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Thanks, Walter. I leave for Rome tomorrow. After several trips, I still have not made it to Tivoli. Maybe this time.

I really don't know why COTRAL can't print a route map for their services, or even number the different lines! We went to Villa Adriana from Ponte Mammolo on a week-day in May, and were the only tourists on a bus which was more or less full.

There seems no longer to be a bus going within about 1-2km of the site, at any rate we didn't find one. But it's hard to be sure, none of the stops listed were named anything recognisable or even said what town they were in.

The route we took was SR5 from Ponte Mammolo, onto A24, straight on for E80, until the exit for Tivoli, SP51a. There were stone-yards selling marble all round, and a vendor of wooden sheds and chalets, along the SP51a. Then we bore right, heading uphill slightly, onto SR5, this was marked Villa d'Este / Tivoli, and we noticed that there was a street leading off, HARD right, from this point, marked Villa Adriana. This street is called via Rosolina.

The bus driver advised us to get out at the junction with via di villa Adriana, about 2 or 3 stops later. From there, the route to Villa Adriana was fairly well signposted and fairly flat.

On arrival at Villa Adriana, we discovered the restaurant shuttered and closed, nothing except a packet of crisps and a can of coke available without walking back up to the junction of via rosolina and via di villa adriana. The Villa Adriana staff were charmless in the extreme (we waited a good 15 minutes to buy a ticket because the employee was on the phone and did not so much as look up or acknowledge us).

The return journey involved the reverse hike back to the same junction. The bus was incredibly noisy and rattled as if it was about to rattle itself to bits.

PS we were exhausted by this stage and did not attempt to go to Villa d'Este

LaGrenouille, thank you for resurrecting Walter's most valuable thread and for adding your experience to it.

if nothing else, you have saved someone else from sharing in your pain!

BTW we went to Tivoli on the same bus [well not the exact same one, but you know what I mean] about 10 years ago and it was more or less the same except that we went onto Tivoli, saw the Villa, and then had a nice lunch. So I have not yet seen the Villa Adriana but I suspect that my feet and stomach were happier at the end of the day than were yours.