Piazza Armerina and Madonna della Rocca

The past week or so I have gone on a couple of day trips.  Over the kids spring break, I went with a couple of friends (the kids had no desire) to a place called Piazza Armerina where there is the ruins of an old Roman villa know for its intricate mosaics.

The villa was covered in mud due to a flood, and it is believed that the mud helped to preserve the mosaics.

This is part of the villa with some of the remaining columns.

All of the floors are covered in different mosaics made up of the smallest tiles, and each one tells a different story.

This pattern included 4 different animals, here you can see the tiger and horse.  This design when entirely around the central garden.  Although there were only the 4 animals, they were not all identical.

This one was supposed to represent the different seasons.  There are 4 pictures of a man and he is dressed slightly different in each picture.  There was a description of which picture was which season, but it made no sense to me.  The dress didn't look that different, but the seasons here really aren't that different, so you wouldn't expect the dress to change too dramatically.

These are the "bikini girls".  They are actually telling a story about the long jump and the discus throw.

It was a really interesting villa to walk through.  The tiles were so small that even in the areas where the ground had buckled due to the mud covering it, every tile was still in place and the pictures were clear.  It is amazing to think of all the work that must have gone into planning and executing all the mosaics.


This past week the new guy in Mike's  office arrived, and we are his sponsors.  Since he is single, he will be living out in town, so there isn't a lot we can do to help with that.  However, we did take him out for the day Saturday so he could see Sicily as well as get a sense of where the various towns so he has some sense of the geography as he is looking at real estate.  The main focus of the day was a trip to Taormina.  It is the big tourist area around here, and we love going there.  There is a castle up on top of a hill there that we have not been able to figure out how to get to.  So before we went,  I googled and got some basic directions.

This picture is taken from the main square in Taormina.  If you look closely, you will see the church to the left (there is a small white cross on the left) and then the remains of the castle to the right.  That is where we were determined to go!

From what I had read, there were around 500 steps to get up there.  I didn't count, and I am not sure at what point the count would start, because we had to go up a bunch of steps just to get to the street where the steps started!

The steps don't look so bad here.  As we got further up the mountain, the quality of the steps deteriorated and the side rail disappeared altogether.

Along the steps are the stations of the cross.  This is much more effective at having you imagine the struggle Christ had carrying the cross then just walking the stations in a church!

I don't think we were even halfway up at this point, and that is Taormina down there.

Getting closer!  If you look just right of center, you can see the guardrail for the steps.

That is the castle, still a ways away!

So close here you can see the door and the windows!

The church was closed, but I was able to put my ipad right up against the glass door and get a picture.

This was a great resting point, as there were still more stairs to climb to get to the castle.  I must have been really tired, because I didn't get any pix beyond this point.  That might also have something to do with the fact that we climbed the rest of the way to the castle, only to have the castle closed and the gate locked!  It was quite a workout!  My calves were shaking after that climb and it took a couple days for them to recover!  Not sure If I would be willing to do it again, but if we do, I will be sure the castle is open first!