On the Move - Italy (20 of 23) - Villa Adriana
I got up fairly early and called steve to chat for a bit. After breakfast we took the subway to Ponte Mammolo and then a bus out to the Villa Adriana, which is a couple of miles shy of Tivoli. From the bus stop we had about a mile walk to the gate of the villa complex.
Villa Adriana was built by Hadrian in the 2nd century. He was big on building things...remember the wall across the north of England? This estate was enormous with vast gardens that encompassed palaces, baths, a theater, libraries and countless follies built as interpretations of places Hadrian had visited in his travels throughout the empire. We scrambled around it for a couple of hours and some of it was very interesting, but it wasn't a very pretty day and we were both tired. Getting into Tivoli proper would have involved catching the same bus again in order to walk through the gardens of the two Renaissance-era villas there. Neither of us could face that, so instead we just caught the bus back to Rome and went to the internet place in the Piazza Barberini for a couple of hours. Jason went up to the Palazzo Barberini to check out their collection of art. He saw a few interesting pieces (a nice work by Andrea del Sarto, another Lippi Madonna, at least one genuine Caravaggio and rooms of work by his followers), but said he didn't think I needed to see it. Meanwhile I caught up on stuff and took a much-needed nap.
We'd had good intentions of getting over to the Trastavere district that evening, but the grey day had started to produce rain by the time we were ready to go, so we ended up trying the sushi place across the way. Rokko was a very pleasant experience. We had miso soup, some tuna and flounder nigiri sushi, salmon and cucumber rolls, chicken yakitori (small kebabs), salmon teriyaki that Jason enjoyed (too sweet for me), mediocre ebi tempura (good shrimp, but the batter was limp), and these really wonderful things like spring rolls made with beef in place of the wrapping.
Once again, we appreciated the short walk home after dinner.
Next, more of our Roman holiday...
Villa Adriana was built by Hadrian in the 2nd century. He was big on building things...remember the wall across the north of England? This estate was enormous with vast gardens that encompassed palaces, baths, a theater, libraries and countless follies built as interpretations of places Hadrian had visited in his travels throughout the empire. We scrambled around it for a couple of hours and some of it was very interesting, but it wasn't a very pretty day and we were both tired. Getting into Tivoli proper would have involved catching the same bus again in order to walk through the gardens of the two Renaissance-era villas there. Neither of us could face that, so instead we just caught the bus back to Rome and went to the internet place in the Piazza Barberini for a couple of hours. Jason went up to the Palazzo Barberini to check out their collection of art. He saw a few interesting pieces (a nice work by Andrea del Sarto, another Lippi Madonna, at least one genuine Caravaggio and rooms of work by his followers), but said he didn't think I needed to see it. Meanwhile I caught up on stuff and took a much-needed nap.
We'd had good intentions of getting over to the Trastavere district that evening, but the grey day had started to produce rain by the time we were ready to go, so we ended up trying the sushi place across the way. Rokko was a very pleasant experience. We had miso soup, some tuna and flounder nigiri sushi, salmon and cucumber rolls, chicken yakitori (small kebabs), salmon teriyaki that Jason enjoyed (too sweet for me), mediocre ebi tempura (good shrimp, but the batter was limp), and these really wonderful things like spring rolls made with beef in place of the wrapping.
Once again, we appreciated the short walk home after dinner.
Next, more of our Roman holiday...