Sperlonga

The main attraction for the second day was a trip to Sperlonga, midway between Gaeta and Terracina. We lunched in the town overlooking a long, crescent beach festooned with beach umbrellas. After a relaxing stroll down a winding path shaded by carob trees we arrived at the beach for several hours of splashing and swimming in the near-perfect water. Amy and I tried carob pods the day before after which Amy declared they tasted like ear wax. Personally, I don’t eat much ear wax but Amy insisted they tasted the way you would imagine ear wax would taste based on what it smells like. Hmmm, OK.

At the south end of the beach was a grotto which ended up being our final destination. Historians have decided that this was the Grotto of Tiberius. Tiberius was the emperor after Octavian who reigned during the time of Christ. Apparently, he didn’t much care for being emperor and spent most of his time outside of Rome in a series of villas in places such as Capri. One of his villas is in what is now Sperlonga. There Tiberius threw lavish parties for his guests in a cave/grotto specially transformed into a magnificent sculpture garden filled with Greek marble copies of some of the most famous scenes from myth and legend. The remains of these sculptures have been placed in a museum on site. One particularly nice installation was the Polyphemus where Odysseus and his men blind the Cyclops. Unfortunately, I left my camera at the campground so I have no pictures!