May 22, 2017

Last night we had a sailaway party in Alan and Beverly’s suite.  Here are some of the pictures.  Norm brought one of the 2 liter bottles of wine and everyone liked it! There was a beautiful rainbow, but the pictures don’t capture it well.  I missed getting pictures of the sunset which was gorgeous!

Gaeta is located between Rome and Naples and is a beautiful seaside resort and a naval port.  There are lots of hills and on one of the hillsides as you arrive, there is a huge castle, probably from the 6th century.

And, a beautiful sunrise!

We went on an excursion to the amphitheatre of Minturno and a wine tasting.

Our guide was Sylvia and she is an archeologist and a forensic anthropologist so she was a great guide.

Minturno is an ancient site first mentioned in Roman documents from 340 BC but the town may be even hundreds of years older.  There are archways, a forum and a theater for more than 4500 people.  It has been completely restored and performances are still held here.  The Emperor Tiberius is thought to have added the aqueduct which brought water from a mountain nearly seven miles away.

There are also well preserved sections of the 5th century Appian Way which was the widest and largest road of its time.  It connected Minturno and lots of other cities to Rome which probably accounts for the expression “all roads lead to Rome”!

Sylvia told us that the most important structure in all of the cities was the toilet!  and she pointed out that even back in those days people wrote on the walls of the toilets – usually the names of the prostitutes of the area!

We then went to the Villa Matilde winery and had a tour of the farm, including a look at all of the animals – donkeys, goats, pigs, geese and of course the vineyard dogs. The winery is a beautiful place and we had a tasting of both wine and food.  I bought the white Falaghina wine, it was delicious.

We had a nice drive back to the port with sights to see everywhere in this beautiful place.