It's Good To Be Emperor!

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Hadrian's Villa........being emperor definetly has its perks. The Villa itself sits on about 180 hectres!! It is enormous, not to mention it is one of the most complex, architecturally sophisticated places in the world. Good 'ole Hadrian knew what he was doing. As for the villa itself, as you would expect it has all the things that usually make up a good sized town. It has multiple baths, theatres, warehouses, etc. It was more or less and self contained miniature city. All of that being said, Hadrian actually only spent about 2 years of his life there. He traveled a lot, so his time there was limited. If I were him, I don't think I would have left. As with most of the places in Italy, the views were spectacular. We spent about 2 hours walking through the villa, then we ended up playing frisbee for about 45 minutes in one of the giant open spaces of the many courtyards in the villa.

After we spent the morning in the villa, we took the short trip up the hill to Tivoli and headed for the Villa D'Este. I actually had never heard of this place before, but it was a most unexpected surprise. The Villa is set up on the hill overlooking Hadrian's villa. The Villa was actually part of the original entry sequence into the town of Tivoli. The is a huge, man-made platform near the bottom and the entire area is covered with gardens and some of the most amazing fountains I have ever seen. The more amazing thing about the fountains is that they all still run on just water pressure. There are not pumps or anything, it is just gravity carrying the water down the hill. When you see some of the pictures of the fountains, you will understand more why this is some amazing. If you are ever near Tivoli, I would highly recommend going and seeing the Villa D'Este.

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Comments

[Katie's Mom]

Great Pictures!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this blog entry must be worth at least 38,000. Spectacular! Great blog.