Tivoli Off The Beaten Path Tips by leics

Old and new........

Tivoli was a favoured place for ancient Romans to retire to (and for the wealthy to have summer villas) , and continued to be so during the Renaissance.

Thus, as with all Italian towns and cities which have millennia of occupation behind them, you can see evidence of the past melding into more recent times. Italians seem to have been happy to build on top of or next to existing structures, or to incorporate them into newer buildings rather than entirely clear the site. Which is very, very good.

Tivoli is a pleasant place for a wander anyway, so keep your eyes open as you do. You'll see the past emerging in all sorts of unlikely places...........

Wonderful fossil-rich rock

If you visit the Villa d'Este (as you probably will) take a closer look at some of the stones used for bordering paths in the gardens (and in some walls too).

It's a type of limestone, but is fossil-rich. In fact, it seems to consist almost entirely of prehistoric corals, concreted together by the millennia. Tubes and bubbles and casts abound:entirely wondrous.

I saw it in Rome too, in what remains of the Palatine gardens of the Villa Farnese. I suspect it must have been a popular 'garden feature' in Renaissance times.

Well worth a closer look.