Rome - Villa Borghese

Villa Borghese is a giant park in the middle of Rome. It was at one time the villa of the Borghese family and was preserved in its entirety instead of being developed.

It contains the Galleria Borghese, a museum with lots of famous paintings and sculptures (think Carvaggio and Bernini). The museum has very strict admittance policies: reservations for visiting times (for which you must check in 15 min in advance), a visit time limit, and absolutely EVERYTHING must be checked at coatcheck. No jackets, no purses, no cell phones, no cameras.

We arrived early so we had some time to wander around the rest of the villa. While others of the group went in search of food and other sights, I wandered across the Bio-Parco, a small zoo. I didn't spend too much time there but it was a nice relaxing little break after all of the tourist things we had been seeing.

The art in the Galleria Borghese was amazing. The most impressive to me was "Apollo and Daphne". The detail of her fingers and hair as the turn into the tree are magical. It still astounds be how Bernini could get the marble of the statues to be so thin without breaking.

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A note about transportation in Italy: Plan you route coming and going. It was very easy for us to get to the Villa, but the bus we took only went in one direction. So we decided to walk until we found a bus that took us back to Termini. No luck. When we found someone to ask for directions, he said the Termini was "dieci minuti a piedi" (10 minutes by foot). So we decided to walk. Twenty-five minutes later, we asked another person. "Dieci minuti a piedi."

We took a bus. It was about a 15 minute bus ride to the terminal.

It turns out that everything in Italy is "dieci minuti a piedi". It doesn't matter how far away it is, if it is in the same city, the answer will always be "10 minutes by foot", so take a bus or cab.

3/25/2006 : view on map : permalink : add a comment