My last-weekend-adventures continue on out of Rome with my
friend Jackie for a day in the beautiful Villa D’Este in Tivoli. Now if any of
you have seen the Lizzie McGuire movie where she goes to Rome (and has a
concert in “the Colosseum”), then you will remember part of this Villa.
Tivoli itself was a very cute town, but the Villa D’Este was
phenomenal! It was up on a hill, so there was an amazing view of the town below
it and the mountains in the distance. When we first entered, we walked through
many rooms of all different frescoes, that were of course, beautiful.
Then we made it outside and climbed down the many sets of
stairs appreciating all the fountains along the way. These fountains are all
designed out of the natural waterfalls in the gardens, and the result is really
quite interesting.
We sat on the side of one of the pools for a while just
soaking in the sun and the noise of the fountains/waterfalls. When we got too
hot and hungry, we left the Villa and found a nice little Trattoria to have
lunch, then made our way back to the train station and got back home around 4
in the afternoon.
Again, I cooled off in the apartment for the rest of the
late afternoon, then headed out to meet some friends from my Italian class to
have one last dinner together. We walked out by Piazza Navona intending to have
my favorite pizza from Da Baffetto, but instead ate at a little place nearby
and had some delicious Gnocchi 4 formaggi.
We were all stuffed, so we decided to walk it off before we
got gelato, and walked over to Piazza Navona for a while. Rome is really a
magical place at night – the right parts of Rome of course. We headed towards
the Pantheon and did some tourist gift shopping, and finally got gelato at a
place called Grom.
Observation of the
Day: I know I already said it, but Rome is a really magical place at night. The
fountains are lit up, the temperature is perfect, and the crowds aren’t so
large and sweaty that you get annoyed.
