Day 12 - Aquileia to Goriza: Stuff they dug up - It's Italy not Macedonia. Oh well. (2015)

September 29, 2015

Day 12 - Aquileia to Goriza: Stuff they dug up

After breakfast, I made my way to the Archeological Museum for the opening time of 8.30am. I left finally at 11am. Yet another fantastic treat. I had never heard of Aquileia before researching this trip, but it is great.

The museum consists of 3 floors of exhibits inside a Villa opened as an archeological museum in 1882, as well as a garden and annex building off the garden. In the garden, there are hundreds of grave monuments and mosaics from the bath house and private homes. Some displayed, but also just sitting there in piles - there is so much material collected.

The annex. A shed full of stuff. Note the glass jars full of bones (post cremation) from the burial urns.

There were also mounds of urns artistically arrange around the garden...

And also just piles of other stuff lying about.

Inside there are sculpture displays on the ground floor; an extraordinary collection of hundreds of engraved gemstones, glasswork, ceramics and metal work on the middle floor; amber and other jewels plus coins on the top floor.

Some of the statues from burial sites - they stretched for many kilometers along the roads out of town apparently. It must have looked amazing.

There was lots of interpretations of these burial related sculptures - who the person may have been and the kind of world in which they lived on that basis.

Some of the engraved gem stones. There were hundreds and hundreds of them.

Many of the interpretive signs are only in Italian, although some are in English. However reading what I could, and paying attention to how things are laid out, I got a really wonderful sense of the lives and businesses (and size) of the community of Aquiliea in the first centuries. And also how the city was connected to other parts of the Roman Empire. People had spent lots of time and thought in displaying the materials so that it meant something.

I was the only guest as far as I could see. But there were at least 6 staff. I felt like I was constantly being followed. That was really the only crap thing about it - noticing someone behind a pillar looking at you when you least expected it. Mind you the ones talking loudly on their mobile phone whilst following you around were the most annoying!!

By the time I got on the road, the NE wind had once again blown up. I must get on the road earlier tomorrow. A short day. I was in Gorizia at 2pm and decided to stay there having a rest for a change. I am in a hotel watching crap German and Austrian chat/news shows on cable TV, having been to a supermarket and bought some stuff for dinner. I plan on going nowhere until breakfast tomorrow. I'll do some planning for the next few days...

On the road. Mountains of Slovenia in the distance.

Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 471 km (292 miles)

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