Tivoli

So, today has not been the best of days for many different reasons.  Instead of having a moan I thought I'd finally upload what I wrote whilst in Villa d'Este in Tivoli on Sunday.  A beautiful place.

Sitting on the...erm I think...cliff, overlooking the landscape of the towns and villages surrounding Tivoli, I feel as if I have the world spread out in front of me.

It's been overcast for my day trip to Tivoli.  It took longer than the three hours and a few minutes to get here due to something being on the railway track when we were about to depart from...somewhere that was before the station Tivoli! I heard the word "carrello" in the Guard's announcement, which is a cart/trolley. Part of me really wishes it was a horse (cavallo) on the line because it took a good half an hour to remove what ever it was.  In my opinion, I could've removed a shopping trolley from the line quicker than that!

So. Why am I overlooking the world from Tivoli?   Because there is a very beautiful, renaissance/baroque Villa here (well there are lots of Villas in Tivoli but I only went to one) and I had no plans for the extended bank holiday weekend.  It really is a place of intrigue.  There are 35 things listed to see on the map of the garden, and as I am here on my own, I saw them all.  Grottoes, fountains, grottoes with fountains, basically a lot of elaborate and mystical water features and things that look and sound amazing (as in the cascade of sooo much water hitting different surfaces).

Inside the Villa itself was pretty spectacular; lavish wall decorations and frescoes everywhere, stunning. And, to make me even happier, Liszt apparently had an "Erard" piano here and according to the write-up it was his "favourite" piano, of course. This is to say that I know Liszt preferred pianos made by Erard (once upon a time I knew a lot about Liszt and pianos, in fact I slept, ate and breathed everything one could know about Liszt for 6 months of my life) but that does not mean that the exact piano at Villa d'Este is his most favourite.  In fact the one on display, although from the 1850's, isn't the one Liszt actually played/owned, I understood that much from the display board, something about a difference in the shape of the carved legs.  But the display for the piano was the only one not in Italian and English so I couldn't decipher much more about it.  My Italian might be improving but I still guess a lot of words by sight which can make some very interesting sentences!!

Anyway, I think the Villa is amazing and it would definitely be a great place to bash out a few Liszt Sonatas, with stunning views from all the windows.  I'm going to practice on my slightly less inspiring keyboard when I get home!!  Maybe I too will own a great Villa where I can play my grand piano overlooking the world. 

A fountain....

One of the many views from the terrace of the Villa, even on a cloudy day they were awesome.

A fountain...

A lot more fountains...(took 3 minutes to walk the length of this feature)

Your typical garden path, heck my parents have one just like this ;-)

The rooms in the Villa were completely painted with stuff: the walls and the ceilings alike.  There was also lots of plaster that had been painted to look like wood or marble.  This technique will definitely be what I'll do when living in a shoe box; paint it to look like marble!