Saturday 23rd September 2023 – Camping Aquileia, Aquileia, Italy

 

Time to move on just a short distance to the Roman city of Aquileia and Camping Aquileia, a much smaller and more relaxed campsite.
Aquileia is the only(?) Roman city in Italy that has not been built over by modern developments and therefore the remains are extensive, with huge amounts still to be investigated. We knew that there was lots to see in Aquileia and knew that it would take more than a day to see it, so we decided that, after lunch in the van, we would visit the museum today and visit the rest of the city tomorrow. We checked in at the tourist information office and got a map and then walked to the museum.
I thought that the Winckelmann museum in Trieste was brilliant but the Aquileia is even better. Well-presented exhibits explain the history of the Roman city and the quality is exceptionally good. With my involvement in creating replica Roman mosaics, it was the genuine articles that really impressed me. The use of different sizes of tesserae, from 20mm down to 2 or 3mm stone cubes allowed them to produce wonderful detail and the workmanship was of the highest quality. The unswept floor mosaic and the vine leaf and ribbon mosaics were my favourite. On the top floor was a superb collection of Roman seal stones and cameos. They are currently refurbishing the outbuildings in the museum gardens where there are many inscribed stones and more mosaics. I look forward to a return visit once they have completed that work.
It turned out that it was Heritage Open Days in Aquileia but unfortunately the tourist office didn’t tell us that so we missed the opportunity to visit many excavations in the town and chat with the archaeologists. I did manage to visit one site by the campsite and had an interesting chat with the professor from Venice University who did her PHD in University College London and her dissertation on Roman Britain. She spent much of her time travelling Britain and her favourite county was Somerset! They were excavating an area by the port of the city and had found storage area and evidence of a 9^th century limekiln when they were producing lime from the stones of the Roman buildings.

Photos: A very realistic early Roman stone carving; Part of an unswept floor mosaic from the city; The bow of the gorgeous vine leaf and ribbon mosaic; Two examples of seal stones – a soldier and a dancing woman; One of three piles of Roman cinerary urns in the museum grounds.