Bomarzo

The day after Christmas, which is the feast of Santo Stefano, and thus also a holiday here in the old world, Tom, Mom, and myself visited the small medieval town of Bomarzo, not far from his house in Umbria.  The city is mostly famous to art nerds like myself for its Sacro Bosco, or park of monsters.  Designed by Pirro Ligorio for Pier Francesco Orsini in the late 16th century, the garden is typically Mannerist in that it was intended for fun and pleasure, and is thus seemingly a bit disorganized.  But even more spectacular are the various larger-than-life stone sculptures that are covered in moss and peak out from the bushes.  Now open to the public, this park gets it right: although one is not allowed to play the trumpet (I'm not lying, see the sign below), the sculptures themselves are there to be climbed on.

Perhaps rogue marching bands run rampant in the Umbrian countryside, and thus the warning against brass instruments is indeed justified

Sculpture on a sculpture: turtle and winged woman

 Close up of two giants fighting

Crocodile?  Nothing was labeled, so your guess is as good as mine.

Leaning tower of Bomarzo

 He's a pretty good sport.  (I just realized this is one of the only sculptures we posed by, and it's probably the smallest one there.  I promise the others are much larger, you'll just have to trust the lack of scale.)

Hiking up for a picture

Inside the Mouth of Hell

Inside Hell looking out

Saw this bench and tried to do a damsel-in-distress pose, but I don't think damsels-in-distress usually laugh

 This grumpy face suits me a bit better, wah wah

 Sphinx in the bushes

Maybe the best thing about the park was the playground.  Never too old for a seesaw!!

Though we were slightly unbalanced :/