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| Italy: Spring 2003: Thursday April 24: Day 2: Tivoli | ||||
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| Tivoli, Lazio Thursday, April 24, 2003 Day 2 We sleep through and get onto an Italian schedule quickly. Computer obstacles continue to be an annoyance and too much time is spent trying to solve them. But the sun is out and the sky is beautiful. The breakfast room in the hotel has a grotto in the back and a wall of windows looking out over the gorge and the hills beyond....a beautiful panorama except the windows are closed and heaters are on....Combined with the bright sunshine streaming in, the room is quite warm--as the Italians seem to prefer. We head out about 9:30--our destination is the Villa Adriana, the Emperor Hadrian's country estate located a few miles west of town. Traffic in town is quite fierce and when we get to the valley below, it gets even worse. We miss the turn for the Villa Adriana (the traffic is so jammed we think the signs are obscured) and we have to go further toward Rome at a snail's pace until the next junction. While heading back toward the Villa, we spot a truck stop advertising porchetta sandwiches and make a note of it as a candidate for lunch. (Porchetta is a local speciality--basically a roast pig, boned and aggressively spiced with salt and rosemary, served on crusty fresh rolls--a sandwich fit for a king.) We also gamble on a shortcut from the main road which takes us out of the traffic almost directly to the villa...a lucky move. We park, stand on line for tickets, buy a guide book and wait on line to get in...behind a large group of schoolchildren off on a school excursion, who all have to be painstakingly counted as their tickets are fed through the electronic turnstile. Once inside, we walk up a long entrance road to the Villa Adriana proper. Hadrian was emperor of Rome in the second century AD and was a world traveler and self-styled architect. He wanted to surround himself with memories of his travels so he reconstructed elaborate reproductions of some of his favorite places...Greece, Egypt, etc...at his summer house in the Roman countryside. All of these buildings are spread over a large expanse and were intended as a retreat for the emperor as well as a place to entertain. Many of the buildings are in remarkably good shape almost 2000 years later and it is astonishing to imagine what the place looked like when Hadrian lived, with all its marble and decorations and statuary in place. Even now the scope is incredible. Especially noteworthy is his recreation of a temple and canal from Egypt, large bath complexes with some plaster decorations intact as well as mosaics, a stadium, libraries, and a a "marine theater"...an island in a small lake where he would retire to be alone. We have some difficulty getting our bearings at the start, but we sit down and compare maps and eventually get a fix on our position and can correctly identify the buildings are looking at. We spend about two hours wandering around....we then walk down the hill past the Greek theater and amphitheater and leave...heading back to the porchetta place for lunch. The porchetta place is a funky truck stop, with a deli counter in front and outside plastic tables in back. We order three sandwiches and sodas and sit in the sun enjoying the treat. When we are finished and start to leave, Jonathan decides to inquire about the fava beans he saw in the display case. We order some fresh fava (one of the important signs of spring in Rome) and some pecorino cheese and have a wonderful "dessert". (We rarely see fava beans this fresh and tender in Washington DC; they are like a different animal.) Most of the traffic has dissipated when we return to Tivoli. We stop in town to drop off some film to be developed and head off in search of gelato. We find great gelato at a place that specializes in Sicilian style--especially good is the bitter chocolate, the melon and the lemon. We have a brief exchange with the young man who runs the place....he is very friendly and we tell him that we need a good gelato place in Washington DC; he says that he would like to come and open the shop. (So far, there is no evidence of any anti-American feelings in our contact with Italians; they have been as friendly as ever in the stores and on the streets.) (DZ: There is plenty of anti-American and anti-war grafitti on the walls of buildings and many rainbow Pace flags/banners hanging from windows. I'm grateful that there is no automatic assumption of the part of Italians we talk with that we support or are part of the war machine. This young man, when he established that we were Americans, said God bless America. I replied God bless Italy, and we were both content. Many Italians assume we are Germans - my theory is that there are many more German tourists than American - do we really look German? there's a motivation to lose weight - and when we say, no, we're Americans, we're greeted very warmly indeed.) We get the pictures....some, of us eating porchetta sandwiches not one hour before....and return to the hotel for naps, reading, and computer wrangling. Later in the afternoon, I head back to the TIM store to see if they can help me with a couple of phone questions. They can't but they direct me to a couple of other stores that might be of assistance. I get to explore other parts of Tivoli on this mission.....the town is remarkably untouristy given the presence of the Villa d'Este and Villa Adriana. It is a pretty typical, lively Italian city with a very scenic location and, while not a hill town to fall in love with, it is certainly an interesting and pleasant place to visit. I have no luck with the phone mission however....but on the way back to the hotel, I do pass the restaurant that I had selected for tonight, so it will make it easy to get to for dinner. We decide to visit the gardens at the Villa Gregoriana next door to the hotel.....this is a landscaped hillside that drops precipitously down to the Aniene River gorge and is marked with waterfalls and scenic walkways with views of the small temples across from our room. There is also a path up the gorge on the other side that leads to the temples. At least that is what the guidebooks describe; in fact, the gates are locked because the gardens are "in restauro". So we walk over across the bridge (avoiding the climb back up) and attempt to find the entrance to the temples. Even though they are in plain sight, getting to them presents a challenge. When we find the temples, the gate seems to be locked, so we scour the neighborhood looking for a way in. Many of the small streets dead end and the only way in appears to be through the next door restaurant. Jonathan asks if I had actually tried to open the "locked" gate. I hadn't so we return, push open the gate and gain access. The temples are scenically sited right at the edge of the gorge....one of them is remarkably well preserved seing that they are about 2000 years old. We climb around and take some pictures. Next, we decide to see if we can find the truck where we bought the delicious strawberries the day before (I had seen him driving around town) but he was nowhere to be found. We stop for a consolation prize of fresh white pizza and wander into an art show being held in a desconsecrated church---the pictures are most local scenes by local artists. We then take an alternate route back to the hotel across a new wooden footbridge that crosses the Aniene a little upstream from the hotel. It is getting on to dinnertime so after a glass of prosecco on the hote's terrace overlooking the waterfall, we decide to drive to the restaurant. Since I "knew" exactly where it was located and according the guidebooks it was open tonight, we went without guidebooks or maps. But we can't find it....everything in the neighborhood is dark. We try several other streets--no luck. We drive back to the hotel and I ask the desk clerk. He looks it up and calls...no answer; maybe it is closed because of the Liberation Day holiday tomorrow. He suggests another place just around the corner; we walk over and it is also closed. Now it is getting late, so we return to Il Grottino where we had eaten the night before. We get the same table and the proprietor seems to remember us.....we have a very good meal (terrific spaghetti alle vongole, a tasty grilled sausage and an okay artichoke roman style for me, bucatini all'amatriciana and saltimbocca for Diana, and a tortellini in brodo and a dish of spaghetti carbonara for Jonathan--I tease him for ordering two pasta dishes, but he enjoys them both. The house white wine was better than the red we had the night before. Jonathan and Diana have the panna cotta for dessert....a very pleasant meal. It is a short walk back to the hotel and we are ready for bed......tomorrow morning we will go to the Villa d'Este before leaving for the wedding in Le Marche. |
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