Tivoli and the Villa d'Este

My first visit to Tivoli Gardens was when I was 14 or so. I enjoyed the rides and developed the tiniest quantum of a crush on the 30-something woman who was the only person in the tour group willing to go on the roller coaster with me. It is one of my fondest memories of Copenhagen, and there it stood for decades as far as I was concerned.

It is only in preparing for this trip that I learned that that Tivoli Gardens isn't the Tivoli Gardens, in much the way I suppose that the Kew Gardens I first visited isn't necessarily the Kew Gardens people first think of.

Yesterday the VOSS gang visited the original Tivoli, a bit outside of Rome. There are two things to see in Tivoli--the Villa Adriana, which was something of an original version of Versailles built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The second is what we went to--the Villa d'Este, built by a cardinal in the 16th century and borrowing inspiration (and borrowing ransacking material) from the Villa Adriana.

The Villa itself is, of course, spectacular. Even if it's basically "another palace". The art inside is very impressive, with frescoes giving praise and adoration to the cardinal, who was a grandson of a Pope*.  They were made to look like tapestries (like the one here), or with painted columns or doorways and windows.

The real star of the show were the gardens.  These had a series of fantastic hydraulic features and fountains, taking advantage of a river that went nearby to divert plenty of water. Some of the fountains were restored in the 20th century with modern technology (like the ones in the Neptune fountain above), but most retained their period feel.

One axis of the gardens had a fountain representing the town of Tivoli on one end, and another representing Rome.  Here's the Rome side, with Athena and to her right (from our point of view) the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus.

After spending the morning on the lovely day walking around the gardens, Jen and I repaired to lunch followed by an extended stay at a cafe where we had a round or two while waiting for the bus. The students hung out across the piazza on the stairs. We probably would have bought them a round if they'd joined us. :)

The students seemed to have a good time.  Here's a subset gathered for a group selfie (groupie?) while others took pictures of them taking the selfie because 2016 I guess?


*One of the students came up to me afterward, confused.  "How could he be the grandson of the Pope? I thought that Popes..."  I am glad that she is not cynical by nature, and am a little sad that I had to break the bad news about some of the medieval popes to her.