Wofford Travels – 2018-09-25 – Italy
Our travels began leaving our residence at 10 AM for a 2:3o PM flight out of Greensboro to Newark, NJ. We were delayed 30 minutes, and ended up leaving the Newark Airport at 6:15 PM. At 7:45 AM we arrived at the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino (FCO) Airport in Rome. Our train departure from Rome to Naples was at 2 PM, so we had some time to kill. Fortunately, Palazzo Massimo alle Terminale (Rome’s best archeological museum in a classical Neo Renaissance style palace and erected between 1883 and 1887) was just around the corner of the Termini train station…an exceedingly lucky break!
This museum is one of the four parts of the Museo Nazionale Romano. Among the numerous full-body sculptures of men and women, as well as hundreds of busts of both, the museum collection boasts two ancient Roman copies of the 5th century B.C. “Discobolus,” that classical athlete tossing a disc, as well as several beautiful Venuses. There was a most impressive, and very large, 200 AD sarcophagus, with some of the best sculpted relief I had ever seen.
A section that was especially impressive was the ancient fresco collection. Besides the numerous individual selections were whole “rooms” from the the House of Livia, Augustus’s wife. These collections enabled you to see how the rooms would have looked back in time, including ceiling moulding and floor mosaics. The frescoes from the Villa Farnesina were equally impressive. You could sit on a piece of furniture in the middle of the room, and view full circle the walls as though you were in the original villa.
There were also many impressive wall and floor mosaics. A number of these contained some of the smallest “art” tiles that I have seen, so that from a distance, they almost looked like paintings. After a couple of hours we were ready to head back around the corner to the Termini.
At 1 PM we took our Frecciarossa “first class” coach to Naples, arriving at 3:15 PM. While I was napping, trying to catch up on some much-needed sleep, Tom informed me that we must have been going at least 150 mph. It so happens that that line goes up to 224 mph. Maybe, it was good I was sleeping!
Tom and I then took the Naples Metro to our small hotel, Il Convento on Via Speranzella. Before its life as a hotel, it was a palace dating from the 17th century and built on convent property. The hotel is located in the Spanish Quarter, right off the shopping street, Via Toledo. As a hotel it is fairly new, and has been up and running since 2001. Its owner, Maria Chiara, has a great fondness for antiques, which is evident inside the building.
We met up with 3 of our fellow travelers, a fourth had gone to bed, and the fifth and sixth were arriving late due to a flight cancellation.
After all our activity, it was time to call it a day, and wait to see what Napoli had to offer us. A domani (until tomorrow),
Tita