Danes getting swallowed by Parco dei Mostri monster

…friends who are fellows at the Accademia Danimarca di Roma (housed in Danish design splendor in a 1967 structure designed by Kay Fisker near Villa Borghese) made me feel like I was also taking a little trip to Denmark today as eight of us packed into a VW van, donated by the former Queen of Denmark, traveling to Bomarzo to see the 16th century park of follies commissioned by arts patron Pier Francesco Orsini (1528–1588) for his deceased wife, and then to the Etruscan hill town of Tuscania (which I was told was a village of hippies, but I didn’t see any) where I heard some scholarly tours in Danish, later translated into a little English, followed by a delicious meal at a trattoria whose local crowds of diners looked up with silence as we entered, and where I was served beans with a mysterious additon after having explained that I was vegan – but no worries she said, it’s pigskin – and ‘we washed and cleaned it first!’