Springtime in Italy

by Thomas Dimopoulos

In the city of Gaeta, Italy, the morning begins with a shot of espresso and ends, as it sometimes does, beneath a double rainbow arcing over the bay.

The seaside town is year-round home to the 20,000 Gaetani who live on the historic peninsula, which juts out from the eastern coast of Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Monte Orlando looms high above the shoreline and features a natural split of the mountain, crowned by the first century mausoleum of a Roman general and featuring a split mountain - La Montagna Spaccata - which local legend says was created as the earth violently shook when Christ died.

From the top of the mountain split, there is a steep view straight down to a sea level grotto and the sprawling beach.

The warm season lasts from April through October, and the city's numbers swell with visitors, much as they have for the past 2,000 years, making the 75-mile journey south from Rome, and 60 miles north from Naples.

This seaside town - named after a character in Virgil's 'Aeneid' and showcasing the coastal line visited by Homer's Ulysses - has endured hundreds of factions attempting to conquer it, from the advancing armies of Amalfi to battles for the Kingdom of Naples, from the French and the Austrian invaders of the middle ages to the German occupation during World War II.

With each successive warring generation, the massive walls that fortified the city have broken away section by section.

Today, just the walled city still stands in the historic quarter of town, in the medieval part of the village. The Gaetani have endured.

On the long, thin cobblestone roads lined by palm trees, the architecture rises on marble, brick and a mixture of stones - the mortar of many civilizations.

Beneath a sky dotted with ancient spires, bell towers and crucifixes whose churches date from the 10th century, the restaurants feature distinctive local delicacies of fresh seafood, Gaeta olives and tiella - a pizza-calzone type combo filled with a variety of meats and cheeses.

Here, a lifetime is measured from moment to moment, and residents remind you to stop and enjoy each one. 'Piano,' they say - 'slow down.'

Here is a country where everything is negotiable, from traffic lights to business appointments.

Cell phones, with their picture-taking abilities and text messaging are popular. The Olympics - which locals will tell you are so far north they are more Swiss than Italian - are not. Much more attention is spent on the Giallorossi, the yellow-and-red football squad of Rome.

Any attempts at setting new rules are treated with visible contempt. When recent laws called for drivers to buckle up or risk a fine, T-shirt manufacturers got busy silk-screening a realistic depiction of a buckled seat belt across the front of their shirts, which motorists wear over the top of their business clothes while driving their vehicles.

At the city's southern end, in the 'new' part of town, the Via del Independenza winds through alleys showcasing hundreds of tiny storefronts, featuring specialists in cheeses and pastries, baked bread and lingerie and fresh fruit markets.

The strip is dotted with clay-colored buildings with burgundy trim, arching sunflower-yellow doorways topped by verandas where clotheslines hang alongside shuttered windows and deep-green potted plants.

The city of Sperlonga sits nearby, on the coastline drive along the Via Flacca. The labyrinth-like village of white-washed buildings and hidden, winding stone roads is painted in red-brick doorways and touches of Mediterranean blue. At its center, a café serves cappuccino, espresso and Long Island Iced Tea.


A few miles away, through narrow winding mountainous roads of the city of Terracina, is the heart-pumping heights of the Temple of Jupiter, a complex dating to 4 B.C. and features dizzying heights seen through a hole punched in the cavern wall.

Driving south, the road to Naples is lined with local specialties like Buffalo Mozzarella - too watery to cook with but served sliced with fresh tomatoes and olive oil - and really Real Neapolitan Pizza. The road leads to the city of Pompeii, sitting in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.

Pompeii was built in 7 B.C. and lasted until the early light of a late August morning in 79 A.D. Overcome by Vesuvius' eruption of rock and ash, the city disappeared from maps for nearly 1,700 years. Re-discovered in the 18th century, it was realized that the ash preserved a good deal of the lost city, fruit eerily sitting untouched in jars, and a bakery with loaves of bread sat, waiting to be eaten.

The houses boast statues in the front atrium once greeting visitors on marble floors, with multiple bedrooms and studies and large gardens out back. Art dots the walls that were once the city's marketplace, the painted walls depicting what the ancient vendors sold there. There is a public square where thousands gathered on white limestone grounds to listen and watch political speeches and an amphitheater with a capacity of 20,000 where residents were entertained by gladiators who fought to the death.


Some of the bodies were preserved as well, and there are plaster casts of the dead, who ran from the erupting volcano clutching their jewelry and their coins, and have remained, nearly 2,000 years later, frozen in prayer, or clutching at their throats, captured in their final moments of life.


Today more than 3 million reside in the surrounding towns in the shadow of the mountain which threatens to explode again, at any time.

The land is a deep, fertile green and, despite the February chill, is already sprouting lemon trees from within. The potential for disaster is not even a passing thought for a civilization that lives its life in a passing moment.


'Piano, piano, piano' they will passionately remind you.

Slow.

Down.



(Springtime in Italy- Roma and Firenze: here