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| One of the many waterfalls at Villa d’Este |
Hello again! Yesterday was a national holiday in Italy, so
we didn’t have anything planned. The Italians were busy celebrating the
day that they voted to be a republic instead of a monarch. To
celebrate, some friends came over and my roommate, Christine, and I made
pasta. After cleaning up, we decided that we wanted to see the city. So
with that in mind, we headed of towards the Pantheon. It was about a 15
minute walk, but it was worth it. We arrived and immediately saw the
beautiful fountain in front of the Pantheon. We walked up to the actual
pantheon and discovered that it was closed because of the holiday.
However, we jumped in a line to peek through the crack of the door where
you could see most of the church. You can see that in one of the photos
below.
Next, we decided to head towards the Trevi Fountain (aka
the Lizzie McGuire fountain). It was around a 10 minute walk from the
Pantheon and along the way, we stopped by a beautiful church. The Trevi
fountain was extremely crowded. It was probably the most crowded spot
I’ve seen in Rome so far. There were lines of people right in front of
the fountain and then rows going back waiting to toss their coin into
the fountain. After my friends and I tossed ours in (pictured below) my
friend Brock told me an interesting fact. The fountain has recently been
emptied of the coins and restored so that you could see the bottom.
Before, there were so many coins that no one was able to see the bottom.
I’m not sure how much money was removed in coins or if they were
donated, but I think that it’s crazy that so many people have tossed
coins in the fountain. They say that if you toss a coin in once, you’ll
return to Rome and if you toss a coin in on two separate trips, you will
marry an Italian. I guess I’ll just have to come back another time. ;)
After the fountain, we went to visit the Spanish Steps.
Unfortunately they were under renovation, so we just had to stare at a
partial view of the steps and a bunch of construction gates. Then, we
decided to go walk around the square nearby. I’m not sure what it was
called, but it was lively. We sat on the ledge of the fountain and
watched as a group of children played soccer. People would walk through
their match but they would keep playing around and over them. It
occurred to me while I was sitting there that this is where they played.
Growing up, I always had a green area to play sports on, but there is
hardly any green space in the center of Rome. Don’t get me wrong, Rome
is huge and has lots of green space, but to get to it you have to travel
an hour or more away. These kids were playing on the cobblestone
streets with no parents around in an area where there were not many
apartment building for them to come from around. At the end of their
match, we decided that we were hungry and began to head back towards my
apartment. We had been out for around 4 hours at that point but
discovered that we had walked in a huge circle around Rome and were only
about 20 minutes away from my place.
After the trek back, we were starved and had dinner at the
restaurant my roommates and I went to the first day for lunch. My meal
is in one of the pictures below. Following dinner, we went back to my
place and played card games with a deck of cards that I had brought.
This morning was another early morning, so everyone had to leave around
10:00.
I had to wake up at 7:40 this morning to be ready to go by
8:15 to walk to pick up some other girls and get on the private charter
bus that would take us to the Villas. We got on the bus at 8:45, but
due to some complications with others being late, we didn’t leave until
around 9:45. We passed by the colosseum (which we will be seeing on
Sunday) on our way and we were all in awe of how absolutely
breathtakingly gorgeous it was. At around 11 AM, we arrived in Tivoli,
Italy at Hadrian’s Villa. We walked around for about 20 minutes before
it began pouring on us. It was raining this morning in Rome, but it had
stopped so nobody had rain jackets. Luckily, there was a ledge the group
of around 35 of us could stand under for cover for about 5 minutes
until the rain subsided. After emerging from our shelter, we saw a huge
lap pool (bigger than olympic sized) and had a 10 minute break before
heading back to the busses.
The busses took us 30 minutes away (still in Tivoli) to a
spot for lunch. Everyone split up, and a group of 8 of us went to a
little Italian restaurant where they hardly spoke any english. There was
outside seating, but not enough room for 8, so they took us inside.
There was also not enough room for 8 in the main dining room so they
took us down this tiny Hobbit like staircase where I had to duck two or
three times in order to not hit my head. After we ate, a few of us got
gelato. I got lemon gelato this time, and although it was strangely
chunky, it was very good.
Then, we walked around the corner to a place called Villa
d’Este. The time I spent here was probably my favorite part of my trip
so far. Inside, the walls were painted well and there were lots of
rooms, but outside was the spectacular part. Most of the pictures below
are from this villa, because it was just a huge garden. There were so
many layers that you could walk down to uncover waterfall after
waterfall. What was truly amazing was that since it was built in the
late 1600’s, none of it is operated by machines. It all occurs due to
the laws of physics. It was originally built for Cardinal Ipollito II
d’Este, but it wasn’t finished until after he died. I cannot explain how
wonderful it was to see in person, but I hope my pictures do it
justice.
After visiting Villa d’Este, we got back on the bus to
head back towards Rome. About 5 minutes into the bus ride, I fell
asleep. I did not wake up until an hour later when we were back at where
they dropped me off. I think that pretty much everyone fell asleep
because the past couple of days have been nonstop walking and touring
and we were just tired. My roommates and I walked back to our apartment
area which was about a 10 minute walk away and decided to go buy some
groceries to make dinner. We went to a store called COOP which is like
SmallMart sized (for those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a
mini Walmart in Fayetteville) that is right around the corner from our
apartment. We were there for about 20 minutes picking out things that
not only looked good for dinner, but looked good for the next week. My
total came out to be around 23 euros and I would estimate that if I got
that much food in America, it would be around 50 dollars. The groceries
here are much cheaper than in America, but the dinners are the opposite.
We came back to the apartment and cooked pasta and played a
few card games. Then I got ready for bed and I am now writing this blog
post. Tomorrow is another free day for us, so my friends and I are
going to Naples! I need to get to bed now because I have to get up
fairly early in the morning but I will update everyone again in the next
few days!
Ciao!
Taylor
Read more from Taylor at https://taylorsitalianavventura.wordpress.com/
Check out http://studyabroad.uark.edu/romecampus for more information on the U of A Rome Center: Summer Campus.
