As we head into that wonderful time of the semester, where all the tension runs high in the mad dash to finish, let’s pause and talk about a couple of lasts. A couple of lasts? Yes, even though Microsoft Word urges me that phrase is grammatically incorrect; you all know what I mean. A couple of weeks ago, we experienced a couple of lasts: our last weekend day trip and the last of our Italy trips together. Sad stuff? I know.
In our last event-packed weekend day trip, we visited three Lazio region cities: Caprarola, Bagnaia, and Bomarzo.
If you’ve heard of Caprarola, then you’ve most likely heard of the Palazzo Farnese, which is the city’s claim to fame and main attraction. As an architecture student, I’ve had to study (and draw and redraw) this particular palazzo before even coming to Rome, and honestly, it’s more epic to experience in real life than on paper. Walking up the single main road (it’s true what they said; there really is only one main road in that town), the immense mass of the Palazzo reveals itself in all its “harmony and symmetry,” from its double ramped stairways to its series of terraces. The most on point features of the palazzo, in my opinion, were the central circular courtyard and the Scala Regia, one of the spiral staircases in the complex. Don’t get me wrong. The rooms of the apartments we visited were doing the most, in the best possible way, but after going through frescoed room after frescoed room, I was done, which made it that much sweeter when we finally visited the gardens. Walking over the bridge from the palazzo apartments, you realized how high up you are, with the city at a distance away below you. But once we crossed over, it was just the beginning of our tour of this expansive garden complex. On our ascent, we passed by the manicured hedges of the lower gardens, a “secret” garden, a stairway lined with bushes and trees in full bloom, until we finally made it to the main attraction: La Fontana della Catena dei Delfini and its accompanying casino. After weaving through another maze of seriously manicured hedges, we had finally reached our destination – the upper garden. To commemorate the moment, we all jumped…for joy. Not really, but there was a lot of jumping happening, as a few of my classmates decided to showcase their athletic prowess, collaborating to create an epic photo for the latest internet craze: hadouken-ing.
After all the jumping was done (at least for the moment) and all the troops were rallied, we moved onto our next destination: Villa Lante in Bagnaia. Villa Lante was another complex I had studied pre-Rome, but mostly in section, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Honestly, it wasn’t as epic as the Palazzo Farnese, but it was still cool to experience it first hand. However, one thing I did enjoy more at the Villa Lante than Palazzo Farnese was the surplus of water elements. That place was not without water. Every level of that Villa had a prominent water feature, guaranteed. At the summit of the Villa, the hadouken-ing craze continued; this time, even one of our professors got involved.
The last (and shortest) leg of our day trip was in the Monster Park of Bomarzo. With only forty-five minutes to explore the whole complex, we did what any respectful group of college students does in a park full of huge sculptures: ran around like little kids let loose at an amusement park, touching everything, and climbing into and onto anything. Literally. I’m sure that one guard roaming the grounds and the other visitors were entirely amused by our craziness. And even if they weren’t, va bene, we were having fun. To conclude this day of fun, a group of us played a couple rounds of varying versions of Crocadiley-Oh-My, followed by a slippery game of tag uphill.