Full-day excursions in the country near Rome.

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Rates for these tours include: pick up and drop off at the hotel, full-day excursion (8 hours), driving guide, vehicle, VAT (value added tax, 10%), motorway tolls and fuel. Additional time: past the 8 hours, each additional hour will be charged 1/8 of the total of tour's rate. Rates do not include: meals, drinks, personal purchases or anything not specifically listed as included.


Tivoli and the Roman Castles	Ostia and the Roman Castles
Ostia and Tivoli	Fiuggi, Trisulti, Alatri and Fumone


Tivoli and the Roman Castles A relaxing day in the country. Visit of Tivoli and excursion to the Roman Castles.
As we leave Rome in the morning we drive to Tivoli. Tivoli is a beautiful little town located on hill about 20 miles north of Rome, a forty-five minute drive. In Tivoli the Cardinal Ippolito II D'Este, once become the governor of the city in the 1550's, built for himself an incredible villa with the most admirable gardens liven up by almost four hundred fountains. On the way to Villa D'Este, a short stop can be made to admire the quarries of the Travertine marble, which the Romans used for building the Colosseum and most of their other important buildings.	Tivoli is closed on Mondays

	After visiting Villa D'Este, if interested and time permitting; we could also visit the ruins of Hadrian's Villa, residence of the Emperor Hadrian, built in the second century A.D.. We finally drive to the area of “The Roman Castles”. This is what we call the hilly area south from Rome where you find a few enchanting little towns, famous for producing the refreshing white wine we drink in Rome. Many of those little towns where already villages before Rome was founded and later they conquered by the Romans.
In the middle ages they were strongholds of the Roman nobles, in fact the towns re-originated from the houses that the peasants built around the castles to be protected in by it. Later, in the Renaissance, the castles were made into gorgeous palaces where their descendants spent their summertime away from the heat of Rome. The area is so beautiful that, way back in the 1600's, the Holy Father chose to make of the castle of the Gandolfo family and to which the town of Castelgandolfo owes its origins, his Summer Residence. In the area are also two pleasant lakes that were originally craters of volcanoes which were active five million years ago.
	Castelgandolfo is maybe the most charming of the hilltop towns in this area. In the heart of Rome's wine country, overlooking a beautiful lake, Castelgandolfo offers breathtaking panoramas and architectures. The Pope's Summer Residence dominates the town to the point that in the local shops you can purchase milk produced in the Papal farm! Castelgandolfo intersects with the Papal Villa which is pretty vast and not open to the public to visit and is dominated by the domes of the Papal Astronomic Observatory, called Pontifical Speculum and the dome of St. Thomas's church by Bernini.
Another town we visit in the area is Nemi. Nemi is known for its beautiful oval shaped lake, the particular strawberries that grow there and the "Ships of Caligula". In fact the Romans dedicated the lake to the goddess Diane that the Emperor Caligula was especially devoted to. Caligula built two enormous ships, so large that they were practically two floating islands, and while one housed the temple of Diane, Caligula's Imperial Palace was on the other!
	This is the area where traditionally the Romans like to go to get away from the heat in the summer and enjoy some good food and wine. Especially on week-ends, local restaurants are full of people from the city. You may not want to miss the opportunity to have a nice typical lunch and a taste of the local wine in Castelgandolfo or in Nemi and I'll be happy to suggest a good place.
For those who may be interested, a visit to one of the many wineries there can be arranged
Rates per vehicle for this excursion: sedan (1/4 persons) 530 Euros; minivan (4 persons) 550 Euros; minivan (5/6 persons) 600 Euros; minibus (7/8 persons) 650 Euros.	Driving times: Rome to Tivoli: 40' Tivoli to Castelgandolfo: 45’ Roman Castles to Rome: 45’
Rates include VAT (value added tax 10%). Each additional hour will be charged 1/8 of the total of the tour's rate. Rates do not include: entrance fees, meals, drinks, personal purchases or any thing not specifically listed as included.

