Villa Adriana

First, I'd just like to say that so far I have found Italian wayfinding signage to be poor at best; Place name, arrow. A little farther along the street, place name, arrow. And then nothing, no place with that name and no further arrows. Either the Tivoli tourist information office no longer exists or a crucial third arrow has been omitted. Never mind, a bit of Googling told me how to catch the bus to today's sightseeing venue – Emperor Hadrian's flabbergasting villa. I made my way to the square in Tivoli from which the bus departs and asked at a cafe where to find the bus stop. I was pointed to the newspaper kiosk. The kind woman in the newspaper kiosk pointed me in the direction of the bus stop without informing me that perhaps I should first purchase a bus ticket from her. In my ignorance I went to the bus stop, the bus arrived, did I have a ticket? No, can I buy one? No, sit down anyway. Exactly the same happened on my way back into town later. Lovely! I don't feel too guilty about that however because my incomprehension of restaurant service charges/tipping protocol means that I have already contributed to the local economy by far more than the cost of two bus fares.

The site of Hadrian's villa complex is vast, allegedly twice the size of Pompeii, so I was glad that the day was overcast and I would not be traipsing round an archaeological dig in the scorching sun. Archaeological dig is unfair, several parts of this 2000 year-old magnificence still stand to five storeys above ground. Whilst there I learned that only as recently as 2002, the tomb of Hadrian's lover, Antinous, whose unexplained death occurred while the pair of them were on holibobs in Egypt in 130AD was discovered here. The temple/tomb has a footprint approximately the same size as the Global Banking HQ of Deutsche Bank on London Wall, so quite easy to miss on a plot of this scale.

Yesterday at Villa d'Este, the ticket office staff handed me a little map to guide me around, with each fountain numbered (and named) and a red dotted line (with arrows) leading me past them in numerical order. The ticket office at Villa Adriana made no such gift, nor offer, nor even a suggestion I might care to buy a guide or a map, so naturally I assumed that the path would be clearly signposted. Ha! Not at all! Signposting, particularly to drinking fountains and WCs was piss-poor and so it was that eventually I found myself a discreet bush (non-burning) and gave it a sprinkling to be on the safe side.

I think I saw all there is to see. I cannot be absolutely certain, but after several hours the brickwork starts to repeat itself.