Discover Villa Gregoriana

Last updated on October 8, 2026

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Introduction

Villa Gregoriana is a park below Tivoli's ancient acropolis, and it is a gorge rather than a garden. Thick woodland is threaded with paths that drop towards the Great Waterfall, the caves of Neptune and the Sirens, and the small round Roman Temple of Vesta on the rim above. The Aniene valley and the park were put forward in 2006 for consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Geography and Significance

The walk is the attraction at Villa Gregoriana and it is vertical. Paths descend through woodland into the gorge and climb back out, which makes the park a steeper proposition than its name suggests -- this is a ravine with a river at the bottom of it, not a level garden to stroll through. The Great Waterfall drops more than 100 metres, and the route runs from the entrance at Largo Sant'Angelo down into the Valle dell'Inferno and up the far side to the acropolis, where it ends among the Roman temples.

The short history

A flood in 1826, two tunnels through a mountain, and the gorge that became Villa Gregoriana.

Read the full historical timeline guide →

Biodiversity

The FAI's recovery of Villa Gregoriana from 2002 was as much ecological as landscape work -- clearing brambles off the paths and repairing what it describes as a fragile ecosystem -- and the park it reopened holds 74 tree species. That number is the useful one here. This is not a remnant of wild woodland: the gorge was replanted as part of the 1830s composition, with new species put in alongside the paths, walkways and stairs, so the woods a visitor walks through are a nineteenth-century planting scheme that has had nearly two centuries to mature and two decades of restoration behind it.

The ground underneath is doing its own work. The valley is karst, cut in limestone, and the Grotto of Neptune and the Grotto of the Sirens are the water's own excavations in it -- which is why the vegetation changes as the path descends, from the clearings at the top into the dense cover of the gorge floor.

Getting In and Getting Around

This is the part to plan for, because the park is a gorge and the route through it goes one way. Entry is from Largo Sant'Angelo and the exit and bookshop are at the Temple of Vesta, at the other end and at the top of the acropolis -- so the visit is a descent into the Valle dell'Inferno and a climb out, not a loop back to the car. The paths are steep in places and cut into the valley side.

Getting there is easy by comparison. Villa Gregoriana is five minutes' walk, about 400 metres, from Tivoli station, and reachable by bus from Rome at Ponte Mammolo, stop Tivoli. By car it is the A24 Rome-L'Aquila, exits Tivoli or Castel Madama, then signs for Tivoli and Villa Gregoriana. There is also a train to Bagni di Tivoli station with a Ville di Tivoli bus connection. The contact number is 0774 332650.

Frequently asked questions

Is Villa Gregoriana open in winter?

Not fully. The published seasons run from 14 February to 20 December; there is no season between 21 December and 13 February.

Is it a loop?

No. You enter at Largo Sant'Angelo, descend into the gorge, and leave at the Temple of Vesta on the acropolis, where the bookshop is. Plan for a one-way route with a climb at the end.

How big is the waterfall?

The Great Waterfall drops more than 100 metres and is the second highest in Italy after the Marmore. It carries less water than it did: four original falls are now two, and the river has been dammed at the tunnel mouths for hydroelectricity since 1886.

Is the gorge natural?

The limestone and the caves are. The position of the waterfall is not -- Gregory XVI had two tunnels bored under Monte Catillo after the 1826 flood to move the river away from the town, and the park was made around what that left.

What are the temples?

Two temples of Tibur on the acropolis above the gorge: a rectangular one of around 150 BC, perhaps to Hercules or Tiburnus, and a round one of around 100 BC, perhaps connected with the Sibyl. Palladio and Serlio studied the round one and it became the emblem of Tivoli.

Can I visit at night?

On Fridays and Saturdays between 3 July and 5 September the park opens from 21.00 to midnight for the Sere FAI d'Estate.

See Villa Gregoriana through traveler photos →

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Checked against Wikipedia — Villa Gregoriana is a natural area of great historical and landscape value in Tivoli, in the steep valley between the right bank of the Aniene and the ancient Roman acropolis; known above all for the Great Waterfall, it can be considered a very particular example of a Romantic garden, for its conformation and for its correspondence with the aesthetic taste of the sublime so dear to the Romantics. The whole route within the area was recovered by the Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano from 2002 and reopened to the public in 2005, Villa Gregoriana was born of the need to defend Tivoli from the ruinous floods of the Aniene and of the desire of Gregory XVI, a severely conservative but highly cultivated Camaldolese pope, to join the useful to the agreeable regardless of cost; the Canale Estense dug in the second half of the sixteenth century to feed the fountains of the Villa d'Este was neither intended nor sufficient to carry away flood water. The villa took its name from the pope and was born as a mere accessory to the primary work: the diversion and channelling of the Aniene into two artificial tunnels which Gregory XVI had driven under Monte Catillo after the flood of 1826, to move the river's course and point of fall away from the town. To this was added the Ponte Gregoriano across the old river bed, which survived only as an overflow channel used for civil and industrial purposes; the work was entrusted to Cardinal Agostino Rivarola and the solemn inauguration took place in 1835, For the inauguration, and in keeping with the taste of the time, the built remains of the villa of Manlius Vopiscus -- uninhabited since the beginning of the second century -- were recovered at Villa Gregoriana: the ruins of the Roman buildings, gone wild over the centuries, were carefully restored and then integrated into the garden, where new species were planted and paths, walkways, stairs and service spaces were laid out (October 2026).