J. Paul Getty

Part of the fun of having houseguests is that you have a handy excuse to play tourist in your natural habitat–to appreciate anew its beauty, and to revisit all the local attractions. And so it was I headed up PCH yesterday to tour Getty Villa with my friend Margaret.

Nestled into a narrow canyon on the coast of Malibu, Getty Villa is home to the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. The last time I visited, my kids were attending grade school in nearby Calabasas. The grounds were beautiful, but the museum itself was characterized by dark passageways and crowded display cases, none of which showed off the ancient artifacts to best advantage. In fact, my older son proclaimed it “more boring than church.”

In the interim since my last visit, the Villa has undergone a major facelift. Re-envisioned as Villa dei Papiria, a first-century Roman country home in Herculaneum that was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the buildings and grounds are brighter, airier, and more inviting.

I’ll give you an informal tour in another post, but for now I want to show you just one artifact. It’s about the size of a small juice glass, a single piece in a vast collection of glassware. Insignificant, maybe, when viewed alongside the more ornate pieces  at Getty Villa.

But when I read the display card beneath it, my heart did cartwheels. And seeing as how I’ve just now transferred my Joyful Noise blog over from its LiveJournal home to WordPress, I thought it apropos to share it with you today.

All that to say: Welcome to my newly remodeled blog! I hope you’ll make yourself at home here, and that you’ll enjoy repeated visits. We’ve got lots of adventures ahead of us, and so much beauty to explore…