After being in the polluted city of graffiti, I was eager to get out of the city and see the true green side of Italy. While I was on the bus heading to Tivoli, a little town outside of Rome, I looked out at the window and saw graffiti on the wall of the buildings, garbage lying on the sidewalks, and homeless people begging for money for miles. Then, all the dirtiness of Rome eventually faded, and I began to see more green. I was seeing what I exactly wanted to see on my trip to Europe – beautiful green mountains. Tivoli is a beautiful area of Italy, near Rome, that is elaborated with mountains. First, I went to the Villa d’Este, the most spectacular garden in Italy. This garden is incomparable to the Versailles in France and any other gardens in other castles and palaces in France that I have visited. This garden was not only lavished with green bushes and large pools, it is also filled with fountains. As I walked out, I saw a beautiful fountain surrounded by beautiful sculptures. Then, I continue to walk down the path, and the next thing I saw was a row of hundreds of fountains. Each fountain was a beautiful sculpture of an animal head and the water was pouring out from the mouth of the animal. The stroll down the path of fountains was magnificent. This path led me to another big gorgeous fountain. After continuing to walk for another few seconds, I see enormous fountains in front of the upper “porch.” The water was spurting up to as high as a few meters. Then, I walk down the stairs to see the entire view of this massive set of fountains. These fountains were just completely majestic. I could sit on a lawn near the fountain and have a picnic everyday there. Beautiful mountains surround this whole garden. Many artists from the Renaissance era including Diego Valezquez were inspired to paint this beautiful scenery.
While this place seems wondrous, fantasy, and magnificent, this entire area used to be a town, and the town was demolished, and the inhabitants were forced to sell or face expropriation in order to build this garden. The terrain of this garden was originally quite steep, and thus, the architects had to change the urban form of this place by creating alternating terraces and slopes in order to create this astonishing place.

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After visiting the magnificent garden, I headed to the true ancient Roman ruins, Hadrian’s Villa. This place gave me a real sense of the Ancient Roman ruins as there were nearly no tourists, and this place was absolutely massive, bigger than the Trajan’s forum. This huge estate was built by the Emperor Hadrian, and it extends over the slopes of the Tiburtine Hills. In this pitiful, but beautiful natural settings, this villa consisted a serious of pavilions, including accommodation for the Emperor’s retinue and for guests, special housing for slaves, and bodyguards, three bath complexes, libraries, a stadium, and an esplanade with a swimming pool, which is filled with fountains, ponds, and lakes like Villa d’Este to reflect the relationship of earth and sky. This place seemed very pitiful because it looks like it was destroyed from a natural cause, and we can’t really see how the Romans lived, but at the same time, it seems majestic because of the beautiful pools and fountains, and the grandness of the buildings and the material that they used. Also, the scene surrounding this villa is gorgeous and that is also what makes this place magnificent.

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