In Piazza Armerina: Villa Romana del Casale

April 7, 2023

Visiting Villa Romana del Casale was the main reason for coming to Piazza Armerina. We wanted to see the Good Friday procession as well, but it’s my understanding that most, if not all, Sicilian towns of any size hdd as be such processions. It’s such a separate topic and I took so many photos I’ll put that in a separate post.

We rode our bikes the fairly short distance from town to the site. Since this is a bike touring journal, I’ve included our tracks below. We left via the route suggested by RWGPS, down a rather precipitous back alley, nonetheless signed as leading to the autoroute. We opted to return via a route we could actually ride.

From the brochure we were handed with our tickets:

The villa was the centre of a major agricultural estate that produced wheat, oil, and wine during the 4th century. The architecture and the splendid mosaics served to reflect the power and influence of the villa’s owner and, at the same time, create a pleasant living environment.

I expect there’s plenty of information available about Villa Romans del Casales so I won’t say much. The villa must have been beautiful and the mosaic floors were impressive. Why do many focussed on fishing, I have no idea, given that the estate was well inland and at a fairly high elevation. A quirk of the owner or designer, I guess.

Wearing lots of layers. We had brought our walking shoes (our cycling shoes are slippery on hard surfaces) and our down jackets. It was almost warm in the sun but most of the villa is covered to protect the mosaic s as bf shade visitors from the sun and consequently was very chilly.

The same covering that protects the mosaics made photographing the mosaics challenging with the equipment I had so I’ve only included a few of the better ones.

This was the “large latrine”. A communal space for the usual purpose of latrines. Such an uncomfortable idea to modern western society.

The largest floor showed scenes of capturing exotic animals and bringing them back to Rome.

This floor, showing female athletes, is famous. It wasn’t the original design; that is exposed in one corner.

The perimeter of the large atrium was decorated with medallions of various animals.

We had a light lunch at the little on-site cafeteria before riding back up to Piazza Armerina. We were ahead of the rush, it seemed. Things were busy when we left but must be crazy during high season. We rested in our warm room until it was time to head out and find the procession.

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Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 907 km (563 miles)

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Scott AndersonI can’t believe you’re here on Good Friday, as we were. Good plan!
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1 year ago

Suzanne GibsonWonderful mosaics!
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1 year ago