July 5, 2009

It was a beautiful day to wake up to. It was our free day and we had adventurous plans. Our first destination was the Pantheon. I was drawn to the architecture on the dome, truly amazing. It’s hard to believe that a structure like that could be built at such a period. The marble flooring was very detailed and gorgeous. Lucky for us the sun was bright and pierced through the dome it was breathtaking. All that I can think of was how at peace I was. After the pantheon we took off about two hours outside of Rome to a city called Tivoli to check out Adrian’s villa which is the ruins that were a retreat for the emperor when he wanted to get away from the empire. I couldn’t believe how big the site was. It was decorated with statues, fountains, water, trees and columns. All I could do was imagine what it must have looked like right after it was built. The ruins were great though. We toured the museum and took some stunning pictures. Nest we attempted to go the Tivoli center and see Villa Este which is a beautiful garden with fountains. Needless to say we got lost and ended up going on like a six mile hike up a hill. Talk about an amazing view. When we finally arrived at the center we were an hour late and we weren’t able to see the villa. We took the bus and metro back to Rome and crashed. Slept great that night.