VILLA DESTE

Today we took the train to Tivoli, about 55 minutes away. If any of you are thinking of going you will need a map, or speak good Italian. There are very few signs to indicate the way to the Gardens. I happened to see a local gentleman older than myself, who spoke no English and as our Italian is confined to Buongiorno, Ciao, Scusi and Vino bianco we struggled to converse, however, he did try to explain and off we went. Not two minutes later he rolled up in his beaten up old Fiat Panda and told us to get in and he kindly took us to the top of the hill, almost to the door of the Villa Destre Gardens.

Now this is not garden with flowers, but a garden with over 500 fountains. Most of them were working and were just fantastic. As the sun was beating down yet again I went to get my hat, oh ! it's in my bag, in that gentleman's car along with the corkscrew, phrase book and map, WHOOPS !
We sat and had our lunch of bread and cheese and water at the foot of my blip today.

It took just three hours to visit all that were working and so decided to exit and go for a glass of something cool. On the way out, there on the table was my bag, complete with hat, map and corkscrew, and as the old gentleman has left me his address, the first thing when I get back home to the UK is write to him. What a lovely chap.

Eventually we found the railway station only to find we bought return tickets to the wrong station, so had to go on the subway and four stops later we were back to where we started.

If we had learned foreign languages at school, we might never have had all this excitement.