Ostia and the Roman Castles Excursion to Ostia, lunch in Castelgandolfo (or Nemi), visit Nemi, Frascati and Marino.
	Ostia is closed on Mondays
	We go to visit Ostia first. We spend between one and a half and two hours in the excavations and then stop at the 16th Century Castle of Julius II. At about noon we start driving towards Castelgandolfo. By the time we'll get there it will be time for lunch and you'll have the opportunity to try the local famous wines and foods in one of the local restaurants. After lunch we continue to Nemi to wander around the charming little town and, willingly, taste the particular strawberries. Then we drive to Frascati and Marino, two lovely little towns known for their wines. Depending on the time and your own interest, we can also stop include a stop at the ruins of the Jewish Synagogue in Ostia (2nd Century A.D., the oldest in Europe), the Abbey of San Nilo in Grottaferrata and/or a winery.
Rates per vehicle for this excursion: sedan (1/4 persons) 530 Euros; minivan (4 persons) 550 Euros; minivan (5/6 persons) 600 Euros; minibus (7/8 persons) 650 Euros.
Driving times: Rome to Ostia: 40' Ostia to Castelgandolfo: 45’ Roman Castles to Rome: 45’
Rates include VAT (value added tax 10%). Each additional hour will be charged 1/8 of the total of the tour's rate. Rates do not include: entrance fees, meals, drinks, personal purchases or any thing not specifically listed as included.

Ostia and Tivoli. Excursion to Ostia, and Tivoli.
Located at the mouth of the Tiber river, only a half-hour drive from Rome. We go there first, and after visiting the excavations and stopping at the Castle of Julius II, we get back on the motorway to drive to Tivoli. We can stop on the way to have lunch somewhere nice, Depending on how we'll be doing time wise we could stop at a nice place called "Sora Rosa" on the Old Appian Way or even in Castelgandolfo. We return to Rome after visiting Villa D'Este in Tivoli.	Tivoli and Ostia are closed on Mondays

		Rates per vehicle for this excursion: sedan (1/4 persons) 530 Euros; minivan (4 persons) 550 Euros; minivan (5/6 persons) 600 Euros; minibus (7/8 persons) 650 Euros.
		Driving times: Rome to Ostia: 40' Ostia to Tivoli: 1 hr Tivoli to Rome: 45’

Rates include VAT (value added tax 10%). Each additional hour will be charged 1/8 of the total of the tour's rate. Rates do not include: entrance fees, meals, drinks, personal purchases or any thing not specifically listed as included.

Fiuggi, Trisulti, Alatri and Fumone - A very special day off the beaten path!
You’ll not find many tourists in these places. The area is called “Ciociaria” and the name comes from the special shoes called “cioce” that the local people used to wear. I moved out of the city of Rome some twelve years ago when my wife got pregnant and we decided that it would have been a lot better for our son to grow up in a little town in the country rather than breathing the smog of the big city. The little town where I live is called Segni and it’s one of those in this area that predate the foundation of Rome by at least a couple of hundred years. Of course as we moved here I started to explore the place and showing it to my friends who were visiting
		me from Rome and they were simply enchanted by it! So I decided to see the effect on the tourists from overseas and took the first American couple there many years ago: they loved it! They said that it was their best day in Italy and they had been here three weeks and went all over! We Rome at 8:00 a.m. and drive to Fiuggi a lovely little town renown for its mineral waters, we look around and have some coffee. Than we drive up the mountains to reach the medieval Abbey of Trisulti, once pharmacy, where the monks still make very good liqueurs, honey and chocolate that people from the villages all around go and buy there.
Than we go back down from mountains and drive to the little (60 inhabitants!) medieval town of Fumone where we can have an incredible lunch in a medieval tavern than seems to be the set for a historical movie but is real. After lunch we drive to Alatri with its incredible walls made of rocks so large that the legend says they were built by the Cyclopes. They are officially dated around the fifth century B.C. but more recent theories date them back to the ninth or tenth century B.C.. Drive by Lake Canterno on the way back to Rome.
Rates per vehicle for this excursion: sedan (1/4 persons) 560 Euros; minivan (4 persons) 600 Euros; minivan (5/6 persons) 640 Euros; minibus (7/8 persons) 660 Euros. Rates include VAT (value added tax 10%).		Driving times: Rome to Fiuggi: 1hr Fiuggi to Trisulti: 35’hr Trisulti to Alatri: 20' Alatri to Fumone: 20' Fumone to Rome: 1hr
Each additional hour will be charged 1/8 of the total of the tour's rate. Rates do not include: entrance fees, meals, drinks, personal purchases or any thing not specifically listed as included.