Thursday saw us at the John Paul Getty Villa which was absolutely gorgeous, as you can see! The Getty Villa is a museum and educational centre that is dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria. The whole design of the villa is based on the floor plan of 'The Villa of Papyri' at Herculaneum.
We took the tour and learnt all about Roman gardens ....
those are papyrus plants that you can see in the foreground of that picture.
water features were common in the gardens of the rich ....
those guys sure look like they knew how to enjoy themselves
The architecture and marble flooring was amazing.
.... as was this replica mosaic water feature.
We came across some unusual water feature statues ....
Just like Michael Angelo did, we admired the amazing 'Lion Attacking a Horse' statue - he apparently said it was 'most marvellous'!
Dating to the early Hellenistic period (late 4th century B.C.) this statue was created in the era of Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia.
Probably sculpted in northern Greece or Asia Minor it was taken to Rome and by 1347 was displayed on Capitoline Hill, firstly on the staircase of the Palazzo Senatorio in the Plazza del Campidoglio - the place where judicial sentences were pronounced - serving as a symbol of domination and retribution.
This is the first time that the sculpture has been out of Rome and even there it hadn't been on public view there since 1925.
Then it was time to leave the Getty Villa and we headed off to Santa Monica beach ....
(continued in the next post ...)
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