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 Dwight Peck's personal website
A month's sojourn in Italy,
Oct.-Nov. 2024
You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
A return to the Parco Villa Gregoriana (2)
9 November 2024
We performed a brief reconnaissance of the Parco Villa Gregoriana trail a few days ago, down one side and back up again near the Sibyl temple, and then, looking over the guidebook in the evening, we realized how much we'd missed. Arguably most of the best stuff.
So now we're going back, at a more leisurely pace.
Here we are again, and here's . . .
. . . a trail map borrowed from the guidebook provided by the FAI (Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano, €7).
One thing to note, near the number 4, is the Bernini Waterfall, engineered by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's younger brother Luigi (1612-1681), who as a sculptor and architect assisted with his brother's commissions but was also a trained hydraulic engineer who was invited by the city in 1669 to create another overflow waterfall to relieve future floods.
We're repeating our first acquaintance with the Great Waterfall, from the yellow trail by the 2 above.
Towards the ruined substructures of the Roman Villa of Manlius Vopiscus.
We whizzed past this part of the old Roman villa, only briefly noticing . . .
. . . this entrance in some of the older parts of the below-level remains.
We had noticed windows poking out from across the cliff face outside, now we'll get to see some of the inside.
We've been told that, in fact, there are quite a few underground thises and thats, including water overflow channels and ancient storage facilities, spread across the cliff.
-- Coming? -- Yep!
What's left of the original course of the Aniene, emerging from under the bridge above, between the temples and the pink Hotel Sirene on the left. The water's passing through the Grotto of Neptune, which with any luck we'll be visiting soon.
-- Coming?? -- Yep, yep!!
Circular and rectangular temples and a big skinny tree
Some of the various window-sorts of things stretching across the cliff
The walkway approaches to the Grotto of Neptune
We're on our way out on the yellow number 5 path to stare at the Great Waterfall for a while.
Down we go
This is very helpful; getting over there would be much more difficult without this inspired forethought.
Is that rushing water we hear?
The Great Waterfall
Apparently this thing drops more than 100 meters, possibly . . .
. . . stopping off at that little pool along the way, before . . .
. . . proceeding on its way. To join the Tiber.
Very neat. Here's our photo from the other day of one of the tunnels that are dumping all this water out this way.
Back to the main path, still grateful . . .
. . . for this serious bit of handiwork helping us on our way.
Temples in the sky
Soon we'll be back to . . .
. . . the Valle dell'Inferno, where the river orginally fell from beneath the bridge, down through the labyrinthine Grotto of Neptune, into . . .
. . . what was then a small lake, called the Pelago by Roman authors. Then however the sedimentary nature of the surroundings here allowed a flood, probably the flood of AD 105, to create what's now called the Grotto of the Sirens, fighting its way through a tortuous course to the valley below. The Grotto (of which we put a few photos up for our earlier visit) is directly below us from here, a natural bridge over the Grotto called . . .
The Grotto of the Sirens, or Grotto of the Mermaids, was given its name by Louis Ducros, an 18th century Swiss landscape painter.
. . . the Ponte Lupo, laid out comfortably with benches and trash cans so that visitors can rest up and steel themselves for the hike up the far side of the gorge.
Those windows look out from the Traforetto (small tunnel), known as the Cunicolo del Miollis after the Napoleonic Governor who had it built in 1809 to reach Neptune's Grotto.
Prior to his intervention, adventurous folks who wanted to visit the Neptune Grotto faced a perilous approach, often with ropes, and now it's just a happy jaunt.
Gen. Sextius Alexandre François de Miollis (1759-1828), then Governor of the Papal States, also served and was wounded with the French forces at the American Revolutionary siege of Yorktown in 1781. During the siege of Mantua (1796-1797), he commissioned a monument to honor Virgil in his birthplace; he transferred the ashes of the poet Ludovico Ariosto to the University of Ferrara where they belonged; in Verona, he restored the famous Arena; he served Louis XVIII as governor of the Vaucluse in France, then was recalled by Napoleon, serving at Metz during the 'Hundred Days', after which he retired for good in 1815. His name is engraved on the Arc de Triomphe.
