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| Italy: Spring 2003: Friday April 25: Day 3: Tivoli - San Benedetto del Tronto | ||||
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| Tivoli, Lazio
- San Benedetto del Tronto, Le Marche Friday, April 25, 2003 Day 3 Another beautiful day...the sun is shining and it is warm. After breakfast and packing up, we walk across town to the Villa d'Este--a palazzo built by an Este cardinal in the 16th century, most famous for its gardens and spectacular fountains and water extravanganzas. Today is Liberation Day--the celebration of the end of World War II. We pass the formation of the parade in front of the Town Hall, but we don't stay around to see it--as we did last year in Busseto. There is a line to get into the Villa--there are many tourists in town due to the holiday. You have to pass through the house to get to gardens--a series of unfurnished rooms with paintings and ceiling frescoes covering almost every inch of wall and ceiling space. I enjoyed the room painted with idyllic scenes of Tivoli life in the 1600s, but mostly one walks through without more than a quick glance. One claim to fame of the palazzo is that Franz Liszt lived there for thirty years in the late 19th century. You enter the gardens from the top--there is a view over the hillside to the suburban sprawl in the distance. As you descend into the gardens, the fountains and waterworks become increasingly elaborate and intricate. There are graceful fountains, rows of water pipes spilling out along a long promenade, spurts of water jumping high in the air, bannisters made up of flowing water channels, large pools with sculptures strewn about--all in the midst of elaborate plantings and manicured greenery. Quite a spectacular show..... It is a long climb back up to the exit, but you do get an interesting view over the ruins of an old Roman temple complex and the original town walls. We walk back through the "centro", stopping for a coffee before checking out of the hotel. We hit the road for the wedding in San Benedetto, about a three hour drive across Italy to the Adriatic Coast. Initially, we take the wrong road out of town--fortuitously it turns out--because after we turn around and head back, we catch sight of the Grande Cascasta--the major waterful in the Villa Gregoriana. We had seen pictures of this 400 foot waterful, but figured that it was dry at this point. Not at all, turns out--and we get a very good view from an overlook along the "wrong" road. Before we get on the autostrada, we stop at a porchetta truck for sandwiches to eat later. We are driving through very scenic mountains and just before we go through the six mile tunnel under the highest range (the Gran Sasso--9,000 feet), we find a roadside picnic area. We eat our sandwiches at a table with the rugged snowcovered peaks in the background and cars speeding by at 80 miles per hour. The last leg of the drive--about thirty kilometers--is on a local road which winds it way through the very beautiful countryside of the northern Abruzzo region. There are hill towns dotting the landscape and there is green everwhere. One difference between this area and the more famous and more scenic areas of Tuscany is the amount of new construction and modern buildings--the restrictions on new housing are much stricter in Tuscany. We are staying in a town on the main road from Ascoli Piceno to San Benedetto--Colli del Tronto. The hotel--the Villa Picena--is where the wedding reception will be held. It is also only fifteen minutes from the church where the wedding is going to be, in the village of Offida. The main house has been renovated and there are new hotel rooms and a grand reception hall. We had been here last fall with the bride and groom (Thomas and Romina) when we were visiting them; Romina wanted to "test" the food. We have a nice modern room with all the modern conveniences. After getting settled and checking e-mails, we get in the car and drive to San Benedetto to walk around and have a gelato. I send a SMS message (text message on the telephone-very popular in Europe) to Romina and she messages me back telling us that there will be a pizza and beer get together that evening for out of town guests and the groom's family. San Benedetto is a bustling resort town that stretches for 10 miles along a sandy beach. On this sunny Friday holiday afternoon, the streets are crowded and the roads are jammed. We park and stop for a gelato while walking to the beachfront. We arrive fashionably late (about 30 minutes) for the party but we beat the bride and groom by an hour. (Romina later explains that the priest made her confess after the rehearsal and it took a long time.) We meet the groom's family and Romina's group of international friends. Jonathan (who has been friends with Romina since 1995 actually knows some of the friends from previous visits.) We eat well and have a good time....the white pizza is especially good. Back at the hotel, we continue to fight computer connection battles; I am still struggling to successfully use my new cell phone as a wireless modem. I have spent too much time on the phone with customer service (in Italian) or asking friends to call and talk to them in Italian. I continue to make progress (the phone now dials out consistently when it is supposed to) but I still can't access the internet or get my mail. Jonathan has problems connecting to a local service provider and his e-mail is acting quirky, but he has devised a workaround for now. Jim and Diana |
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