Etruscan Museum and Experimentarium

Today, in addition to the usual pictures of the sights, there are also a few snapshots of our 'everyday life' in Rome.

As I wrote on the first day, we live outside the city center in the west of Rome. The apartment is beautiful and spacious. Since it is facing away from the street, it is also quite quiet at night and sleeping in is no problem :-) By the way, today we didn't leave until 13:00.

However, the public infrastructure and garbage disposal outside the main sights take some getting used to.

Across from our apartment is a kindergarten where the trash has been stacking up waist-high and accordingly stinks long before we arrived. Imagine that happening where we live. There would be an outcry.

The sidewalks are mostly littered or there is simply no one cleaning up the trash - and in addition, the Italians themselves are not exactly known for keeping things orderly.

But that's only half the truth. If you look behind the facades into the courtyards and interiors, you will find beautiful gardens and stylishly furnished apartments and exhibitions.

A little different from us, where things always have to be tidy on the outside.

But now to the museums. This time we were off the beaten tourist paths at the Etruscan Museum, housed in a beautiful villa - by the way, right next to the Austrian embassy.

The Etruscans were, so to speak, the 'ancestors' of the Romans with their own culture, art, and writing, the latter of which was actually deciphered only in recent decades.

They were already very advanced, similar to the Greeks, when it came to social structures. For example, women were already equal to men.

They lived in the area between Tuscany and Rome and have left behind some treasures that can be admired in 40 rooms. I know this because Julius showed me exactly where we were on the map after every room.

After an afternoon snack, we continued to the Experimentarium, which we happened to discover on the way. It was nicely prepared and the kids had 1 hour and 45 minutes to try out and discover many things. The times are precisely timed, and the ticket is valid exactly for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Apparently, some people confused the Experimentarium with a kindergarten.

In the late evening, we had spaghetti vongole, spring in the mouth, fish, and (too much) wine before we ended the evening at the 'Volksplatz' just behind the former northern gate of Rome.