Today I want to share one of the personal moments I had this year. In September my husband and I went for a holiday to Italy, and my mental batteries are still fully charged with sunshine and inspiration from that trip. I will have to make a couple of posts and I’m starting with Tivoli.
It was some 15 years ago I first visited Tivoli. After a day at the famous d’Este gardens I was waiting for a bus to take me back to Rome. I was standing on the hill overlooking a beautiful landscape at sunset. It made me think of paintings so popular in the 17th-19th centuries depicting picturesque Italian landscapes: they were so true! That warmth and soft glow was now in front of me. My bus arrived but I didn’t have enough of the scene. I had to come back one day to enjoy it at full.
Can you imagine how glad I was when my husband proposed to stay in Tivoli for a couple of days? Our hotel was on a hill and there was a wonderful olive garden with a view on the town. One evening I took a walk among the olive trees. It was time around sunset and I had the garden all to myself.
It felt as if I entered a fairy tale. It was so quiet I even spotted a badger, and I’ve never had seen them in the wild before. When I heard some noise in the bushes later I stood still hoping to see another badger. But this time there were wild boars: a mother with the young pigs, as I could conclude from the sound they made. Back at the hotel I’ve asked at the reception if they had badgers and wild boars on the territory, and they had indeed (“but they are not aggressive”). Apparently, there are also wild horses that come to bath in the swimming pool from time to time. I wish I could see such a scene: yet another reason to come back.
So here are a few photos to warm up a December day.
