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Published: February 21st 2006
yay, another school led trip! no planning or researching involved at all! this was mostly an architecture trip, but since my professor ended up going on the trip as well, she was able to invite those of us taking museum management. we are encouraged to visit as many museums as possible and although the villa adriana is a huge outdoor site, it counts as a museum. well regardless, the point is i was able to go for no charge on a tour through the villa adriana with an archeologist/professor at my university who happens to be part of a team that is actively excavating there. actively! it was awesome. ok also, my professor who just went along for the ride wasn't giving us the tour or anything, but is also an archeologist. so we were accompanied by the right people.
villa adriana is ridiculously large. seriously seriously the name villa suggests a house, it is not a house. it is its own city of wonderfulness. there are three bath houses. three. it's great.
my favorite part was definitely this little walled in island that was where hadrian went when he didn't want to be near anyone. it was surrounded by
island sanctuary
this is where hadrian went when he didn't want to see anyone. very wonderful.a moat and on the island he had everything he needed, except food of course which a servant would bring, putting down a bridge to get on and pulling it up again when he left. and there are crazy fun catfish that live in the moat.
after walking through most of the enclosed, world heritage conserved site, our professor led us out a side gate to show us where his team was currently working. apparently there is still tons of stuff that is outside the world heritage lines that are still being unearthed and studied. he led us past a little hut that they had just found the day before that was used as a kind of a water basin for a big palace that was near to it. he also showed us the pipes they found going to the little hut. THEN THE BEST PART. i found myself wandering through an olive grove to this dirt path/poor excuse for a road that was lined by fenced in private property. the road ended in a big green gate which we went around, because it was locked. past the gate, we're clearly walking through private property and finally arrive at
fishies
these guys were in the island santuary's moat. even more wonderful. our destination which is a complex of underground tunnels, the 'underworld.' the tunnels were build by hadrian and they think that they run under the entire area of the villa but most are filled in now. the tunnels are huge and were thought to have been used by servants and construction workers so that they could carry on their work unseen. and we walked down into them! the nerd in me went crazy. here i was on the private property of an old italian noble family who has been their for centuries, standing in a still intact underground passageway built during the roman empire. hm.
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the dish
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family ties
it offical. every genese is now subscribed to this. cuz i entered the email addresses myself and shall force them to read this. i wish i had it when i was in australia. i love you. coming at the end of march. we'll talk.