The thing that stuck out to me the most in Bomarzo was a sense of distance. I had made the trek to the small village on a sudden impulse, leaving my hostel in Rome that morning on a train before the sun was even in the sky. From there, I arrived in the city of Viterbo, where I cut through the cobblestone streets to a small bus station, where my meager language skills earned me a bus ticket.

Before that, I had taken the initial trip to Rome from Nerja, my temporary home in Spain. I had been there for a few months, and I was attached enough to feel a bit homesick, but Nerja too was thousands of miles from Kentucky, where I’d grown up. I was several hours away from my hostel in Rome, itself a plane ride away from Nerja, which in turn was separated from the states by the entirety of the Atlantic. Seeing the early morning fog settle over the hills, the weight of this little adventure was beginning to settle in as I plodded down the concrete path, past a plaza of humble stone buildings, and towards the entrance of the park. There was a small building that seemed to be a welcome center. A woman waved at me idly behind a desk before simply walking through a door into some distant back room. I assumed it was just a courtesy and walked on through down a corridor to my left, soon exiting into the park proper.

Bomarzo’s famed “monster park” was well named. The stone statues were old and covered in a moss that gave them an impression of being a part of the landscape itself, like giants who decided to take a rest in this little corner of Italy and simply hadn't woken up yet. A sphynx greeted me to my right, and further down I saw a Roman soldier being crushed by a Carthaginian elephant. History and myth seemed to align in strange contortions as a Pegasus arose from the grass not far from two massive wrestlers vying for domination against a stone wall.

I wandered for hours in awe and wonder over the incredible vistas the park had to offer, and it was only on my way out, seeing a long line of fellow tourists and visitors, did I realize that in my ignorance, I even managed to walk past the front desk without paying for a ticket. A true victory.