Living Amongst the Ruins

So what do you do when the Romans move out? Well you just move in amongst the ruins. We set sail for Terracina, an ancient Roman town connected by the Appian Way. A large section of the town just reused what the Romans built so long ago. Dominating the town is a catholic Duomo build using the shell of a Roman temple. You still enter the church by using the temple’s steps. Ancient columns can be seen as part of the exterior supporting walls. You can see a distain for the heathen Romans as stones from the once proud temple are put in wherever they fit, some carved with what was once a coronus and others with Roman writing that is now upside down. The large tower built much later makes no attempt to unify its architecture with that of the church, but shadows it as it rises high in a layered gothic style. The tower is built like a geography record with each story built in the style of the day starting with its Roman foundation and rising to completion some 1300 years later. Around the church are apartment buildings still using some of the other still standing Roman walls. To some extent I want the Roman ruins to be respected and not altered, but another side of me finds it fascinating that the walls built so long ago to house Romans are still housing Italians today, still fulfilling the job they were created to do.

The next day we hop a bus south to Gaeta. According to Virgle, Gaeta was named after Aeneas’s wetnurse Caieta, who was allegedly buried here. The town is dominated by another tower built next to the church that is topped with a roof of colored ceramic tiles. There is a larger cathedral that is a very fine example of Italian gothic. It is amazing how beautiful these small towns in southern Italy are, and so little is written about them. Even the guidebooks relegate just a few paragraphs to them. With their mixture of colorful ancient past and beautiful harbors, they make it a treat to explore and absorb. We are a little worried about catching the bus back to Terracina. There is only one bus, and we are a little unsure where it picks us up. So at 6:15, our nerves are a bit stressed when we cannot see a bus coming. Weighing the options if we miss the bus seems like not very good choices. Just when we thought we missed our opportunity, the bus comes 15 minutes late and we are relieved to be heading back to the boat. That night we have dinner in a little alleyway that ends up being one of the top 10 dinners of my life. The food was just exquisite and artfully presented. The waitress was incredible. She made us feel cared for and treated like guests. After the antipasti and main course, we were served as a gift from the restaurant a predesert of chocolate and cream. Then desert was served, followed by a post desert treat gratis from the kitchen of briquette type cookies. You gotta love a restaurant that serves 3 deserts after a delicious meal.

The next day we say goodbye to Ryan who catches his train to Rome. Kip and I stay one more day to deal with some boat issues and head for Rome ourselves the following morning.