A Postcard from... Hadrian’s Villa
Bath "room", Mosaics, Crocodiles and more!
Joel Bowman, bidding a misty-eyed goodbye to Tivoli, Italy...
Thanks for joining us for another Classical Kids Postcard. The main event you can read below, but first...
A dear reader writes to ask how we “compose” our weekly postcards.
You’ll recall that we’re an “away schooling” family. Think of it as similar to homeschooling... only, without the home. We’ve been on the road for just over a month now, embarked on something of a Junior Grand Tour.
Our first port of call is Tivoli, a quaint little comune in the Sabine Hills, about an hour train ride east of Rome. We’ll spend the next four or five months journeying around the Old World in search of lessons and wisdom and, of course, sharing our adventures, insights and mixed fortunes with you along the way.
As Anya’s motto goes: Explore... Experience... Express.
As to these weekly musings, they too are an evolving project. Right now, we begin with the exploration part. Each week we visit a site of interest. It could be a museum, an ancient ruin, a park or a monument. Anything, really. (Last week we ate dinner in an underground restaurant that used to be a Roman bath. Nothing like a 1,900 year-old cave dedicated to Diana, goddess of the hunt, to get the appetite going!)
Next, we ask Frida to write down her impressions. We typically aim for ten or twelve standout points that she recalls from our little excursion. Any and all observations are welcome here, however relevant they may (or may not) be to the eventual postcard story.
We try to cover the five senses – describe what the place smelled, looked, sounded like, etc.
This stage provides a good opportunity to collect our thoughts and also practice some writing and spelling.
Next, we go through and decide which details will “make the cut.” Frida also likes to inject a few jokes in here, the kind of literary flourish that escapes our own, sadly unchildlike imagination. Then we give them some shape and chronology.
Once we have all the pieces more or less in front of us, we ask Frida to “tell us the story.” We ask questions that lead from the introduction (learning to address the reader), through to full sentence responses that describe each of the aforementioned points.
Dad types out these responses and we go through any corrections together; another opportunity to revise punctuation and spelling and to reimagine the wording, from synonyms to basic sentence structure.
Finally, we finish up with a round of edits from Dad and... sometimes Mom too (depending on the deadline). Frida always has a few edits of her own.
The whole process affords Frida the opportunity to bring a series of impressions through to a finished piece of work, thinking about how a story takes shape as we go.
Right now, there’s plenty of help from Mom and Dad... but with each passing week, as Frida sees her ideas coming to fruition, we’ll encourage her to take more of a lead on the various aspects of her “compositions,” from framing the story itself to typing them out and (eventually), correcting her parents’ spelling, too!
This week’s Classical Kids Lesson, which members can expect this week, will be dedicated to the emperor Hadrian... along with Owly’s video!
In the meantime, please enjoy Frida’s postcard from... Hadrian’s Villa… as well as Frida’s responses from this last week’s postcard replies, below.
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
Classical Wisdom Kids
P.S. Please feel free to submit your postcard replies here. Frida reads all of them!
A Postcard from... Hadrian’s Villa
By Frida Bowman
Welcome to another postcard from our travels around the world. We are still in Rome, just “roaming” around. (haha)
Last weekend I went to Hadrian’s Villa. It is an old ruin of an ancient building that Hadrian’s servants built for him. It is very, very old. It looks a bit dirty, but it has some beautiful mosaics on the floor.
A mosaic is a picture made out of tiny tiles. It is really impressive how they cut them in tiny pieces when they did not even have electric saws... or electric anything! That would have been really hard. They did not even have light bulbs, which meant that they had to work in the dark with candles.
The weather was roasting hot and we had no parasols. My cousins bought some hats, which were pretty funny. One was made of straw with little stones on it. The other one had ears that could go up-down, up-down, up-down.
But back to the Villa...
There was one giant room. It was very pretty and it had big spaces for pools in it. But hey, we’re just getting started... that was the bathroom! (An ancient Roman bathroom was a huge place where all the men or women could bathe together. Imagine how crowded it would be just to wash yourself every day!)
Next we went to a pool and it had lots of fish in it. There was a big crocodile statue there. It was really realistic. There was also a little hill nearby with lots of flowers. The flowers really added a nice touch. They smelled divine.
Now, before we say goodbye, I would like you to stop reading this for a second and imagine what it would be like if you were here now. Think about how it would be to bathe here...what the crocodile statue looks like... what the flowers smell like...
Imagine if there was even a real crocodile here!
Hadrian’s Villa is the ancient palace that the emperor Hadrian himself used to live in. It would have been a stunning house.
Thank you for reading. I can’t wait to write to you again next time in our next Classical Kids Postcard.
By then, we’ll be in Turkey (burk-burk!!)
Ciao!
Frida
Postcard Replies:
Hi Frida,
I just wanted to say hi!
From,
Pizza (age 6)
Frida: Hi to you too!
_____________
Hi Frida & Owly,
Are there any temples where you are? After Italy, can you come visit Coronado?
From, Gold (age 6)
P.S. I hope you come soon!
Frida: There is the temple of Vesta! I would love to visit Coronado, but next I have to go to Turkey - burkk burk *turkey sound*
_____________
Hi Frida & Owly,
Who is your favorite player on Italy’s soccer team and have you watched one of their games?
What, so far what is your favorite place that you visited?
From,
Shadow (age 8)
P.S. piña colada is my favorite gelato flavor.
Frida: I don’t know any Italian soccer players, but my favorite soccer player is Messi because I was born in Argentina. My favorite place is Tivoli. There is only one neighborhood in Tivoli, so I like that one.
_______________
Hi Frida,
How did they paint all of those murals at the Uffizi?
Did they use a ladder?
From,
Silver (age 6)
P.S. The mango gelato is my favorite flavor
Frida: They used paint brushes and ladders! I also like Mango. It’s my favorite too.
______________
Hi Frida & Owly,
What is your favorite food in Italy?
From,
Spider (age 8)
Frida: Ice cream!
______________
Hi Frida & Owly,
We are going to have gelato at the raffle on Friday! Thank you for the idea. Yum!Yum!
From,
Lavender (age 9 1/2)
Frida: Sounds great! Only, what’s a raffle?
_______________
Hello Frida & Owly,
My favorite gelato is white chocolate!! How many gelato places are there in Italy?
From,
Box (Age 9)
Frida: I don’t know! Maybe a thousand?
______________
Hi Frida & Owly,
I’ve never tried gelato - and I hope it tastes good. What is your favorite video game? My favorite video games are Pokémon. My favorite foods are sushi, Spiderverse whopper, and pizza. What is the pizza like there?
From,
Hamburger (age 9)
Frida: The pizza is really original and good. The gelato is ice cream in Italian. My favorite food is sushi as well. I don’t really know about video games!