Monster Park at Bomarzo

After my time in Italy, you will all be given a picture quiz to identify each Italian hill town I visit, this is Bomarzo.

Bomarzo, a 30 minute Cotral (intercity) bus ride away from Viterbo is a long barbell shaped town connected by one small tiny road.

At first, I thought this was going to add to my "Italian Men Sitting Round Series", but turns out that it was a woman. I asked her directions and she, although hard of hearing, understood me.

The trip to Bomarzo was to see a park that was started in the 1550's by Prince Orsini. He had a artist create great sculptures out of the rock on the land. As you will see, Orsini had an interesting sense of humor or, perhaps, sense of reality. Due to lack of heirs, the collection was abandoned for four centuries until the local Bettini family restored it. I think they run the park today.

Struggle between giants

Some perspective on how large these carvings are.

Woman (winged victory) standing on a turtle (representing the shields behind which Roman warriors stood)

About to be attacked by a whale.

Art is at its best when it surprises you and makes you smile. This whimsical slanted house did just that for me.

Neptune!!

Dragon

The pachyderm, considered the wisest of animals because of its ability to discern good from evil, is being led by a guide and throwing Hannibal to the ground.

You can enter into the mouth and there is seating for 20 around a table.

Looking out from the mouth of the ogre.

Echidna, mother of many of Hercules' enemies.

A bear carrying the rose of Rome.

The Greeks and Romans do temples better than anyone else.

Proteus, Neptune's son, represents the "old man of the sea" the creator of all forms of the world.

Cantine in Orte

Viterbo has the Festival di Santa Rosa. The nearby town of Orte, which is about 40 minutes away by car, is a hill town that celebrates with medieval days. Those of you who have been to Italy and driven on the A1 Autostrada north to Orvieto or points north would have driven right by Orte. During Orte's festivities, a tradition is to open up their tavernas and have medieval feasts. Last night, a group of us from school and many of the students and their host families dined in Orte.

The hill town of Orte

This one lane road is the road off the hill town or Orte.

Amazingly, Italy is blessed with plenty of natural spring water. Here is a public water source that is built beneath the town square. Water flows naturally and is clean and potable.

Each neighborhood (essentially a couple blocks) has a name and flag pattern. This is a game that races marbles down a track. You bet by placing money on which marble from the neighborhood you think will win.

At eight, we descended down into a taverna, which was carved out of the rock.

The taverna set up and ready for action.

In the medieval spirit, the servers were dressed in period clothing.

The round thing is rice and cheese inside a fried batter. Bread and pate and the third was bread with a mushroom sauce.

Gnocchi

In the center of the photo the two men on the left are Frank (Latin Teacher) and Pat (glasses and is the program director). Across from each male is their respective wives, Linda and Jeanne.

Papadrelle with Wild Boar

Dave L., a Brit from north of Liverpool who married an Italian woman (Roberta the administrative assistant) and the guy who will cut my hair as he is a professional barber.

The boy about to eat some pasta is Julian, Pat's oldest son and to his right, Daniel, Dave and Roberta's son.

Pig's shin, known in Italian as "STINCO" with eggplant (melanzzani) and roasted peppers (pepperocini).

Italian men love to sing. Here are a bunch of the host dad's in action.

The cookies are dry and tasteless, but dip them in sweet wine and it becomes a tasty, alcoholic dessert!

SYA Viterbo

I have finished my first week of teaching. It's nice to back working with students. Having taught Geometry and Statistics for the past four or five years, I've had to bust my hump this first week because I haven't taught Algebra 2, Precalculus, Precalculus Honors or AP Calculus in a while. It's not that I have to learn the material, it's that I have to make lesson plans and pace the course and figure out homework. My colleagues wonder why I'm working until 6PM every night, but I tell them that my work is all on the front end. Once it gets to grading, it's easy. I am lucky in that my colleagues at HRS (that's you Warren F. and Shahana S.) have kindly let me copy their files, so I'm working of their sheets that they handout. But still, I have to do the sheets to know what I'm talking about in class. The students are great, so far. BUT, we've already had an acting out incident. Apparently someone is putting boogers on the wall in the girls bathroom. Yeah, the director of the program addressed it yesterday. A word about my director and that is, he rocks. It is so great to again work for a head of school/program that has your back and is honest and funny. I'm a lucky guy. So the following are pictures of the school itself. Remember, I live on the floor above the school so I'm in the same building, but here it is....

Front door to the school.

The salon, where assembly takes place, students gather during their free periods and where their mailboxes are.

The ceiling of the salon. This building was once owned by a wealthy Viterbo family.

If you take a right from the salon, you're in the office. Roberta, our administrative aide sits at the desk. The door in the back right is the office of Dave, the activities coordinator and technology guy (Roberta's husband) and Eleonora, the host family coordinator. The back left door is Pat's office, the director.

The patio where students can gather. The faculty bathroom is off the patio.

To the left of the salon, is a hallway from which students can access 4 of 5 classrooms and their bathroom.

Room B (for Borea as all rooms are named after winds) is the Math classroom.

A second hallway leads to the computer room.

The computer room leads to the student "locker" room. You are looking back into the computer room and the salon.

The last classroom and access to the teachers' office is from the student locker room.

The teachers office is at the back along with a kitchen. The Math teacher desk is the one in front on the left. Going around clockwise is the Ancient History teacher (Santo), on the back right is Art History (Yvonne), Latin (Frank) and Italian (Alessandra and Katia). There is a door next to Santo's desk which leads to another office for the English and Greek teachers as well as the College Counselor.

Villa Lante

In the town of Bagnaia, a 15 minutes bus ride from Viterbo, is Villa Lante. The sign above indicates that Villa Lante is one of the 10 best gardens in Italy.

The gardens, built on a hillside and divided into three levels, it has been interpreted as having representations of the four elements. Another interpretation is that the fountains represent the different states of the control of water. The captions I give are the second interpretation

At the top of the gardens, water, comes from the ground or here out of a wall in an uncontrolled state.

The sixteen dolphins here show the water represented in the sea.

This sloped channel represents water in river form.

I believe this can be interpreted as water in man-made channels.

The water now flows into the second fountain, The Fountain of the Gods.

Here is a table for people to eat. There is a basin down the middle to indicate water as supporting life.

Villa Lante has always been a garden held by religious figures or wealthy citizens. Here's one of the homes on the grounds.

Looking down onto the final and largest garden with the fountain in the middle (the only one with right angles) interpreted as man's complete control of water.

This is the first in an ongoing series of photos I will post called, "Italian Men Sitting on Benches." I find their faces and postures so interesting and charming. I also am on my way to becoming one of them myself as I spend much time myself sitting on benches clearing my mind.

Here's a three photos I took from my trip to Italy back in 2007. These are men from Bologna.

This series will be ongoing, I hope you enjoy it.