Gaeta: A hidden gem between Rome and Naples

Nature has done its best over here: At the slopes’ feet of the Aurunci Mountains, down towards sweet hills interrupted by high promontories, the traveller arrives on a beautiful green coast with spectacular inlets, coves with magnificent views on white sandy beaches. Gaeta is the queen of a beautiful gulf which is the frames of this charming territory of southern Lazio. The origin of this town is ancient and its history long and intense.

   1/2  


      The Duomo bell tower

Gaeta was a powerful and active maritime Republic in the Mediterranean about well over 1000 years ago’ when its history was already long, ancient and plenty of events. The legendary Trojan heroes Aeneas and Ulysses are said to have landed here on their journeys and certainly Etruscans, Greeks and Romans have lived here. The Roman mausoleum at the top of Mount Orlando above the mediaeval town was dedicated to a famous general in the Augustan era.

He was Lucius Munatius Plancus the founder of Lyon (Lugdanum) and Basel (Raurica). The mausoleum was Planco’s tomb and in spite of hundred wars, sieges and invasions it is the only in the world that has managed to be still almost intact having endured twenty centuries of history. Here we start our journey in this magic territory, right in the middle of the Land of Aeneas and Ulysses.

Today Gaeta is a charming and interesting mediaeval town on the South Tyrrhenian Sea. Churches, homes, villas and buildings with hidden gardens, old paved streets of amazing architectural beauty. All seems to be so irregularly entrenched to create a warm and relaxed Mediterranean atmosphere.The climate with its hot and long summer and the nearness to the sea donate to Gaeta a warm and temperate type of weather for most of the year.

The ancient town appears to the sight coming from North along the Via Flacca only after a dramatic series of tunnels and curves over vertical rocks covered by the typical Mediterranean bush opening onto beaches with white sand, small secluded bays and coves with a blue sea. In the spring and early autumn a stronger breeze clears the blue sky leaving only little motionless clouds far above the sea and the mountains around the gulf. Gaeta offers a fantastic view during many calm and sunny days with seagulls flying over the blue cobalt sea, which appears with a different shade of blue from the previous day. What a peaceful sight it is!