The Illusive Hadrian

Yesterday my friends and I took the train to Tivoli (only cost €2.30!) which is a gorgeous hill top town an hour outside of Rome. We walked to the main piazza and got a free map from the information center, which would turn out to be a very inaccurate map, but I'll get to that later. The first place we visited was named Villa d'Este and was this huge mansion filled with rooms painted in fresco but the garden was the real attraction. Fountains, flowers, trees, more fountains, statues, birds, fountains. Which can also be seen in the Lizzie McGuire Movie (skip to the 6:00 minute mark) Here are some pictures:







Then after purchasing some delightful panini from an elderly gentleman fond of making strange noises, we headed off to Villa Adriana (Hadrian's Villa) which the map promised us, would be down the road on the left. I saw this sign on the way which got me more excited than I should have been, but really where have you ever seen my name besides engraved on old tombstones? We started down the road and got a little suspicious when the sidewalk ended but some helpful bicyclists assured us it was further down the hill. So we continued through brush and brambles, mud and a grove of olive trees, jumping over guard rails, and sprinting in from of cars, windinf our way down the mountain. After 3 miles, we were still not finding Hadrian's illusive Villa, but we were finding blisters. After a little bit we saw a sign pointing toward the Vill and some of the local people pointed us through a "short cut" which was through someone's lawn, but oh well. After an hour and 15 minutes we finally reached the place. When we got there we learned his property was 3 kilometers of ruins and ponds. We walked around for 2 hours looking at everything and taking pictures. As we made our way out we found out there was a bus that could take us back to the main part of Tivoli. It took all of 5 minutes for the bus to drive up the hill and drop us back off in the main piazza. My legs could have killed me at that realization. Needless to say we will be burning that tourist map.