Tivoli

Today was another day I was thinking of things I loved and Tivoli came to mind. 

Tivoli is a relatively small hilltop village outside of Rome. We spent a short afternoon there at the Villa d'Este on our way to Cinque Terre. Knowing my affinity for gardens, the owner of the B&B we stayed at in Rome told us we had to stop and see for ourselves. Our focus was not on the villa, in fact we spent almost no time inside except to navigate through the house to the gardens where the real beauty was.

I know these pics cannot begin to show how beautiful and enormous it truly was, so to help you get the idea, I decided to post not one or two pics but ten. :)

The gardens were set on different levels with fountains everywhere you looked. There were hundreds of fountains.
The day we visited was gray and threatening to storm. As a result the gardens were nearly empty. Couldn't have planned it better.
There were private little gardens tucked away. Some were filled with sculpture and others primarily fountains. All of it was breathtaking!


This stretch of fountains was one of my favorites. Its called Le Cento Fontane (The Hundred Fountains). At 100 fountains in length x 3 levels, we're talking 300 fountains on this walkway alone.

If you look closely, you can see the bottom row of fountains are faces, animals and people alike.
I especially loved this fellow.