Popular Architecture in Tivoli

Arriving at the rendevous point we met Lara, our guide, who made all further arrangments so we could start our voyage leading us to Tivoli and our first activity, Villa Adriana. Despite we had gentle rainfall and some hill to climb upwards all 35 members of our mixed group (age 25 to 75) made it in no time. (I had the feeling the english members did really enjoy the weather) Lara told us all about the place and history, also referring to our questions - with much time for taking pictures. Afterwards we drove to Tivoli City having about 1,5 hours off for lunch or sightseeing. The visit of Villa d´Este started with the tour by Lara with also the possibility of adventuring the gardens and fountains on our own. With gentle rainfall before we now had a great impression of the gardens. All mosaics were in blaze of colour and the plants were in fresh green. It was just marvelous to see everything in this state. So time spun away while enjoying every little fountain and sculpture.

As we had limited time in Rome we chose this tour as it only takes half a day due to the fact you leave earlier, the car is faster than a bus and you don't have a long lunch break in Tivoli like the bus tours. The guide and driver in a Mercedes met us at our apartment at 8.30. We drove to both villas for our private tours. Due to the early start we were at the Villas before the tour bus crowds. Both Villas are definitely worth a visit from Rome. We arrived back in Rome at lunch time and were dropped off at the Colosseum with plenty of time to have lunch and visit more sites in Rome. The guide was informative and the driver very polite with a spotless luxury car. The price was a lot cheaper than alternative companies for private tours.

Despite the deterioration of the buildings one could reconstruct the wonderful archirectural design and stunning engineering achievements time - 118 - 138 AD. Site management should provide better signage for visitors so they don't have to interpret where to go after each site is visited. That is the map should include the walking path with arrows directing visitors from site to site. Currently, it is up to the visiot to work out where the next stop is - wasting a lot of time and creating a certain amount of stress that some might be missed, as happened to us.

Claudia our tour guide was superb! Friendly, helpful, entertaining and informative. We had a wonderful day, Hadrian's Villa was very interesting but the highlight of the day for me was Villa d'Este. The frescoes were out of this world and the gardens more beautiful than I could have imagined. 10/10!

Our tour to Tivoli to see Hadrian’s Villa and the Villa d’Este was a wonderful, memorable experience. Our guide, Guiseppe, was born in Tivoli and knew an amazing amount about both sites. He also knew great restaurants, shops etc. to try.