Villa d'Este, Tivoli

Villa d'Este is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the hill town of Tivoli, about 30 kilometres east of Rome, and the supreme example of the Italian Renaissance water garden. Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, frustrated in his ambitions for the papacy, commissioned it from the 1550s, channelling the Aniene river through an ingenious system of pressure-fed channels to power a garden where almost everything moves and sings with water and not a single pump is used. Visitors first pass through the frescoed rooms of the villa itself, decorated with Mannerist paintings and opening onto a balcony with a long view down the terraced hillside. From there a series of steep terraces descends through fountains, grottoes, pools and nymphaea, each a set piece. The highlights include the Hundred Fountains, a 130-metre wall of jets crowned with stone boats, eagles and obelisks; the great Oval Fountain set into a curving rocky exedra; the dramatic Fountain of Neptune below it, a thundering cascade restored in the 20th century; and the celebrated Organ Fountain, a water-powered organ that actually plays music at set times during the day, with the Owl Fountain also performing on a timetable worth checking on arrival. A full visit takes two to three hours, much of it on stairs, so the garden is best seen by walking down through the terraces and back up. Morning and late afternoon avoid both the tour-group crush and the midday heat, and the lower terraces offer the finest photographs looking back up at the cascades. The villa pairs naturally with Hadrian's Villa a few kilometres away and is reached from Rome by regional train or bus. As a feast of fountains, sculpture and engineering set above the Roman countryside, Villa d'Este is one of the great gardens of Italy.