The last full day of my week's break and I decided to go for a lengthy drive to see
the Villa Romana del Casale, which promised the most amazing mosaics in the western world. I love a nice Roman mosaic me, as you may recall from my recent visit to
Fishbourne Palace and the whole Roman thing knocks my socks off generally - take a look at
my second visit to Pompeii if you need confirmation.
It was a much longer drive than I had anticipated, partly because I went the scenic route on the way there (though I have to say the non-scenic route on the return was pretty bloody scenic too - Sicily is beautiful) and partly because the main road on the scenic route was inexplicably closed to traffic and I needed my sat nav to find an even longer and windier way around it. It was three and a half hours of driving and the kind of driving that needed intense concentration, due to the tightness of the turns and the unpredictability of Sicilian drivers. I am pretty comfortable with the car now and think I understand most of the rules of the road here (even if the inhabitants ignore most of them), but it was still a stressful journey, made somewhat more bearable by the breathtaking valleys that appeared over every hill, as well as passing by orange groves, which had spilled fruit on to the tar mac. Had I been back with Geoff Quigley in 1986 then I would have stopped and eaten the free oranges - but if it had been 1986 I wouldn't have been in a car and wouldn't have had money to afford food.
Anyway, by the time I got to the villa I was exhausted, and annoyed that,as the Lonely Planet had predicted (this one maybe written by someone who had actually been to the country, unlike the Colombian one, but inevitably much of the stuff is out of date already!) the place was full of coach trips of middle-aged and elderly Europeans, who would get in my way on the narrow walk ways above the mosaics. Slightly annoyingly also it was clear that a lot of the villa was closed for refurbishment and loads of stuff was covered up. This seems to be the story of my stay - nearly all the attractions have been partially closed or having work done. I guess this isn't the high season.
Even so, once I had got my bearings in this impressively preserved villa (apparently covered by a mud-slide a few hundred years ago) I have to say it totally rocked my world. It made Fishbourne Palace's previously impressive mosaics look like some bathroom tiles that had been smashed into bits and thrown into a cess pool and had formed a kind of pattern. The intricacy and detail was just astounding and the villa was fucking massive. The Roman who lived here had money to burn!
The parties of old people were doubly annoying when access was limited. In one room I was trapped behind some French people whose guide was giving them every possible detail about the Hercules based mosaic (which of course given my interest I had been keen to get a proper look at). Eventually I got bored of waiting and tried to get passed them so I could get out. An elderly man saw me trying to squeeze into the final part of the room and stood in front of me, pushing his arm in my chest stopping my progress and shouting "Non! Groupe. Groupe!" I knew he was part of a group. That was the problem. The group was in my way. But being in a group didn't mean that they owned the villa. I wasn't in there group, but I was still allowed to look at the mosaics. I think the man was worried that I was trying to listen in for free on the guided tour that he had paid for. But I am English. My French, though slightly better than my Italian (though I don't know how to discuss my pretend allergy to latex in French) is still not good enough for me to follow a detailed discussion about mosaics. In any case I was only trying to get out at this point. Yet here I was being poked in the chest by a Frenchman in his sixties. The old me might have tried to fight him, but I just said, "I don't care if you are in a group. I have paid and I am still allowed to look at the mosaics." And though the Frenchman probably didn't understand me, he probably understood that I wasn't French and he stopped poking me and shouting "groupe" at me, so that was some kind of victory I suppose. I could have come back with the fact that it was a Norman, King William the Bad, who had done his best to destroy this villa. So if anyone should leave, it should be the descendants of this naughty man.
When my way wasn't being obstructed by German and French old people or sheets of white plastic which were up over a good quarter of the floors (though you could occasionally peek through little holes and see what you were missing) I had a great time. I wish I had lived in Roman times and had been friends with the arrogant man who had himself depicted in the awesome 65 metre hunting scene (but whose name I have pleasingly forgotten - so much for his attempt at immortality) and could have seen this villa in all its glory. I love the Romans, but then I love electricity too and they didn't have that, the idiots, so maybe it's best that I live in the present day.
