Day 226 Tues 29 May 2007 Tivoli to Rome, Italy

It’s pouring down in the morning which we decide is ideal weather to visit the Villa d’Este with its world heritage fountain-filled gardens. Created in the C16 for a cardinal with too much money and insufficient piety, on the site of a convent, it has beautiful frescoed terraces and an extensive garden with an amazing array of over-the-top fountains and statues on a terraced hillside. Then it's a quick stop at the Villa Adriana so we can tick it off the WH list before heading to Rome. Fortunately the weather improves and we drive through Rome around the Colosseum and numerous sights before ignoring the no cars sign, we reach our hotel in a tiny laneway in Trastevere, a stones throw from the Isola Tiberina, (island in the Tiber). We manoeuvre into a space designed for a Smart Car which although they may look pretentious and decidedly un-chic in Sydney represent the epitome of auto evolution in Rome, where we manage to leave the car for 3 days safe from predatory tow trucks and parking attendants – the former can’t get in and the latter don’t understand the numberplate.

After checking into the hotel we walk over the river to the Palatine in the Ancient Centre where Rome was founded, with its ruins of Domitus’s palace, Domus Flavia and villa of Augustus, Domus Augustana, past the colosseum and around the Roman Forum before returning via the Piazza Venezia and Capitoline where they are busy preparing from the forthcoming republic day parade. We have dinner in one of the three restaurants on the little Piazza Piscinula next to the hotel.