Over the Christmas and New Year period I got to spend some of my own holiday time at Villa degli Armeni and indulge in one of my favourite things to do there: weather watching!
In contrast to the summer, when most days are rather boringly cloudless (although there is the occasional thunderstorm), autumn, winter and spring offer ever-changing panoramas of clouds, mist, light and shade across the Sabine Hills, the Tiber Valley and a large chunk of Lazio laid out below the villa.
Somehow, from nearly 500 metres up, you feel more part of the weather here than in most places: watching the play of light over the landscape, the arrival of a distant storm, the fog clinging to the valley bottom, with the little villages of the Sabina poking out like islands. Sometimes the cloud descends and all sound is muffled, the view is blanked out and you feel remote from everything.
Fascinating to watch, and even more fascinating to photograph. I wish my photography skills were greater, as well as my time available to capture all the moods of the changing landscapes and weather I experienced in just a few days, but here are a few photos taken with my phone which hope to give some idea.
The first few days we were there were very bright and sunny. On days like that in the winter what typically happens is that cold air sinks into the Tiber Valley and forms fog overnight, so you wake to a view like the one above, a sea of fog with higher areas emerging like islands.
Over the course of the morning the fog burns off, but remains as a haze which softens the landscape. Look up and the sky is pure blue.
After some days the weather changed, with showers and quite heavy rain. Heavy clouds race across the view, and where there is a gap the sun bursts through and highlights parts of the landscape.
Villa degli Armeni – private rental villa near Rome
