Living life Italian way in Gaeta

Showing care and kindness to children is part of the Italian culture regardless of the region where you are. It seems that the entire town helps to raise the children. A child can hardly take a step without another person stopping to talk to the child or chuck him/her under the chin. In Gaeta, every daily meal is sacred and quality of food is synonymous with quality of life. The daily rhythm of life also helps the quality of life by beating to a mercifully slower pace than the one we normally accustomed to. The locals do not have lunch breaks but proper lunch times with enough time to prepare a complete meal before to be back at work. All working activities and businesses stop at lunch time. Lunch break here is long enough to have time to enjoy a hot meal at the table and for digesting a solid two-course meal which is most of the times eaten with the family at home. Italians do not rush their meals.

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   Small pier close to the
        Duomo Gaeta’s
          main church

They take their time to enjoy, not only the meal but also all the preparation and the conversations during or after around the table. During dinner, they have lengthy conversations about any possible topic. The table and the meal are a sort of cultural reunion for friends and family, especially on Sunday when it is very likely that guest might come and special recipes are prepared for them.

During the summer especially all the main meals are ‘delayed’ with very late lunches after the first part of the day spent on the beach and late dinners before going out for the evening ritual of walking in the town or for a night out. Gaetans cannot believe how early the foreigners eat. You will learn to wait until at least 7:30 pm before putting your nose in a restaurant as locals do not even think about eating dinner at least until after 8:00 pm. During the pre or post-dinner walk people stop to meet and talk to friends and relatives about the day's events.

The daily evening walk is of the most typical and peaceful activities that the Italians engage in. It's always a relaxing time for socializing, observing the new fashion and dresses that people are wearing and eventually stopping to buy a fantastic home-made gelato cone, the Italian ice-cream. Sunday time is the very best for the daily walks, when all the town comes out to parade up and down Gaeta’ marina and small street stands are selling candies, nuts, children's toys and all the necessary to make a paradise for children.

The children run all around to play in the streets with their parents around and new, young mothers and fathers proudly display their last arrival in the family for the joy of friends and family. The attention to the smaller and simpler things in life is a wonderful source of wellbeing and it is something that it can be grasped and tuned on with after only few weeks spent here in this lively yet peaceful seaside town.