Tivoli

Yesterday, a couple of friends and I took a day trip to Tivoli, organized by our school. We all signed up last minute. None of us knew anything about Tivoli, but we decided it would be worth 20 euros to see more of Italy on a day we had nothing planned.

After a rough morning waking up and getting to the bus, we found out only a few others had signed up for the trip, I think there were only 18 people, including two JCU staff members. It was nice to get my own seat on the bus to sprawl out and sit with my ipod for an hour watching the Italy pass my window. I don’t have nearly enough music in my life here. I needed that time with my ipod.

Our first stop was Villa Adriana, which I would be able to tell you a lot more about, had I bothered to listen to the audio guide we had for more than four minutes. Instead, Pearl, Laura, Annie and I wandered around the ruins of a huge villa older than Rome for an hour and a half instead, taking pictures and taking in the quiet. Rome is such a fast paced and noisy city. You always need to be on guard and aware of your surroundings, since robberies are so frequent. Villa Adriana was a little outside Tivoli, and isn’t a huge tourist attraction. It was nice to wander around the ruins, knowing that my bag was safe if I put it down for a picture, since only my friends were within sight. I definitely needed that escape from Rome, but I didn’t realize how necessary it would be.

After Villa Adriana we drove to the hillside town of Tivoli for lunch and a little exploring. Tivoli was beautiful, and you could see for miles from some of the lookout points. It was much cooler than Rome since it was so high up on the hill, we don’t get too many refreshing breezes in Rome. We didn’t do too much exploring, since our feet hurt and we knew we had another villa tour in the afternoon. We ate a cheap lunch al fresco, then found out we could have gotten much better food and atmosphere for only 1 euro more half a block up the street. We also walked around a few shops and got gelato, our new favorite activity. Before going back to meet the group we sat on a bench at the edge of one of the lookouts talking about the past week, and plans for the future, after Italy and beyond. It sounds a little silly, but it was really nice to take some time out to reflect surrounded by clean air and natural beauty.

We took a guided tour of Villa D’Este, a villa built by a would-be pope to demonstrate prowess in water and city management, accomplished by the creation of an enormous garden with the most beautiful and intricate fountains I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t aware places like this even existed. The fountains are all natural, they’ve looked the same for hundreds of years. Not only are the fountains beautiful, but they also tell stories. There is a Fountain of Tivoli with statues representative of the city. If you follow two incredibly long, skinny fountains (representing the Tiber River) to the other side of the villa, you end up at the Fountain of Rome, full of statues representing the powerful city. As usual, my amateur photography skills don’t adequately capture the power or beauty of the enormous fountains, but they should give you an idea.

How mad would everyone be if I had a destination wedding in Italy? I would love to get married in front of the Fountain of Tivoli at Villa D’Este. (Any takers? Haha.)

As I’m sure you’ve figured out from past entries, I’ve been super busy in the last week. I’ve seen a good chunk of Rome, and did it all by walking. Rome is also built on hills, so there are tons of stairs and slopes everywhere (not to mention the nine flights of stairs up to my apartment). Italian girls generally don’t wear sneakers, so I’ve been trying to wear more sandals and flats. The last few days I had to give in, and by yesterday afternoon my feet were so swollen that even my sneakers were killing me. I’ve been switching up my shoes, so at least I haven’t had to use any of the substantial supply of band-aids I packed in case of blisters. Last night a bunch of friends and I decided we couldn’t take the walking anymore. When we returned from our day trip in Tivoli we sat on our computers in our friends apartment downstairs for six hours with our feet elevated. It was great. Hopefully my feet will be feeling slightly better for today’s adventures around the city.