Today, Tivoli! A lot of people in the hostel have recommended Tivoli when chatting about places to go, luckily I had this tour booked. Hadrian’s Villa, or Villa Adriana, was one of my favourite things to study, and this tour includes entry to Villa d’Este as well, which was a minor recreation and remains in much better condition.
We arrived at Hadrian’s Villa first, and walked around a lot of ruins. The guide did an excellent job of bringing things to life for us – it can be hard to picture what used to be there.
This was a bathhouse in the Villa, a gigantic structure. It would include tepid baths, and saunas.
Here, the end of a “canal”. A replica of what you might find in Egypt as Hadrian paid homage to the different cultures the Roman empire controlled. This was also a shrine of sorts to a young boy he loved, who drowned. The faces on the statues of the gods were all modelled to look like him.
We moved on to lunch, and then into the Villa d’Este. The inside of which was very gaudy. I didn’t like the inside so much, but it is excellently preserved and reconstructed where necessary. I don’t think I’d have liked living in the decoration of that era. However, the gardens were really the showstopper.
We descended further and further into the gardens, which are terraced, and about halfway down we realised we’d have to climb all those stairs back up again.
The fountains kept getting larger and more intricate.
Until, finally, the end.
This post has more pictures than words, because what can I really say about this beauty except to show you.
Apollo, help me up these stairs. They’re not even half of them.