the 20th centuries are on display here.
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Gustav Klimt, The Three Ages, 1905 Kees van Dongen, La Donna in Bianco, c 1912  |
Amedeo Modigliani, Ritratto di Hanka Zborowska, 1917
 Giovanni Boldini, Ritratto di Giuseppe Verdi, 1886 |
Vittorio Corcos, Sogni (Dreams), 1896
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Vincent van Gogh, L'Ariesiana (ritratto di Mme Ginoux), 1890 Ercola Rosa, Busto di Garibaldi, 1875   just love those little toy cars |
Sunday, 9 November
Again, within walking distance to our hotel, albeit more than a couple of minutes, Villa Torlonia is the result of various remodellings of an estate that belonged first to the Pamphilj, passed to the Colonna, and was then purchased by Giovanni Torlonia in 1797. The park covers 13.2 ha, and its landscaped grounds have a socially and historically rich and complex past. I'll focus on the buildings we visited.
Moorish Conservatory and Tower
The Moorish Conservatory and three-storey Tower with a grotto were built between 1839 and 1840, as part of Giuseppe Jappelli's English-style project for the southern area of the park.
The entrance has a Moorish arch with a painted pediment and an inscription in Kufic script reading 'Prince D. Alessandro and the Most Noble Teresa Torlonia'.
The Conservatory evokes Spanish Moorish architecture. It has Alban stone pilasters with graffito decoration and large polychrome stained-glass windows. The dining room has Moorish decorations and gold and silver stuccowork on crimson and blue grounds, and stained-glass windows.
Behind the building are large blocks of tuff and the remains of the grotto with stalactites.
stalactites
Casina delle Civette
The 'Owl House' was designed in 1840 as a rustic construction with an external cladding of ashlar tuff and an interior painted in tempera to imitate rocks and wooden plans. In 1916, two stained-glass windows were installed with owl-shaped decorations.
-Duilio Cambellotti, Owls in the Night, 1914
Black and white swans
Stanza dei ciclamini (Room of the cyclamens)
Umberto Bottazzi, The Peacocks, 1912
This room was used mainly for guests. The beautiful and sophisticated window was made of bright blue, yellow, and green glasses set into lead, forming an elaborate design of six peacocks arranged in ascending order around a large vase.
stained-glass window with swallows in flight against a blue sky
considered a product of the Picchiarini workshop
opalescent glass, gems (oval, round, chips). Lead weave of various thickness.
Patrizia Dalla Valle, Oltre la Luce (Beyond the Light), 2016
mosaic, gold, silver and glass
mosaic, gold, silver and glass
close up of Oltre la Luce
This technique of glass pieces protruding from the surface
can be seen on Eva's stunning work, Callistemon.
Casino Nobile
The first restoration and expansion works of the Casino lasted from 1802 to 1806.
Improvement and expansion of the building continued with the insertion of a vestibule into the facade and a terracotta high-relief.
two-storey high ballroom
From 1925 to 1943, the Casino Nobile was used as Mussolini's residence. He lived here with his family and built two bunkers, one in 1940 and the other in 1942.
We were fortunate to see a retrospective exhibition of the works of Mario Mafai (1902-1965) and Antonietta Raphaël (1895-1975).
What is so striking for Geoff and me is the uncanny resemblance of our friends' daughter, Sarah, in Australia.
Mario Mafai, Ritratto di Antonietta, (portrait of Antonietta), 1934
In Mafai's portrait of Antonietta in her studio, she is portrayed as a queen at the centre of the painting. It is not simply a portrait of an artist, but seems to embody the seduction of a dominant woman. Golden light permeates the artist's studio and glides across the works.
We left this superb park surrounding the Musei di Villa Torlonia to return to our hotel and to our last supper in this historically and artistically rich city. One last glimpse at those cute cars.
Can they get any smaller?
Might just fit into my luggage?
on the way home...
PS We got home and unbeknownst to us, the roof renovation date had been postponed until the rainy and cyclone season of December. Where will we escape to when that eventuates?