A weekend in the country

For literally centuries, Romans have been getting out of town to escape the Summer heat by traveling into the hills to the south and southeast. It's not hot or oppressive here in late November, but we still felt like a break from routine was in order so we rented a car and headed out for a few days to Castel Romani; a grouping of hill towns around Lake Abano and Lake Nemi.

We rented a flat in the village of Castel Gandolfo, a town perched high over the gorgeous Lake Albano, the bigger of the two bodies of water.

The view out the window of our AirtBnB.

The Emporer Miltonius Maximus surveys the Papal residence.

 Castel Gandolfo is home to the Papal holiday residence, a charming little villa that is as luxurious as Versailles and larger than Vatican City. Popes have been coming here doing whatever Popes do on vacation for about 500 years. Probably strolling about the grounds, thinking, maybe doing a little fishing?  In any case, the current Pope who lives in a simpler fashion has stopped using it and it's now a garden and museum one can wander through and sit and contemplate the beautiful natural surroundings. This is actually somewhat controversial to the locals as the loss of the Papal entourage has dealt a severe blow to the local businesses and tourism, and our host, a 30 year Tedeschi resident sounded kind of bitter about it.

We only had a day and a half so we decided to skip Pope-land and explore the villages and hills of the area.  We set our beam on the village of Nemi and the smaller of the two lakes (less than .06 square meters of surface). We of course got happily lost for a while and found ourselves winding higher and higher up toward the top of the mountain you can see in the photos above, and ended up in Rocca di Papa (Pope's fortress) a classic movie set of a village built as though chiseled into the sheer walls of the mountain. Stunning and almost gives one a bit of vertigo just to look at it.

 

The locals must have legs of iron and lungs the size of inner tubes from stair climbing.

Amazing skills at architecture and determination to build a town on this rock. After regaining our balance we headed onward to Nemi, just a few kilometers away. This was a reward beyond belief. 

Nemi is a small village, again out of Hollywood central casting, also built on sheer cliffs and sharply descending hillsides above a gorgeous little lake.  The town just whispers at you, "Get out of your car and wander the streets," and we did.  As previously mentioned on these pages, one of the rewards of traveling in the offseason is literally no tourists. None. I think we saw maybe 5 other people in the hours we spent on the streets as we passed by shops selling the three specialties of the town; Tiny wild strawberries, porchetta and a local varietal of vino bianca.  I'm sure it's insanely packed with tourists and day-trippers in the Summer, but today it was all ours.

Sit at one of these tables and this is what you see -->

This village goes back to pre Roman times and still has remnants of a temple of the goddess Diana and you can see her influence everywhere. 

Goddess of the hunt, means fresh porchetta is what's often on the table.

ap

It was time for pranzo and we saw a sign for a trattoria Sirena del lago with an arrow pointing down an alley and after following some twisty turny streets and two more hand-painted signs,

we found a tiny trattoria with a $10 million dollar view. It was completely empty, but we were told "Si we're aperto, come in," and got a seat by the glass overlooking the lake.

Window seat for the win.

I had the Minestra in Brodo, which was just soul-warming on this November day.  Chicken brodo with pastina. Just a bit of gold on a cloudy day.

Our waiter, who'd briefly scared me when we sat down by rapidly saying something about my shoes that I couldn't quite parse - I thought he was asking me to take them off because they were dirty. lol. Actually, he was only admiring them as he had the same type and used them for running.  He then suggested the Saltimbocca and since we were the sole diners in the Trattoria, I took this for code that they had this ready to go and it would be easier if we went with that.

I did and was rewarded with the best Saltibocca to date. It must have been the quality if the pancetta wrapped around the Vitale.  Just spicy and juicy, tender and tasty beyond belief.

Moral of the story?  Always follow the signs down twisty turny streets to that hidden Trattoria. And always follow the consigliere of a friendly waiter.

Side story, which perhaps only my old pal and road manager buddy Whit and his wife Laureen will understand: While eating I saw a framed 3’ by 4’ picture of Elvis on the wall, which seemed a little out of place to the decor and ambiance. I asked our the waiter. “Perque Elvis?” I kid you not. His answer was, with no hesitation,  “ Perque Elvis e Il Re.”  Because Elvis is the king.  That was the punchline to a long ago Wisconsin bar crawl of a bachelor party for Whit in which, I, as the best man bought Elvis tattoos for everyone.  Whit, stumbling home at 3am was confronted by a sleepy Laureen* as to what the heck are you doing with an Elvis tattoo on your shoulder? Whit answered exactly like our waiter.  "Because Elvis is the king."  Funny how life syncs up, sometimes.

*who didn't realize that the tats were tempory, stencil tattoos. 

Another side note about Nemi.  Nemi was the party central hot spot for Caligula during his short four-year reign (another crazed Emporer whacked by the knives of the Roman senate). Caligula had built two huge ships in this tiny fishing lake, solely for use as floating pleasure palaces We're talking huge, like 250' by 80 feet, It seems Caligula may have built his ships on the tiny Lake Nemi due to its alignment with the goddess Diana, a fitting place for a living divinity to site his pleasure barges. The largest, dubbed the “prima nave” (first ship) was an enormous vessel, steered with oars 40 feet long. The second was a giant floating platform replete with marble palaces, gardens, and a system of plumbing for baths. The ships even had lead keels against sea worms which of course were not an issue with fresh water. You can see how it was Caligula drained the treasury in short order. Nothing was too grand for our boy, Cal.

The ships were discovered (though locals Fishermen knew about the ships fore centuries) in the 1400's but technology had no way for them to really check it out. not until Leonardo invented diving suits (which you can see in his museo in Roma by the piazza Populi) could they be properly explored.  

Then Mussolini during his revival of the empire had the lake drained and the ships brought to the surface.

Unfortunately, they were a casualty of WWII and burned up in the fighting in 1944. Our German AirBnb host blamed the Brits for the bombardment, but I think she was just trying to not offend us Americanos. More likely it was Patton's army or the US bombers that set them alight. Whoever did the deed, all that remains are the lead keels and a bit of the ships statues and accessories like these bronze oar rings for the 40 foot oars.

All in all a fine few days of ticking off another bucket list item (hill country villages) and nerding out on the history of civilization and its rise and fall. Treasures found after centuries of being hidden then lost again. The nature of existence.

Today back to our home in Rome.

A presto...