A look out the windows (obviously)
Good views across the way
One wonders whether this tufa rock was not really very hard to hack out.
We're awaited, and must pick up the pace.
Enthusiastically hurrying grotto-wards
-- Go for it!
The Aniene river itself is slurping out in what once would have been a great rush, enough to carve this whole valley out of the rock.
Sploosh
Kristin is taking in the sights.
Kristin pointed out that some of the graceful folds in the rocks are reminiscent of the folds in the clothing of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's great sculptural works. Apropos, since his brother Luigi might have been acquainted with these.
When we were here the other day, we noticed two spelunkers stowing their gear away just below -- they must have been scrambling round up in there somewhere.
(And there seems to have been another one in today's photo above.)
-- Mind the step!
That crude little stair is said to have been carved out by Cardinal Rivarole himself in 1841.
An amazing portrait of the wonders of La Nature
-- Take your time. No hurry, but . . .
. . . wait for me!
We're nearly to the top now, still amazed . . .
. . . at all these swirly rock formations, very like some lava flows.
We're topping out now at the Temples Entrance, poking round in the gift shop a bit, and having a closer look at the two temples.
The original identities of the two temples are not securely known. According to the FAI guidebook, 'The inclination is to ascribe the round temple of Vesta, to Albunea, the Tiburtine Sybil [Sibyl], and the rectangular one to Tiburnus, the hero who gave his name to the city'.
Tiburnus is evidently an ancient alternative for Tiburtus. Don't ask.
Albunea was said to have been a water nymph who somehow acquired oracular powers and became the Etruscan Sibyl Albunea. In medieval Christian traditions, the Emperor Augustine came to ask her whether he should follow the Senate's urging that he be worshiped as a god; Albunea showed him a vision of the Madonna and Christ child in the sky and said 'This is the virgin who shall conceive the saviour of the world, who will eclipse all of the Roman gods' (words to that effect).
The Ristorante Sibilla is just round the side, and perhaps sometimes diners can pick up a few encouraging (or scary) prophecies from the sacred surroundings.
The rectangular temple, which may or may not be dedicated to Tibertus, traditionally a founder of the city of Tibur even before Rome was founded. Tiburtus was supposedly one of three children of the famous Amphiaraus of Argos, one of the Seven Against Thebes.
'Another legend affirmed that the Siculi were expelled by Tiburtus, Coras and Catillus II., sons of Catillus I. The last was the son of Amphiaraus, the celebrated Theban king and prophet, who flourished about a century before the Trojan War. Catillus migrated to Italy in consequence of a ver sacrum. Tiburtus, or Tiburnus, the eldest of his three sons, became the eponymous hero of the newly founded city' (source). (Ver sacrum usually refers to an early Italic ritual in which the community's young people were sent away to establish new colonies.)
Returning from a last dinner at the Calice, up early tomorrow. Our host Guido has promised to drive us down to the Fiumicino airport, for a small fee, in the morning.
Early this morning, we did have an opportunity for fond farewells with our daily breakfast baristas across the alley, Stefano, Maura & young Umberto, for whom Kristin had brought some coloring books.
A 40-mile covered walkway between the Hilton into the huge number of terminals in the Fiumicino. It's worth paying a bit for an airport Hilton dinner and bed to be able to trot the baggage along in the morning without searching out a taxi.
This, hopefully, is our terminal.
A few hours to wait, and there is a nice free waiting lounge for people with Kristin's mileage credits
(and their indigent spouses).
And not only that: this year United took us from Rome right to Dulles airport. Last year, they sent us to Frankfurt the next day instead.
So now, everything's getting back to normal.
Next up: Settling in to the good old USA. Oh wait, what about the last election?
 
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 6 March 2025.
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