Thanks for coming back to my blog to read about my holiday to Italy last September.
This time, I'm going to show you a little gem that my friend and I visited. It is called the Villa Oplontis (or the Villa Poppaea) and has been so wonderfully preserved and restored that I guarantee that you won't be disappointed if you visit. I could really imagine what it might have been like to live there.
We travelled from Sorrento to Torre Annunziata by train and it was a short walk from the station, which was clearly signposted.
The villa was lovely and peaceful with few visitors, which is what I think makes this such a gem. As you walk down towards the villa you get a real feeling of its sheer size. It's huge!
There are a number of frescoes on the walls from different time periods. Some were found like this but others have been very carefully restored to give you a real glimpse of the beautiful decorations that adorned this property.
The house was built over two floors, so the people that lived here were wealthy. It is thought that the villa had been damaged in an earlier earthquake back in AD62, with construction work being undertaken when the volcano finally erupted in AD79.
I love this central water collection area, which is believed to have had a fountain in the middle. This would have been an impressive addition to any home.
There was a large square, possibly for a garden (shown top). There was also space for what looks like some form of swimming pool or spa pool (bottom). It is uncertain what this pool would have been used for, but I liked to imagine that the villa might have been home to a bunch of Gladiators and they used the villa for training purposes. I may have watched far too much Spartacus, though!
They found these doors in the villa, which had been beautifully preserved in the lave mud flow. They haven't been cleaned up as they would probably fall apart, but it gives you a real sense of the place.
They took a lot of effort to adorn the front of the property as well, with this façade being painted in a similar way to the indoor rooms. It was absolutely stunning.
What gets me the most is that this property was almost completely engulfed in lave mud, ash and pretty much everything else a volcano has thrown at it. Yet it has survived so spectacularly.
To read more about this and other villas in the area, please try this web page
http://www.oplontisproject.org/
Next Time: Walking Round Capri
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