Now from this gorgeous relaxing start to the day to the trials and tribulations of trying to using public transport on a Sunday in Italy......
Getting to Villa Adriana was an exercise in frustration, and not helped by the 42 degree heat. Not wanting to whine and carry on about how frustrating it was, bear with me a minute whilst I whine and carry on about how frustrating it was. At least I’m calling a spade a spade.
Ok – it all started with bus tickets. The advice from Fabio (owner of the B&B) was to simply pop over to either the news agent or the tabacco shop across the road and buy tickets for bus 4 or 4X on the CAT line. This bus would then drop us conveniently close to Villa Adriana thus avoiding the 2km walk that the other public bus line Cottral would involve. Easy peezy lemon squeezy!
Uno problemo – no tickets at the news shop. Head over to the tabacco shop - problem number due - no ticketos. Tried 5 places all up. Ended up, as you do, asking a waiter to help.
His advice (which ended up being the most frustrating of all) was to just wait for the bus and buy the tickets from the driver. So – after waiting 40 minutes in excruciating heat (did I mention it is hot in Italy at the moment?) along comes the 4X bus, on we jump and ..... off we jump. No tickets, no ride – end of story!
Needless to say we were all feeling just a little miffed by this stage. But, being troopers decided on Plan B - the Cotrall bus. Waiting, waiting, waiting and along it comes, using the back entrance on we jump with no tickets, and there we lurked. Someone did mention something about the Cotrall bus being free on a Sunday, so ticketless we took to that little morsel of hearsay as gospel.
I did have to speak to the grumpy driver to say Villa Adriana per favore, he nodded and we all crossed our fingers that he’d tell us where to get off. 20 minutes later he did just that and then we spent a very toasty 25 minutes wandering through the back streets of wherever we were until finally we arrived, hot and bothered and crotchety at Villa Adriana.
Now – not wanting our journey to detract from the splendor of this place – here’s what we came to see.....
Villa Adriana was constructed at Tibur (modern-day Tivoli) as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD. Hadrian was said to dislike the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, leading to the construction of the retreat. During the later years of his reign, he actually governed the empire from the villa.
So, off we wandered around the vast site of ruins. A model of the entire area showed what it would have looked like in all its former glory, but despite it’s potential I think the heat and the trials arriving had taken their toll and rather than focus on the ruins we all got a bit distracted by the little turtles swimming around in the pools.
But all was not lost – despite the heat we had all worked up an appetite and for the 6th night in a row we had PIZZA. I don’t think we’ll ever get tired of eating pizza in Italy and here’s why…..
Getting to Villa Adriana was an exercise in frustration, and not helped by the 42 degree heat. Not wanting to whine and carry on about how frustrating it was, bear with me a minute whilst I whine and carry on about how frustrating it was. At least I’m calling a spade a spade.
Ok – it all started with bus tickets. The advice from Fabio (owner of the B&B) was to simply pop over to either the news agent or the tabacco shop across the road and buy tickets for bus 4 or 4X on the CAT line. This bus would then drop us conveniently close to Villa Adriana thus avoiding the 2km walk that the other public bus line Cottral would involve. Easy peezy lemon squeezy!
Uno problemo – no tickets at the news shop. Head over to the tabacco shop - problem number due - no ticketos. Tried 5 places all up. Ended up, as you do, asking a waiter to help.
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| This, by the way, is what the gorgeous streets of Tivoli look like. |
Needless to say we were all feeling just a little miffed by this stage. But, being troopers decided on Plan B - the Cotrall bus. Waiting, waiting, waiting and along it comes, using the back entrance on we jump with no tickets, and there we lurked. Someone did mention something about the Cotrall bus being free on a Sunday, so ticketless we took to that little morsel of hearsay as gospel.
I did have to speak to the grumpy driver to say Villa Adriana per favore, he nodded and we all crossed our fingers that he’d tell us where to get off. 20 minutes later he did just that and then we spent a very toasty 25 minutes wandering through the back streets of wherever we were until finally we arrived, hot and bothered and crotchety at Villa Adriana.
Now – not wanting our journey to detract from the splendor of this place – here’s what we came to see.....
Villa Adriana was constructed at Tibur (modern-day Tivoli) as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD. Hadrian was said to dislike the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, leading to the construction of the retreat. During the later years of his reign, he actually governed the empire from the villa.
So, off we wandered around the vast site of ruins. A model of the entire area showed what it would have looked like in all its former glory, but despite it’s potential I think the heat and the trials arriving had taken their toll and rather than focus on the ruins we all got a bit distracted by the little turtles swimming around in the pools.
But all was not lost – despite the heat we had all worked up an appetite and for the 6th night in a row we had PIZZA. I don’t think we’ll ever get tired of eating pizza in Italy and here’s why…..
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