More of Italy

I have to say, the best part of the Roman ruins weren't in Rome. The more famous monuments- The Pantheon, Collosseum, Roman Baths of Diocletion...were just a whisper of their former glory. A lot of the ruins have been converted into great churches, or left to deteioriate after spending centuries as medival fortresses. The top spots for me were primarily outside of the main city. In the ancient port city of Ostia, there are roads of ancient apartment buildings and shops. Granted, they really only consist of brick walls....but it is the first place where one can attain a greater appreciation for what an ancient Roman city must have looked like. There was one bar, from the 4th century AD, that was almost perfectly preserved. I could see where people actually walked up to order drinks, and get a sense of some of the painting originally depicted on the walls.




Another great site was the Etruscan 'city of the dead'....this was an ancient burial ground full of round houses which housed the dead. They wanted to treat their dead with the same respect as the living, so the houses look just like ordinary homes from the time.








The most beautiful place we visited was the Villa D'este. This was a villa built by a bishop in Tivoli, at the top of a mountain overlooking Rome. It was absolutely gorgeous. Every room was orantely decorated, the walls all painted to a different theme. They didn't need TV back then, you could just walk from room to massive room, looking at the stories told through the massive murals on the wall. Some were a bit creepy, but all were so impressive. Behind the villa was one of the most amazing gardens I have ever seen. The landscape was on the side of the mountain, so each level you got to you could look down and see another new set of gardens.