Posted by on Nov 10, 2014 | 4 comments

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Hey, and this is only an entrance to an entrance to an entrance!

Well, mama has been doing some research and found that so many sites here are open to the public that could not be visited for years. The beautiful villa of Livia Drusilla is part of a progam called Roma Aperta, which allows the public to visit places that have been rennovated and now may be seen by appointment in small groups.

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Part of a wall from Livia’s garden frescoes–birdies everywhere; my kind of art…

The golden palace of that badass Nero is up and running again—mama and papa visited it years ago just before several walls fell in!!! At least it didn’t happen on their site-seeing day! But the enormity of his villa is very hard to imagine, and mama said there are so many rooms that one cannot see all of them in one visit. Can you imagine that guy pulling out his fiddle while Roma was on fire? Really tacky, in my book.

Mama says there is also an underground lake just discovered under the Palazzo della Cancelleria, formed by a river, the Euripus, that was channeled through Rome by Agrippa (of Pantheon fame—mama and papa sometimes have a drink gazing at his name above the entry) but was stopped by walls built around the city and pooled up under the Palazzo. I would LOVE to see that, but kitties and water don’t mix well…

Also, they have not really gotten me into the habit of a leash (like a DOGGY—ech!) and so I derfer to them when they ask me to go on these outings and just say, no thank you, I’ll just stay here in my little warm bed under YOUR bed and dream of ancient Rome all by myself.

You know darn well that there were kitties all ove this city at one point but some very cruel anthros decide that Rome had too many and so started doing the unmentionable. I don’t even want to go there, okay? Let’s just say there are fewer now than in the past…capisce chi capisce…which means “he understands who understands” or in English, “you get my drift.”

All this culture has made me tired—I’m practically asleep on my feet!
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I am not ACTUALLY on my feet but mama thought it looked close enough…