Frascati

In celebration of the festival of San Valentino, Adam and I took the day to venture through a little town about an hour outside of Rome called Frascati. Famous for it's white wine (the Frascati) and it's awesome views of Lazio (the province Rome is in,) Frascati is also the home of several Papal Villas, including the place Pope Benedict spends his July and August.

Getting off the train at the base of one of the Dolomite mountains, we began our decent, one staircase at a time up through the

 little town. You could literally walk along the edge of the whole town which hung off the side of the hill, and see the entire province of Lazio with the snow capped mountains in the background. It was sooo beautiful! 

The best part about the day was not having a map. We just wandered around the hills and the town, finding all these little treasures. We started

 hiking up the mountain at one point in search of a villa we'd heard about, and happened upon a different villa, Villa Tusculana which now happens to be a very exclusive hotel and even center. We helped ourselves to a walk around the grounds and the views were absolutely amazing. You could actually pick out isolated little hill towns in the distance. It was so beautiful! 

As we headed back down the mountain into the town, we found a beautiful little park where we played for a while. We also found this really amazing fountain that was fed by a natural stream

 coming out of the hills. At the top of the hill was one fountian, and it fell down through a series of waterfalls to another fountain. So cool. The fountains were gated off, however we found that if you walk through the woods towards them, there was a break in one of the gates... Being the vagabond college-aged tourists that we are, we naturally went in and explored. Luckily, at the bottom of the scummy fountain, we spotted a necklace that Adam so kindly fished out for me with a stick (the depth was no match for his Longenbach arms and a tree branch) The necklace smells like death, but after i boil it, i'll be a wonderful keep-sake with a great story behin

d it! A necklace found in the fountain of a Papal Villa in Frasacti.... not something you usually get for valentine's day!.... awesome. 

After walking around town for a while, and starting to recognize people from passing them several times we had dinner in a local pub, then headed back to rome on the train. It was a beautiful day- I'm so excited for our next adventures now! And to actually see the alps... hard to believe!

Anyway, thanks for checking in, i love you all!