Bye Bye Roma, Hello Castel Madama

10/8/2013
Bye Bye Roma, Hello Castel Madama

Oh, the fun of being driven to Fiumicino in morning traffic. Very thankfully, we were NOT driving (or sitting still as happened very frequently) to the airport to pick up the rental car. The whole driving to the airport, getting the car and arriving at Castel Madama (24 miles from Rome) took us 3 ½ hours, much of it in rain and traffic. After checking into our agriturismo (working farm) in Castel Madama and a decent lunch at a local bar, we went to see Villa D'Este in nearby Tivoli, a 16^th century home with fabulous gardens. ABSOLUTELY no parking anywhere remotely nearby so on we went a few km outside of town to see Hadrian's Villa, the largest imperial Roman villa ever built with a complex covering about 300 acres and parts of it dating back to the 2^nd century B.C. Hadrian continued to build into the 2^nd century A.D.  It is an impressive and vast complex with possibly the WORST signage of any historical site that I've seen since some decrepit ruins in Albania. That being said, I enjoyed seeing it. Here are some pics though I can't say exactly what the structures were.  

       

And….we have our very own historical structure in our room.  Parts of a Roman structure were found when this farm was constructed and a little glass window in the floor of our room reveals some of the ruin.

Wed., we set out again to see Villa D'Este about 3 miles from our home. One hour later we arrived in the center of Tivoli where not only were all the parking places taken in the multilevel garage but every possible parking place on the street was not only taken but most had cars double parked. There was a certain deterioration in mood and language on the part of my driver who shall remain nameless. (OK…. If you HAVE to know, it's Dick.) Later in the day, we were told that Wed is market day in Tivoli and that "there is a lot of extra traffic then."  Villa D'Este will have to wait til another trip (and another driver, apparently.) We decided to just meander around some nearby small towns along a very picturesque backroad with a couple stops to wander, to have a cup of coffee, and a lunch stop.