Republic Day

Yesterday we took a field trip to Tivoli, a hillside town near Rome.

Our first stop was Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana), built by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd Century A.D. It is huge but since it is like, really old it is mostly ruins--I have to admit that at this point I am kind of over rocks. They are all very cool, but kind of start to blend together after a while. Also, the morning was very hot and humid so we were all a little cranky. It was supposed to rain, and the day before it was pre-rainy all day in Orvieto and the weather was cool and breezy, so everyone wore jeans anticipating the same weather. Unfortunately, the villa has also turned into a kind of tourist trap and one of the structures turns into a performance space during the summer.

The villa was still pretty cool and our tour guide was Alba our director who is awesome, so overall it was a good experience.

This is the emperor's private villa where he supposedly spent time with his lover (a man)...of course this is the only part of the historical information I retained.

Next we had lunch in the actual town of Tivoli. The town is very cool and feels like a beach town, I kept expecting to see an ocean beyond the drop-off of the hill. I had my first cappuccino of Italy it was iced and delicious.

Our last stop of the day was at Villa d'Este which is a GORGEOUS renaissance-period villa. I know very little about the history because they let us wander around without a tour guide and almost as soon as we got there it started POURING rain. Luckily, the gardens and the fountains of the villa are so beautiful that the rain didn't take away from the experience at all.

making the best of the rain!

As I told you before we were warned about the British soliders that are staying in Orvieto until Sunday. It is such a quiet, calm town that any sort of "disturbance" is a big deal. Claudio compared them to centaurs: half man, half animal---emphasis on the animal part. Well, apparently when you tell 80 college students, "Warning! Stay away from the British soldiers at Bar Duomo" we hear "OH MY GOD BRITISH SOLDIERS AT BAR DUOMO?!!" Needless to say, almost everyone was at the bar last night and it was actually a lot of fun. The Brits told us that the e-mails "hurt their feelings" but we left before any havoc was wreaked...just in case.