Villa d'Este & Hadrian's Villa - Tivoli, Italy

Our last full day in Italy had us taking a trip to Villa d'Este and Hadrian's Villa.  An hour or so bus trip had us in Tivoli.  Too bad we didn't get off the bus when we were thinking about it, as we ended up having to walk back a mile or two before locating one of our stops of the day.  Originally, we were going to go to Hadrian's Villa first, but it turns out we were right around from Villa d'Este and it was easy to get the bus back to Rome from Hadrian's Villa.

Villa d'Este had the most amazing water fountains I've ever seen.

 

 

A view of the countryside from inside the Villa.

 

 

 

 

The first large fountain we saw.

Large fountain number 2.

This long fountain was stunning.  The stairs that walked down to this level also had small trough-like fountains that ran down towards this one.

I loved this boat fountain.  While unique, it did fit in well with the rest of the garden.

Another angle of the boat fountain.  As you can see, it was not the only fountain in the vicinity!

Chris made a new friend here.  He also made a new cat friend in Greece when we were there :)

It was early April, and these tulips were stunning!

From this angle, you can see down a waterfall and on to the 3 large pools of water that are surrounded by pots of flowers. 

And this is what you see when you have your back to the 3 large pools of water.  It was absolutely gorgeous.

The gardens at Villa d'Este had numerous little hidey-holes.  I can imagine that people would make business deals out here, or that lovers (especially those who weren't supposed to be) could have their little tete-a-tete's here.  We sat by one of the pools and ate our picnic lunch staring at this fountain.  It was lovely!


Hadrian's Villa

This villa was a retreat for Hadrian, as he supposedly did not like the Palatine Hill Palace in Rome.  This retreat has over 30 buildings and covers 250 acres.  It's a massive property!  It's ruins now, but you can still see the grandness of some of the structures.  We had a great time wandering around the property trying to make sure we saw everything.