Hadrian's Villa and Medieval Night in Santo Stefano di Sessanio

We left Rome after a restful morning at our cozy bed and breakfast in Rome.  Alice's camera cord gave out the night before and she was frantic at the loss of the camera.  Stefania, the bed and breakfast owner, came to the rescue and visited two camera shops before finding a replacement cord.  The blog would have been pretty barren without photos if she had not been successful.  Thank you, Stefania!

We headed east and got off at the Tivoli exit to visit Hadrian's Villa.  The other big tourist site in the area, Villa D'Este, is closed on Mondays.  We had a glorious day to walk among the the Roman ruins.  The site is beautiful and the ruins are pretty good (not up to Turkish Roman ruins though :-) ).  There were a few assorted tourists here and there and a group of German (we think) teenagers on a school excursion.  Otherwise, it was us and the birds and the stones of ancient Rome.

The Hadrian Villa, about 1/2 hour outside of Rome.  This is actually a large complex of impressive ruins in a very nice natural setting.

The party pool - not its official name but this is what the place was used for by the Romans

A couple of the turtles lounging in the spring sunshine by the pool

The truly amazing crocodile.  The pool had an Egyptian theme which was popular in Roman times (hence, the Nile crocodile).

Alice with one of the ancient Mediterranean cypresses on the site

Some of the mosaic floor.  This site is unusual in that you are allowed to walk over most of the mosaics.

Colorful mosaic floor

Nicely carved column fragment

A beautiful colored marble floor from the library complex - both a Greek library and a Roman library were present and linked by a passage

A row of venerable cypresses leads to the temple area (below)

The temple area

We then drove western towards L'Aquila through amazing mountains and onwards from there to our place of the evening, Albergo Sextantio Diffuso (literally, hotel spread over the place) Santo Stefano di Sessanio.  This place was an almost deserted Abruzzo hill town when it was "discovered" by a wealthy Swedish/Italian man who decided to return it to its former glory, but even better (or so he envisioned).  He bought most of the town and is renovating the houses to form a hotel of sorts.  He also has some of the houses for sale as holiday homes for wealthy urban Italians. Since Claudio knew one of the staff at the Albergo, we were upgraded from a room to a two story small house.  The renovation is a bit strange as the furniture and most lighting are traditional (read, rough and lacking) but the bathrooms are modern and there is killer WIFI.  The bed and pillows, apparently authentic and stuffed only with wool, were the hardest we have yet experienced, and that is saying something.  However, we got a fire started in the bedroom fireplace and strolled around the village and met the huge, furry and very gentle dogs (sheep herding dogs now adjusted to a life in the village). 

An interesting, if not always successful, blend of old and new

One of the huge, fur covered friendly village dogs at Santo Stefano

Randy makes a new friend

View from the village (and, yes, it was cold)

Randy on the street seen from our little house's balcony

Pine forest from our bedroom window

The nicely carved house balcony

Our bedroom - the bed was big but extremely hard, as were the pillows

Our fireplace, which was put to good use

The blend of old and new in the bathroom - no shower, just a massive bathtub

Our toilet - just kidding, the original potty of the house on the ground floor

Randy in our doorway.  The key was about a foot long for the 700 hour or so years old lock

Randy leaving our house

Another view from the village

The snow capped mountains are an ever present feature of this landscape

Randy walks through the village

The main square with church on left.  The restaurant was just up from this square.

Dinner was at the restaurant, an atmospheric place with traditional food and locally sourced meat, produce and wine.  It was quite good and very relaxing.  The next day's breakfast was equally good and locally produced.  All in all, this place was a good alternative for one night.  It produced a semi-authentic and very evocative stay, but did not feel that "real" in that it is a now a high end hotel with most local people living elsewhere.

Our fire blazed nicely through the evening - all wood burning

Alice at dinner, waiting for bean soup, mushroom pasta and sauteed local cheese.  The drink was a jug (literally) of local red wine.

They did breakfast right at this place!