Our first destination is the Island of Ponza.

It has been a favourite destination of the Roman emperors and still the Roman and Neapolitan Demi gods and it is easy to see why.

Clear water, limestone cliffs, great anchorages – although you really do need to be having good weather.

It’s built in layers up the hills with tunnels and stairs – a labyrinth for us but the locals are ok. Lots of fishing done here so when you are eating your meal in a restaurant you can know that the ingredients probably just arrived. The queue of fishing boats at about 5pm unloading at the dock for the restaurant to pick up.

We spent a morning exploring the Cemetery- a small village in its own right – impeccably kept- mausoleum after mausoleum.

Underneath the houses and buildings of Ponza are at least 36 Roman Cisterns.

Built to hold their fresh water supply they are chiseled out of the limestone and then painted with a ‘broken terracotta vase’ finish – Muro Naturale – to make them waterproof. They were able to clean them at times, add fish for further maintenance and have running water in their houses – all in Roman times.

Very interesting to visit. Cold and damp as you can imagine but clean. They continue to do structural repair work as people renovate their houses and discover they have pushed a hole into an unknown cistern.

We sailed into Gaeta late at night and anchored at midnight in the bay under the fort. It’s again another amazing slice of living history.

We are going to drive up to Picinisco tomorrow and visit the village and meet with Cesidio Di Ciacca. By chance we saw an Episode of Help, I bought a Village and saw Cesidio’s story – the same family migration story of my father Maurice Ferri.

We only discovered in 2018 my father’s family line as he was orphaned as a small child and had no information other than Italian heritage.

So to reconnect with the village, there is still family there , and to see what is was very heart warming.

We had a lovely day with Cesidio and so appreciated his knowledge of the area and the lineage. We are inspired to come back!

Here are a couple of websites if you are interested

iciacca.com

picinisco.com

And if you google Picinisco there are some great photos and info.

On towards Naples tomorrow- ciao ciao

03 Jun This entry was published on June 3, 2024 at 4:40 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.