Last few days

With the work load increasing and having to catch up on lectures, we've been pretty busy with class. Unfortunately, we did not end up going to Venice for Carnevale like we had planned (everything was triple the normal price because of Carnevale). Instead, we stayed in Roma and went on a trip to Tivoli, a small town around an hour away by train. We went to Tivoli to specifically visit Villa D'Este, a former 16th century cardinal residence full of fresco's and a massive outdoor garden. All of the fountains were constructed around the mid 1500's and use the same architectural techniques from Rome 1500 years before.

Water features were a large part of the garden. There were fountains of all shapes and sizes everywhere you turned. The garden also contained ponds with fish swimming in them. The Villa was left unattended to for many years and was only recently restored in the late 80's, early 90's, so most of the walls in the garden had been taken over by moss. However, it was in great condition and really beautiful to look at. 

different view of the fountain on the left

Ponds filled with fish

 (apparently this area was used as a set in the Disney channel Lizzie McGuire movie)

Pegasus fountain

"Little Roma" area with the shewolf

All of the frescos are original to the villa and have been restored after they faded over the years. Most of the rooms had specific purposes, but unfortunately I don't remember most of them. We went through the villa relatively quickly since we were running behind on time.

The "hunting" room

Cardinals bedroom ceiling

The cardinal's study

We have been searching for a good local bakery for a little while now and finally went off a suggestion of Jazz's roommate. It's not far from the dorms and is named "dolce maniera". It is open 24 hours and we really enjoyed almost everything we got from there. For the four items below we payed a total of 4 Euro.

To get into the bakery you enter on street level and then immediately go down a small flight of stairs. It is located in a small space and it was packed with people. There is a large display case containing all of the delicious baked goods. The display case was so tall that Jazz couldn't see over it all, and I even had a hard time seeing over it to talk to the employee. For such a tiny shop, it seemed like they have hundreds of different types of sweets. It is a very good thing that it isn't too close to school, otherwise we may be back daily.

Fried doughnut filled with a sweet cream and cinnamon

Croissant outside layered peach crumble layer layered over pie dough,  filled with sliced peaches and apples.

Cannoli on the left and a fig pastry on right.