Le Terrae, Day 9

This was a very special day. We went about an hour southeast of here to Tivoli, which is these days a big Rome suburb. We went to visit the people who produce Tibvrtini olive oil, which we've used at home for quite a while now. The owners' American partners are the daughter and son-in-law of one of Larry's bosses from Boeing. (That's how the pit got into the olive, as it were.)

We had a couple of screw-ups at the beginning of it all because we had a wrong post code to punch into the GPS, the wrong villa to meet at (we ended up at d'Este instead of Adriana), and Nancy had added one too many 5's in the phone number when she wrote it down! So it took us an extra hour to get to the right place, but eventually we did. We had a lot of help. Here's Wally getting help:
When we got it all sorted, we met Emanuele Lolli at the entrance to Villa Adriana, or Hadrian's Villa. He took us on a wonderful tour of the ruins of this ancient place, telling us all the stories of this emperor who traveled so widely (the eponymous wall in north England, as one example) and who had a great love of beauty, nature, conversation, and the arts. It is an amazing place and our guide, who teaches high school as well as growing olives and is, by the by, the Count of Tivoli, knew everything about the history of his area. Here we are walking up into what is now a huge park:We're learning here about the construction of the walls:
Hadrian didn't get here very often, and after his death the place fell into disuse. The local people came around and took the bricks and the marble and the columns and all and smashed them up for cement to build their houses and add to their farm fields. So there's a little bit of Villa Adriana in everyone's property round about the place. When the British and the Germans started all their archaeological trips in the 19th century, they started uncovering much of what was there. (The British, of course, took it home to the British Museum!) That began what has now been a couple centuries of discovery that is still going on. This pool, supposed to be a form of the Nile River (complete with crocodile!) was just a big dirt hole until it was excavated. They found the statues that lined the edges in the bottom. The current statues are copies of the originals.
Our tour ended with a climb to an tower that had a fabulous view right out to Rome. We could see the tower of St. Peter's in the far distance. Amazing.

After our tour of Villa Adriana, we went to the Lato's son's restaurant, which is in an old villa on a corner of the bigger piece of Hadrian's land. We had an amazingly wonderful meal of regional specialties and great wine. Emanuele then took us to his olive groves, and we wandered through the trees and met the donkeys who live among them.
All in all, it was a terrific day. Click here for more information on Tibvrtini Olive Oil and the area. Larry and I can also get you some if you're interested.