Exploring Rome Day One

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We headed out from our hotel to get a measure of the city and do some exploring on our own before we hooked up with our driver to take us to Tivoli to visit the Roman Villas D'Este where the Tivoli Gardens re and Villa Adriana.

We struck out walking and headed for Barberini Square. Along the way we got our second look at traffic in Rome, basically insane. In the course of 6-8 blocks we saw hundreds if not a thousand scooters...the overwhelming choice of transporation in Rome. Of the 60 million Italians, some 4+ million live and work in Rome. We jumped a bus to the Coliseum which is centered within the city, surrounded by modern buildings and streets. We hung out around the exterior doing some people watching and sitting comfortably in the shade. We ventured forward to find a line for admission to the inside to be about 3 hours long. We took the "no thanks" approach and walked around taking pictures. It was lunch time so we circled to the northside above where all the tourists were and found a nice sidewalk cafe for pizza and drinks...that was a VERY good idea, most relaxing and refreshing.

After lunch we hailed a cab to head back to our hotel to rest and get ready for the afternoon tour to the Roman Villas and dinner in Tivoli at a restaurant called La Sibilla. The cab ride back was thrilling - We really liked this driver! Drove the streets fast and furious missing scooters and side view mirrors by inches! Back to the hotel in 11 minutes flat.

We rested, changed clothes and met our driver in the lobby for the short drive from Rome to Tivoli where we walked the grounds of two roman Villas. The first one was the most interesting as the Tivoli Gardens and the ancient roman water fountains were there. The water fountains are fed purely by gravity as they were in Roman times - no pumps, pretty amazing.

From there it was a short drive to La Sibilla overlooking the Tivoli Valley. An outdoor meal with no shortage of Italian ambience. Lighted roman ruins behind our table, locals eating and laughing it up with the best food presented to us on our entire trip. In addition to dessert, they served us Lemoncello drinks. Now I know why Danny Divito was still drunk while taping The View after drinking several of those with George Clooney. Whoo! A night to remember.

A short drive back to the hotel and the end of a great day. We fell asleep early as we were up again the next day for a two hour train ride to Naples to visit Pompeii and drive the Amalfi Coast.

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