Monster Day

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I called this a “Monster Day” for two reasons. First, we saw monster sculptures in a park in Bomarzo, near Viterbo, a town about 60 miles outside of Rome. Check out the website below for more info and good photos at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomarzo#Park_of_the_Monsters. It is like going through a fun house at an amusement park, except the horrors are made of tufo, a kind of volcanic rock, and were carved in the time of Michelangelo, perhaps even done by Michelangelo. You’ll see a photo of Sally trying to stand up in the crooked house. The photo is not tilted; the house is. It was amazing how disoriented we both got. I almost fell over. Some woman beside me caught me.



The second reason it was a monster day is the amount of territory we covered in one day. After the Monster Garden, we had a two hour lunch at a wonderful restaurant in Vasanello, five us with primo piatto, secondo piatto, wine for one person, and coffee for two, all for 65 euros (roughly $85). I left what was considered a generous tip of 5euros. After that we toured the town castle, which is owned and lived in by a friend of Gino and Stacy, my friends in Rome. We followed that up with a visit to the church, dedicated to Saint Landro, (I think I have the name right) who was a roman soldier who was martyred for preaching Christianity.



But wait, there’s more to our monster day. We then went to my friend Fulvia’s house for dinner. Her son, Lorenzo, was also there. 32 years ago, I lived with Fulvia and took care of Lorenzo. Of course, he is now 6 ft 3, a grown man, working in Denmark, now married with a son. He kindly drove us back to my friend Stacy’s house, with the help of the GPS. Rome is much easier to find your way around with a GPS.



To bed now. Sally has one more day, and while it won’t be quite so packed, I’m sure we’ll keep busy. Did I mention we walked around the Coliseum and looked at the park where I used to take Liam to play when we lived here in 1980?

I'll add more photos tomorrow.

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Photos

Crooked Sally
Actually Sally is trying to stand up straight and so am I while taking the photo.

Monster
This was one of the more popular monsters.