Half Day at Getty Villa

The Getty Villa in Malibu is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.

A Roman Villa Recreated
The Getty Villa is modeled after a first-century Roman country house, the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy. The Villa dei Papiri was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79, and much of it remains unexcavated. Therefore, Neuerburg based many of the Museum's architectural and landscaping details on elements from other ancient Roman houses in the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae.

This time we spent most of the time outdoors enjoying their splendid gardens and landscape.

What to See

• Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities arranged by themes including Gods and Goddesses, Dionysos and the Theater, and Stories of the Trojan War
• Roman-inspired architecture and gardens

Gardens are integral to the setting of the Getty Villa, as they were in the ancient Roman home. Open spaces around the site feature bronze sculptures, fountains, and lush plantings of trees, herbs, and flowers used by the Romans.

Around a narrow reflecting pool sit replicas of finds from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, including square marble basins and bronze statues depicting women who have come to draw water from a stream.

Outside the Museum entrance lies the Herb Garden, a mosaic of fruit trees and fragrant and colorful annuals and perennials used by the ancient Romans in cooking, ceremony, and medicine.

The Museum's south doors open onto the Outer Peristyle, the largest garden at the Getty Villa. It is adorned with hedge-lined pathways and circular stone benches. Plants favored by the ancient Romans, such as bay laurel, boxwood, myrtle, ivy, and oleander, are planted around a spectacular 220-foot-long reflecting pool. Bronze sculptures, replicas of statues found at the Villa dei Papiri, are placed in their ancient findspots. A peristyle, or covered walkway, surrounds the formal garden and leads visitors past illusionistic wall paintings to spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean.