Italy - Day Eight - Outskirts of Rome.

OK, today's drive was supposed to be to Rome and to relax at the temple.

But Jennifer had gotten sick so we missed the Villa Ariana

This is Hadrians Home when he was emperor

 we check out the display at the start
And this Villa would have been a palace fit for an Emperor

 The entrance wall was huge.

 large ponds to reflect on time.

The Villa remains looked interesting but  first the great pond to explore

 This was a shallow pond, with what could have been many statues around it.

 The summer house was only 600 years old.

 The numerous Statues were a bit worn but they were over 1800 year old.

Around the gardens were lots of Iris,
These were what remains the grand gardens.

 The colors were surprisingly still verybright after decades of replanting.

and the Poppies were out as well.

There was Wildlife as well.
Lots of these Lizards were around sunning themselves to get warm.

We spent over two hours wandering the Villa, due to it's immense.
And it was in the Sun.
After this, we took a short drive in the hills of Tivoli to explore
Villa d'Este

The is an 18th Century Villa that has world famous Gardens.

We quickly passed through the house and into the Gardens.

Surprisingly they were very steep.

With Great Views

and Great Waterfalls.

Italy has great Iries, and it was the season for them.

at the bottom of the garden, you got the view of the Villa

and could get close to the Irises

being a steep garden with lots of water
you can create great waterfalls and lots of them.

including Famous ONES

oh and Fountains as well.

Once we had hiked back up the hill
we explored the house.

who needs wall paper when you have master artists

Jennifer just wander around.

and wandered

this place was as they left it back in the 1910's
after this, we took off to get to the Temple for the 6:00pm session.

We got ready and got to the temple at about 5:30pm
The Rome temple was major Target of the Trip.

it was surpisingly smaller then expected.

Morroni on the top was new and shimming

The Visitor's Centre was larger then expected.

we could see the Christis and the Apostles behind them

we went in and enjoyed the space. we mentioned to the local missionary there we were there for the 6:00pm seesion.
To our surprise, they asked if we had booked,
NO.
It appears you need a booking, so they called and a couple had called to say they couldn;t come.
We were in.

The Session was in Italian and was Beautiful.
The Temple was well worth the effort. and spirit was strong.

When we came out it was the just Sunset and we got relax in the beautiful space
we call the
ROME TEMPLE.