Tivoli and Cassino

After a nearly sleepless midnight bus ride from Bari, I arrived in Rome shortly before 7am. Naturally, it wasn't yet check in time (the real disadvantage of saving money on accommodations and time on travel by taking night transport), but the people at Alessandro Palace and Bar (great name for a hostel) let me leave my stuff in luggage storage while I went out for the day. I thought I might take in Subiaco as a day trip from Rome in order to see the monasteries of Sts. Benedict and Scolastica, but I hung around the hostel too long chatting with the early risers. Instead, I went to Tivoli.

Tivoli is a nearby medieval hill town containing two of the most impressive villas: Villa D'Este and Villa Adriana. Villa D'Este is a palace built for the sixteenth century Cardinal Ippolito D'Este, grandson of Pope Alexander VI and son of Lucrezia Borgia. He plowed over a Benedictine monastery in order to catch this piece of prime real estate, where he built a a winding series of gardens and fountains. The palace is fairly standard and boring, but the villa's estate is a wonderful place to wander. He had a political falling out in Rome and was exiled from the city's boundaries, and fortunately for him, he already had this place to retire. Honestly, it was an interesting stroll, but nothing terribly exciting.

The Villa Adriana, on the other hand, was great. This was the private estate of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who ruled over the Roman Empire at its greatest extent and built a palace to show for it. The ruins stretch out over the grounds, which are kept green by the water system set up over 1800 years ago. It contains a bath house in true Roman style, so I finally got to see what all these bathhouses scattered around Israel, Turkey, and Greece were attempting to imitate. Hadrian's villa also included a dual-language Latin and Greek library, which seems to have been a particular interest of his (a man after my own heart).

That afternoon I returned to Alessandro's, checked in, and relaxed. The hostel scene is a lot of fun; one of 'Europe's Famous Hostels' (an association of hostels across Europe), Alessandro's offers beds as low as 19 euro a night with hot water, breakfast, free pizza every night, and a great lounge and bar. It's also located right by Termini, the central metro, bus, and train station of Rome, making it extraordinarily convenient. Sounds like an advertisement? Yeah, probably, but this is the sort of budget-traveling I can really get into. I probably should have stayed in more dorms, anyway.

The next day I slept in and went to Cassino. I'd thought about going to Subiaco to see the Benedictine monasteries named after the eponymous St. Benedict and his sister, St. Scholastica, but that's best done first thing in the morning; instead, I went to the town of Cassino, the site of the World War II battle of Monte Cassino named after the Abbey of Monte Cassino. This is the first monastery in the western world, founded by St. Benedict of Nursia; it was reduced to rubble by Allied bombing during the battle, but a new structure has been built that captures the glory of its former incarnation.

It was an hour train ride to Cassino, and a hefty price for a cab up the mount (monte) to the abbey. However, it was totally worth it. The monastery contains the relics (that is, bodies) of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica as well as a truly excellent sacristy/museum/treasury (like the ones at St. Catherine's in Sinai and St. John the Theologian on Patmos). Nothing was nearly so ancient as the manuscripts contained in those two, but I got to see quite a few items saved from the rubble of the old Monte Cassino.

I probably could have spent my first days in Rome more efficiently, but I was exhausted after two sleepless nights on a ferry and on a bus. Now it's a race to the finish, and I'm seizing every minute.

As they used to say here, carpe diem.