Road trip, Road trip

Friday, we rented a car at Ciampino Airport, south of Rome.  Now, because we decided just the night before to go on this road trip, we did not pre-book the car but just went to the airport to pick it up.  Enzo, the counter person, was not pleased.  We committed the cardinal sin of arriving just as he was going to lunch, and he was not pleased to have to deal with us.  If he had escaped our clutches he would have been gone for 2 hours!!  We offered to wait but he reluctantly rescinded and stayed to process our request.  I am not sure which he was more upset about, delaying lunch or having to input all the info in the computer.  I even gave him our previous rental agreement to help speed the process, but he didn't seem to use it.  I think, to spite us a bit, he gave us a car that hadn't been washed yet and was not quite full of gas.

Anyways we were soon on our way and within 10 miles of leaving the airport we saw 2 accidents, one 3 vehicle, one 2 vehicle.  Not a good omen!!  Because we plan a couple more of these little forays before we leave we opted to purchase a GPS unit here, rather than rent one.  Renting would have cost over 300 Euros by time we were done and I purchased one with lifetime map updates for 130 Euros.  We call her Greta. 

So we set Greta to take us to our first destination, Tivoli, which is about 40 km from Rome.  She got us there okay, but we did learn that our girl Greta likes to live in the fast lane, and has a preference for taking us on the high speed Superstrada highways.  Our little Fiat Panda and driver, do not like travelling at the posted breakneck speeds of 130 km.

When we got to Tivoli, we were trying to find the Villa Adriana (Hadrian's Villa) ruins from about the second century.  It was at this time that we learned of some of Greta's other idiosyncrasies.  One is that she likes driving in these historical communities about as much as we do.  She, like all true Italian drivers, does not appear to follow any rules of the road.  She often will attempt to send us down one way streets the wrong way, or where no street appears to be, maybe just a narrow alley.  At one point, she became so frustrated with our attempts to adjust for our corrections to these mistakes, that the little car on the screen was just spinning around in circles.  It helped to break the tension that was quickly developing between, driver, navigator and Greta.  I was laughing so hard I almost peed myself.  Another time, as we went beyond a point we should have, she started screaming "U-turn, U-turn, U-turn"!!!

We finally found our Villa, but it was too late to see it, so we took a hotel for the night.  Now, we were winging it on our hotels, because we didn't want to get constrained by having to be somewhere if we found interesting things along the way.  So, I had a Fodor's guide book with us and it suggested that a small hotel next to the Villa was inexpensive, one $ sign.  So we went there.  NOT inexpensive - double rooms were 120 Euros a night, too expensive for us , but she came down to 90 Euros, free breakfast, free parking, and free Internet, so we took it.  I think the one $ sign was a symbol of rating rather than value.  The rooms were standard size European rooms, with TV, small box showers, etc.  One room however had no toilet paper, no working TV (not such a loss as all channels were in Italian - but there was a good Virgin radio channel), no telephone, the cup in the bathroom still had toothpaste residue in it.    On the positive side it had a great breakfast, the location was quiet and the most luxurious towels I have ever used.  Oh, the Internet didn't work either.  They apparently ran an International slow food cooking school at this establishment and I think that was probably their forte rather than been hoteliers.

Next morning after checking out, we decided not to go to Hadrian's Villa because it would have cost us 28 Euros to tour the ruins.  Instead, we opted to drive into Tivoli and see the Villa d'Este.  This is  listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, it is a fine example of renaissance architecture and the Italian renaissance garden.  The Villa d'Este was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolitto II d'Este, son of  Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia.  Cardinal d'Este created a palatial setting surrounded by a spectacular terraced garden in the late-Renaissance mannerist style, which took advantage of the dramatic slope but required innovations in bringing a sufficient water supply, which was employed in cascades, water tanks, troughs and pools, water jets and fountains (giochi d'acqua).  Reviving Roman techniques of hydraulic engineering to supply water to a sequence of fountains, the cardinal created a fantasy garden. 

And fantastic it is - here are some pictures

 Pegasus Fountain

 Fountain of Neptune

 Looking down from the organ fontain to the fish ponds

 Water organ

 Mother Earth fountain - Bill doesn't think he'd like to be her bra maker

 You must be kidding!! - I have to climb all the way up there???

My Rocky moment - I made it!!!!

 Fountain of the owl

Romulus and Remus suckling the she wolf - symbol of Rome

More pictures to come - off travelling again