So yesterday I had a perfect day. One of those days that remind you about the great things you can see just by walking out of the door and enjoying free, simple pleasures. A friend called me and wanted me to go on a bike ride with her on the Appia Antica (old Appian Way). Apparently it's closed to traffic on Sundays so it's a great spot to go for a walk or a bike ride. I jumped on the metro and met her by her house. First we had to stock up on food for later so we bought delicious pizza-->I got smoked provalone and tomato. A quick stop by her house to pick up the bikes and then we were on our way. I was a little rusty at first especially since I still don't exactly have a good grasp on the location of my center of gravity, but I was a pro by the end of the day.
The first thing we saw was the Capo di Bove Roman bathhouse. Apparently a man more recently (the 2nd century) owned a villa and wanted to have a pool in his yard. When they dug up the earth they uncovered this ancient Roman bathhouse. Not wanting the state to claim his land, the owner had the ruins covered up. Eventually word got out and the land was taken by the state, the ruins were uncovered, and it is now open to the public. There were great mosaics, and you could see the pipes that were part of some of the first running sewer systems.
The villa that the man owned on this property was built with Roman artifacts in the foundation which was unbelievable to see. There were marble headstones and lion heads, clay pots, vessels, pipes, and other random artifacts jutting out of the actual houses structure. It must be nice to be rich enough to have your house covered in ancient relics. The villa is now an archive of some sort and there are occasionally meetings held there.
The next ruin we saw was the tomb of Cecelia Metella, the wife of a nobleman who was of noble blood herself. Inside of the tomb is volcanic rock taken from a volcano on the hill that was active at the time. They also made the stones on the Via Appia out of the volcanic rock (which is still there today on some parts). We didn't actually spend the money to get inside, but observed it from the outside (after all this day was about enjoy free, simple pleasures).
Further down the road we saw a meadow with sheep in it and my friend turns to me and says "do you want to go closer?" to which I responded "yessss!!" We walked across the field and got as close as we could without scaring all of them away. They were all groaning loudly, and there was a shepherd asleep on the grass. My friend got close to a sleeping baby and quickly picked it up. She asked if I wanted to hold it to which I said YES! It was so cute and fuzzy, but as smelly as a dirty diaper. I then put the sheep down and I managed to capture on film what remains to be my favorite picture I've ever taken:
We then had a picnic by the tomb of Priscilla, another noblewoman. After that we headed to a villa that was built as a tomb to house the body of a nobleman's wife. The maintenance staff was there and unlocked it to let us in (which they usually don't do). It wasn't too interesting
on the inside, but was still cool to be able to see something that most people don't get to see. There were persimmon trees nearby and we tried to find ripe ones we could eat but they were all half-eaten by birds.After that we went to a house where they make cheese out of the sheep's milk and got some free samples. We could have bought a chunk for a chunk of money but we decided not to . There were a lot of flies everywhere and a foul smell in the air but the cheese was yummy yummy.
On the way home I climbed up a huge hay stack and sat there for a little bit. My friend took a picture of me, and then I somehow got down. we passed a nice meadow on the way home and there were children riding bikes through it. It was really nice to see how many people were outdoors and enjoying the beautiful autumn day.
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