Villa Borghese

Sunday is a good day to visit a park, and together with half of Rome, this is what we did.

Villa Borghese is Rome's largest central open space and is full of woods, roads, follies, statues, as well as some of the city's finest museums.

I love the way they prune and shape the pine trees - Rome is full of them, lining the avenues, and we also found them in the park.

We wandered around the park which is widely used by the locals on foot, bikes, roller blades, segways and the most popular option, a riscio, a sort of pedal driven chariot with a small electric motor.

We walked through the park and got to the lake with the Tempio d'Esculapio

 

The small temple looked gorgeous on the edge of the lake and was full of statues

which are hidden by all the foliage

We then walked through this archway to reach our destination

the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, which was unfortunately closed due to reburbishment

so we retraced our steps past the lake

(just can't get enough of these gorgeous autumn colours)

past these baby palm trees

the Globe Theatre, an exact replica of the one in London,

more elegant pines,

past the large oval of the Piazza di Siena

and on to the Museo Pietro Canonica, the house and studio of the 19th century sculptor who was bequeathed this house by the city.

We sat in the courtyard

admiring the house.

Our next stop was going to be the Villa Borghese itself, the summer playground of the Borghese family and now a museum, but it started raining, and as it looked that the rain was going to stay, we run for the refuge and cover of the narrow streets around the park.