Villa d'Este

After a lovely breakfast at our B&B prepared by our landlord - with the 3 puppies waiting for us to emerge - we headed off walking up and around the narrow roads that lead to the old part of Tivoli, to visit the world heritage site of Villa d'Este.  

The villa was built in the 16th century for a cardinal on the site of a former Benedictine monastery and is unbelievably opulent, with enormous rooms, all elaborately decorated with murals on every wall and ceiling, and beautiful marble floors.  And it all overlooks the formal garden that is full of fountains and water features - unbelievably beautiful and so incredibly enormous. 

After almost 3 hours at Villa d'Este, we went around the corner to Ristorante L'Angelino di Mirko, as recommended by our landlord.   We started with octopus served on artichokes and wished we'd gone for the fresh pasta instead, because the octopus smelt a bit strong for our liking (I left half of mine), and then we shared a whole sea bass which had been baked in a salt crust and it was fabulous - served at our table by the chef, with some potatoes and spinach and a bottle of local white wine.

Then more walking up narrow and winding cobbled streets to the waterfalls at Villa Gregoriana.  The Aniene River flows through Tivoli and after what was called a "catastrophic flood" in 1826, Pope Gregory 16th commissioned a couple of engineers to divert the flow of the river.  They built 2 tunnels which form a 120 metre waterfall in a beautiful and ancient park built around a deep gorge that is full of caves, waterfalls and the remains of temples and a villa.

It was 4 o'clock by the time we started our walk back "home".  After a couple of false starts, we finally got onto a road that we recognised and arrived just in time to see a beautiful pink sky as the sun set over Rome - after receiving a very warm welcome from the puppies (TJ, Macchia and Magellano) and Togo, their beautiful dad.

I couldn't begin to estimate the number of steps we've walked up and down today, but I do know that we're both absolutely exhausted and can't wait to get to bed - after another quick bowl of pasta in our dining room.