Villa Romana del Casale

We have had the good fortune of seeing Roman ruins over a wide span of territory, from Turkey and Israel, Romania, Italy of course, France and up to Britain. In most sites the marble has been removed as have the statues, taken perhaps by the cardinal who built the villa in Tivoli off of Hadrian's villa and his assoicates. All over the long failed empire everything was by and large stripped by everyone from the 5th century on. A lot of the marble on the buildings or sculptures themselves were actually burned in lime kilns for lime to be used in construction.

Though Roman architecture had been adorned with lots of mosaics, there are not a lot of examples of complete ones.

It's always a pleasure, though, to see remnants of Roman era mosaics. Usually though it's just a small sampling. It's that way at Ostia Antica outside Rome and Pompei. Even though the sites are huge, the sampling of still existing mosaics are small. Not so in South Central Sicily.

Near the town of Piazza Amerina is a Roman Villa from the 4th century that was covered by a landslide in the 12th Century, now called Villa Romana del Casale. It was an elaborate development, very typical of Roman life.

We stayed at La Casa sulla Collina d'Oro, a delightful Bed and Breakfast on a hill overlooking town. Here are several pictures of the hotel and its view of the old center:

And the Roman Villa:

And there was a lot more. Next, Greek Temples.