Tivoli #walshglobal

Tivoli 

Walsh Global 13

Noah Drlik

As we near to only a week left in Italy, we are really getting to the last site visits of the 2 months.  Of all the site visits we have made this semester, from the Vatican to Milan, today was the most beautiful place I have ever been.  Today we visited the Tivoli Gardens and Villa D’Este, which was absolutely stunning.  We arrived in the city of Tivoli around 11 o’clock and grab a quick lunch.  We stopped at a pizza place and ate for about an hour.  We then walked approximately 15 minutes to the Tivoli Gardens and Villa D’Este.  The Villa D’Este is a 16th-century summer home of a cardinal, the property is massive and could easily be the size of a small village.  We arrived at the property, got our ticket and went exploring.  The property is now a museum and very well taken care of.  I could tell what was original and what was restored but that did not matter.  The museum company separated the property into two separate tours, one being the villa itself and one being the gardens. I liked touring the villa, it was full of large rooms, beautiful murals, and historical statutes.  I am not sure about the number of rooms but there has to be over 100.  It blows my mind to think that this is the summer home of a cardinal, a summer home! To me, I find it disturbing to see a cardinal have so much money he could build a property like that.  Aren’t Cardinals supposed to take a vow of poverty, not flaunt their wealth?   However, that is beside the point, the property is still beautiful and needs to be treasured for future generations.  After walking through the villa, I made my way through the gardens which we massive. The gardens were full of shrubs, trees, and fountains.  The fountains were stunning.  A few were small, but the rest of them are huge and full of details.  The fountains mainly had statues with water coming out of them which were very beautiful.  However, my favorite fountain had no statues at all.  It is my favorite because it was the biggest and included a waterfall.  I could see it from the villa, but I wanted to get closer.  To get to it I had to walk throughout the entire gardens, passing all the other fountains and statues, then passing the three pools and there it was.  This fountain had to be over 40 feet tall and was stunning, in the back was a waterfall with water spraying upwards in front of it to fill a few small pools. After those pools filled up the water overflowed into more waterfalls and then collected in a huge pool.  I could get so close that I felt water hit me, it is a sight to see.  I got some really beautiful pictures of this waterfall, the rest of the gardens and the magnificent view of Italy from the Villa. The trip to Tivoli was by far the most beautiful sight-seeing trip I have been on and would love to go back.