Tivoli and Hadrian's Villa

See RoninRome.com for details on Tivoli and Hadrian.

Yep, Ron In Rome has this covered in spades. Here's the link for Tivoli/Villa D'Este and the one for Villa Adriana. And here are some photos I took when we were there in May of 2008. Unfortunately we didn't have time for Villa d'Este.

Time consuming is in the eye of the beholder and based on how much time you actually have, I guess. We have been twice to Hadrian's Villa and once to Villa d'Este. First time was independently, a la our RS guidebook and we spent easily the better half to 2/3 of a day leaving Rome via our rental car and visiting. It is VAST--essentially the size of a small town. Ruins in various state of "ruin" cover the acreage, and truthfully some are more interesting than others. We still thought it was awesome--especially because, somehow, we went expecting a "villa" and some land, but not this huge property. The second time was just this past March when we were in Rome for the 4th time, and my hubby wanted to see Villa d'Este and all its fountains. We arranged a tour through our hotel and it covered Villa d'Este and Hadrian's Villa. Lasted about 4 hours...concise, well-explained, well-organized. We hit the best of HV with the understanding and perspective that can often only be obtained with a tour guide. Villa d'Este was "explained" by our guide on the way over, but we had free time all on our own to explore the gardens, villa, etc., as we wished once there. The guided visit was totally worth it, to us...., and "expedited" HV, especially.

Several years ago we visited Tivoli and the Villa and gardens with all the fountains was well worth the trip. We were scheduled to go to Hadrian's however ran out of time. Next time in Rome will go on the 4 hour tour that covers both.

The tour sounds like a good idea for those places. Any companies you would especially recommend? Thanks for the Ron in Rome link.

Our Hadrian's Villa/Villa d'Este tour was through Rome's Green Line Tour company. It was the one we found via brochures in our hotel lobby, so we went with it spur of the moment. Seems like it came out to about $85-90 USD per person. We expected to be in a motorcoach with 25-40 other persons possibly broken up into groups with 2-3 guides, but on that particular day only 1 other couple went so we had our guide practically to ourselves and it was essentially a semi-private tour in a minivan. Granted, it was March.....I wouldn't have those expectations further into tourist season, but one can always hope! Like I said, we enjoyed. I am sure there are other companies doing similar tours. Dark Rome perhaps? You can always try to book directly once you've scoped out various tour companies, or you can just look at Viator (a booking engine/re-seller). You probably won't know the name of the tour company til after booking, but I'm not really sure it's that big a deal. Viator deals with reputable, known tour operators.