Villa Adriana – Emperor Hadrian’s villa

October 13, 2018 · by Dano · in Italy

Today’s quest will be Villa Adriana, Hadrian’s villa, located about 25 miles north of Rome. We’re planning on using that ever so valuable weekly bus pass to see if we can get there and back without too much trouble. Last night we scoured the transit map and think we have the buses, trams and metro figured out so off and running. The plan is to take bus #64 to the terminal, change to the Blue Metro line, change to brown tram line, change to Tivoli city bus, walk a short way, and bingo,we’re there! Simple.

Out of the house by 9:30am, nice and warm already at about 73F, and yes, the humidity was still topping the charts. Shouldn’t come into play though, we’ll be on public transit for most of the time and it’s only a short walk to the villa once we get to Tivoli.

Didn’t hit a snag until the third change, the brown tram line runs once an hour and we missed it. No worries, we’ll just take the tram to Lunghezza which is 5 stops away from Tivoli and catch a bus or tram from there. Arrived in Lunghezza with no problems, got off the tram and started to look for another train, tram or bus. Swing and a miss on the bus or tram but there is a train. Next train going to Tivoli was in 10 minutes so we bought another ticket, of course ours wouldn’t work for a Regional train, got on board and headed for Tivoli. Once there we needed to figure out which bus took us closest to the site.

Using the “MoveIt” app we found two buses heading towards the site and one just arrived so along with 100 or so high school students we crammed into the bus. Because directions to this villa are not clearly marked with street signs, I used Google Maps to track our progress, right up to the point where the bus turned away from our intended direction. Hit the stop button and got off, remind me later to uninstall that app!

Walked for about 20 minutes until we reached the entrance to Villa Adriana. Finally, now to enjoy the site.

Publius Aeluis Hadrianus was born in 76AD in Seville, Spain. He was well educated, served in the military and was a political leader before becoming emperor in 117AD. Hadrian ruled Rome for 21 years from 117AD to 138AD when he died of an apparent heart attack. He was 62 years of age when he died. Hadrian was known as one of the “good” rulers of Rome. He was also known for the many building projects he commissioned during his rule, from libraries, monuments, roads, to cities, but probably best known for his wall, Hadrian’s Wall. In an earlier post I described Hadrian’s Wall but just to recap, it was built to keep the Scots from entering the Roman Empire and spanned some 70+ miles, coast-to-coast in northern England. It defined the northern most border of the Roman Empire.

Villa Adriana was built in the 2^nd century AD on 120 hectares (~300 acres). The design of the buildings replicated those Hadrian had seen during his journeys around the empire, especially Greece and Egypt. The villa served as Hadrian’s private sanctuary where he could spend his time away from Palatine Hill and the “hustle” of Rome. From 128AD until his death, Hadrian used this villa as his official residence and actually governed Rome from here.

Aniene river as you enter Tivoli

Olive grove with Tivoli in background

The site today is a UNESCO heritage site. Not a lot of tourists venture this far out of Rome on their vacations to see this amazing compound so no crowds, which was nice. Downside is that it is a fair distance from Rome so getting here and back is a bit of a challenge. It took close to 3.5hrs to reach here from our apartment, only got lost once, and 2hrs to get back to Rome. Long day, 5.5hrs walking, busing, tramming, training, 2hrs touring and my dogs were barking!