Arrivederci Italia

IAs were the spring flowersAllWe are winding down our stay in Italy, and as always, we hate to say goodbye, so we will say arrivederci instead. Goodbye to good food, crazy drivers and beautiful scenery!

On our way out of town we grabbed a quick lunch of focaccia and mini pizza.

Fast food at home never looked so good.

From Pescara we drove back across Italy to stay the night in Tivoli so we could see Villa l'Est in the morning. I had booked what looked  like a lovely villa - only €61! The only problem was that as we got to Tivoli, our GPS showed that it was still an hour and a half away! Argh. Jim was not happy and we both wanted to be done driving for the day. The only thing to do was cut our losses and find a room in Tivoli. Of course that meant paying for two rooms, but it was better than driving in the wrong direction and missing the gardens. 

Jim found us a good room very close by ,right across from the gardens. 

This was my favorite part about it- right outside our window was my ideal little garden, including a lemon tree. 

I have heard of Tivoli gardens, of course-I just never imagined we would see them.

That would have been a shame to miss them ,as they are truly marvelous. I'm not sure which I liked more- the Villa or the gardens. 

Each room seemed to be better than the one before it,

The colors on this ceiling reflect the colors of the surrounding countryside.

He reminds me of someone I once knew...

I'll just show a few ceilings,so as not to bore you.

Not a ceiling, but I liked this face.

I'll take this over Versailles any day.

These were not all painted by the same artist, but the colors blend together so well. 

And then there are the gardens!

There were a LOT of steps...

Jim asked me how far down I wanted to go, and I said "all the way!" But partway there my knees said, 

Far enough.

All the water features were magical to me. 

As were the spring flowers, which I feel I haven't seen enough of. 

But I have never seen such beautiful old wisteria as I have seen here in Italy. 

Jim appreciated it, too.

Tivoli is famous for its fountains, and I have never seen so many fun and whimsical ones as there were here. They gave me goosebumps! 

I'm sorry that her jets weren't functional, cause that would have been something to see.

Another majestic fountain. We didn't see every inch of the garden, but we thoroughly enjoyed what we did see. 

If you're ever near Rome, try to make a side trip to Tivoli. It's worth it! 

We also stopped nearby at Hadrian's villa, which was a marvel of another kind. We were there with at least 30 bus loads full of French and Italian school kids, no doubt on their spring trips. 

It was a shadow of its former self. But since it was built around 120-130 BC it is amazingly well preserved . 

Thermal baths featured heavily here in this pleasure palace.

Good sport, eh? 

Still some arches and columns standing.

This is a scale model of what it probably once looked like. 

After this it was off to Rome for us to pick up a Chinese Visa ! Yay. 

Not wanting any moss to grow on us, we then hotfooted it out of the city, back near Viterbo to go to the Terme one last time. Too bad it was closed... But we went first thing this morning. On our way back to Rome. 

And now I will say Ciao ciao , as I am signing off for a while. We decided to take a trip within a trip and let someone else do the navigating for a while, so today we board an 11 day cruise through Greece and Turkey. 

We just spent an outrageous amount of money to take a taxi from the Rome Airport after dropping off our rental, rather than risk missing the departure, which would have meant flying to Turkey. We're learning....

Write me an e mail if you want to read more blog posts, and I'll see what I can do...thanks for reading!