Piazza Armerina

April 6

By the way - the cover picture on this post is a selfie taken after about an hour & a half of driving the most insane country back roads . . see below for details!

**************************************************************************************************************

Poor Piazza Armerina!  I keep forgetting to put up this post – but alas, I’ve finally remembered and I “think” I have some decent internet speed today!!

So, the day I left cooking school, I needed to spend some time seeing sights as I couldn’t check into my B&B in Sciacca until late afternoon.  I had read about Piazza Armerina and every book said it was on the “must see” list.  It took me a 3 hour drive to find it (really, as always, it should have been less but the GPS routed me onto these VERY REMOTE BACK ROADS)!  The views were spectacular and I climbed up & down hills for a while.  I stopped and took some beautiful landscape shots, but truly, I could have stopped every two minutes and took pictures – yes, it WAS THAT beautiful.

I wind way up to the top of this town (can’t remember the name) and it’s lovely.  Quaint & cute & quiet!  It’s market day and I really want to stop – but I really don’t need food or gas or a bathroom break, so I just move slowly though the town & continue to follow the GPS’s directions.  Well, that damn GPS is BAD AGAIN!  Next thing I know, I’m on this dirt road (not really all dirt, but so much of it was damaged & washed away, that you had to drive on dirt AND through & over so many HUGE holes that I wondered if I’d make it at all).  Then – I have to stop to let a herd of sheep pass.  Then I have to drive on the wrong side of the road, because my half of the road has fallen off the cliff.  Then I have to wait for an on-coming car to pass, because again, my side of the road is gone.  This goes on & on for over an hour.  I’m wondering if I’m going to ever come to a “real” road again and then it happens – I hit the high rent district!!

I come around the bend and it’s like I’ve been transported!  There are all these beautiful villas with great gardens & olive groves and I understand why the road has gotten SO MUCH BETTER – it’s because these rich people pay more taxes – right?!?!  As I wind past these estates and up a hill, I see the next high rent area – it’s the town of Santa Caterina and it is one of the best I’ve seen in Sicily.  This little place I’ve never heard of is gorgeous.  Street after street – it’s just beautiful.  Note to self – maybe a place to visit for serenity in the future!

I continue on and make my way to Enna.  Even though Mom has told me how much she & Dad loved Enna, I really just want to get to Piazza Armerina – so I plow through.  When I arrive in Piazza Armerina, I’m shocked to find it’s actually a town.  I had been under the impression it was a villa or a castle and I can’t for the life of me understand why the GPS has brought me to this dumpy parking lot somewhere outside the city center.  I turn the expensive wireless data on, on my phone (I’ve been saving it for emergencies like this – for sure) and bring up my friend, Google!  I find out that there’s actually this villa called The Roman Villa Del Casale and it’s about 5 miles out of town.  I bring it up on Google Maps – using my phone’s expensive & limited data access – and follow it.  I’m way past trusting that GPS again!

I arrive, park & pay 1 Euro to use the bathroom.  I buy a ticket, pick up an audio guide and make my way past two huge groups of German tourists that have just exited their tour bus.  Don’t want to get caught behind these guys!!

Suffice to say, this place is pretty amazing and far surpasses what I would call a villa.  A fortress, a town, I don’t know – but something very big!  The place actually has an entire “cathedral” inside of it and I heard on the audio feed that the town’s people could come here for worship and religious celebrations. 

The place was built sometime between 250 & 350 AD.  The owner is unknown.  Time & neglect have left it in pretty bad shape, but what’s survived are these MAGNIFICENT FLOORS – all made them entirely of little tiny tiles.  They are works of art themselves . . I can only imagine what the walls & ceilings of this place may have looked like in its glory.  UNESCO named it a world heritage site in 1997 and restoration began in 2007.  A lot of that restoration in the form of trusses & ceilings, I’m sure in an attempt to protect what is left of the original house & to preserve those amazing floors.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.  They were amazing to view in person and as I walked around the raised pathway to view the rooms, I couldn’t believe the time & craftsmanship that must have gone  into these amazing works of art.

Enjoy!