Hadrian's Villa

Valerie Fuchs
Mar 19, 2022
3 min read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjIW1lb-iq8

We decided that for our last day in Rome, we wanted to see the villa that Emperor Hadrian built for his vacations out of Rome. The villa is just outside the ancient Roman-day town of Tibur or the modern-day town of Tivoli. We planned to train from Rome to Tivoli, bus from Tivoli to the villa, and then reverse back when we were done. Best laid plans…the train worked, but the rest didn’t.

We did train out to Tivoli, arriving about 10 am. We had a nice walk through the town, stopping for some delicious local grapes at a little market. This is when we couldn’t find a bus, so we mapped out a walk. It was 3 miles from Tivoli to the villa, with a walking trail that was…let’s just say not very well marked at the beginning, so we ended up walking on a very sketchy not-quite-shoulder on the highway with zooming Italian motorists. We off-roaded down a gravelly and weedy hill in our flip-flops and finally found the actual marked trail to Tivoli. A hot hour later, we arrived at the villa!

It was huge! Hadrian built his expansive retreat on the foundations of an earlier Roman Republic-era villa. The final estate was 296 acres. We walked through a small visitor center with a neat 3D model that helped us get our bearings. The villa included a huge courtyard, called a “poikile.” with a walk around a large pool, a stadium for athletic competitions, small and large baths, a pavilion for the praetorians, a palace, and a temple…and that’s just the beginning.

Some things that really blew us away:

The Canopus: a long mirror-glass pool surrounded by colonnades, with a large grotto-like arched room at the end, where people could lie and dine among pools and waterfalls. Some of the columns and statues that lined the pool still remain along with a lead-pipe-lined crocodile fountain.
Hadrian’s Observatory: on the edge of the property was an observatory tower, which must have had an awesomely dark starry sky in those times.
The Maritime Theater: imagine a stage, surrounded by a moat, surrounded by a seating area with a private entrance from the palace for the emperor himself, all intermingled with grand columns and archways.
Marble floors: here and there, we found the remains of intricately patterned marble floors, inlaid with purple, gold, red, white, and black marble. Gorgeous!
Frescoed ceilings: amazingly, a few details of frescoes have survived in various corners of the baths and palace rooms—it gave us the impression that life in the palace would have been absolutely surrounded by bright colors.

After 5.5 hours and 7+ miles of walking, we were finally ready to head back to Rome. Unfortunately, there was still no bus, and the closest Uber was in Rome! So before the long walk back to the train in Tivoli, we took our grubby selves to a white-tablecloth lunch at the local Ristorante Villa Esedra. The pasta, pizza, and Coca-Cola (with ice!) were everything we could have dreamed of—they readied us for the hot 3-mile walk uphill, where we found train tickets, gelato, and a bottle of wine to drink back at the hotel in Rome.

The Day's Stats

2 trains, 2 buses, and 11.2 miles walked

The Day's Tips

If you're comfortable with the DIY travel logistics of getting out to Hadrian’s Villa, it’s a lot cheaper to do your own tour than do a guided tour. You’ll also have a lot more time on the premises, and you’ll get to see a lot more of it than a guide will show you. You might miss out on some of the stories that the guides know, but you can find out about a lot with books and visitor center info. Just keep in mind the day of the week—there aren’t too many buses, especially on a Sunday!