Sperlonga – A Perfect Beach-Town Getaway
The summer of 2022 was a hot one in Italy with temperatures reaching 100 degrees at its peak in parts of the country. Looking for an opportunity to cool down during a break between tours, I settled on the little, medieval, coastal town of Sperlonga, recommended by my friend and tour guide, Claudia. Situated about halfway between Rome and Naples, it’s known for a large cave (sperlunca means cave/grotto in Latin) and is the site of the former Villa of Tiberius, a Late Republican Era villa, owned by the emperor Tiberius. There is a museum on the site displaying many reconstructed sculptures that decorated the villa depicting the story of the Homeric hero Odysseus. The emperor was nearly killed by the collapse of the grotto in AD 26, which may have smashed the sculptures and led to the emperor’s eventual move to Capri.
The Ending of the Precarious Merlot
My little apartment for the week was in the historic city center, built on top of a rock that overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea. Streets are narrow; in some places they are like walkways, with many steps built into a hill. If you stay in the city center, you’ll need to park on the outside of town due to the lack of wide roads requiring a good hike to your accommodations. There are warning signs to be careful as you walk and carry your items through town. One of my bottles of merlot from a prior tour came to a most dreadful end there. The three-pack of reds traveled with me many miles through Italy, and I was ever so careful not to leave them in the hot car at each stop. It turned out, the heat would have been better than the way of one’s demise.
Carrying the wine in a cardboard box, I made my way to the apartment but the force of going up and down the steps pushed the wine through the bottom of the box. Two of the bottles landed straight down on a step without breaking. The one of the fallen bottles landed next to my foot and I quickly secured it. However, the second had a more dramatic future as it slowly started to roll down to the next step. It all happened so quickly that I couldn’t move fast enough to retrieve the wayward bottle. It was like that scene from the 1925 Russian Revolution movie “Battleship Potemkin” where the mother with a baby carriage is shot at the top of the monumental steps and the viewer watches as the baby carriage begins to descend the steps moving faster with each step it passes. However, it only took a few steps before my merlot met its match and exploded all over the stairway making a horrific sound so loud that a neighbor came to his door to investigate my dubious ordeal. To draw on another cinema reference, it was like a scene from “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” movie with red wine dripping down the stairway like a stream of blood from an ill-fated gangster pummeled by machine gun bullets. Well, you get the point, “Be careful” is good advice whenever you travel in Italy, because if you or anything else falls, it most likely will be on something very hard.
Sperlonga’s Beaches and Area Beaches
Although it was difficult to reach, living in the city center made for a fun week. The walk down to the beach was like a mini workout, but the evening sea breeze was a welcomed relief from the extreme heat of the day. During the day, swimming is the main activity. With two beaches on each side of town, Sperlonga is a great place to get your beach fix. Sperlonga Beach is right at the bottom of the city center and Lido La Cassetta Beach is on the southside of town. Being a resort town, Sperlonga has plenty of restaurants and hotels you can stay at on the beach. If you are not staying at a hotel, there are many umbrella- and chaise-lounge rental vendors, which tend to be pricy in peak season. There is limited space for free access, located next to where a little creek flows into the sea. Actually, I enjoyed cooling off in this section after a day at the beach with its crystal-clear, cold water. If you have a car, you can travel further south to several other beaches and eventually on to Gaeta. Gaeta is another coastal town with walls that date back to Roman times and today it’s a fishing and oil seaport with a NATO naval base.
One thing I love to do whenever I’m staying near water is rent a boat, and Sperlonga has several boat-rental vendors right in the marina. Sperlonga Escurioni has little Zodiac-style boats and for a reasonable cost you can rent one to explore the coast. The town’s coastal line is beautiful from the sea and enjoying it from this vantage point makes for a wonderful day.
One of my favorite things to do when renting long-term in a little town is visit the local shops for produce and food staples to make meals. It was especially enjoyable meeting the sisters at Sorelle Poco Poco. With my meager grasp of Italian, there I was greeted by smiles, and the sisters were eager to help me stock my temporary kitchen for the week. Mushrooms, onions and rice were on the shopping list for the making of risotto, and the store was a perfect spot fit where Emilia made sure I had everything I would need. After I made the risotto, and the next day I made little arancini (rice balls) with the leftover rice, I brought them to the sisters to enjoy for lunch. With excitement they accepted my gifts. It takes the simplest things to bring me joy, and that’s as good as it gets! Before I could leave, they provided me with a store tee shirt.
Gorilla Cocktail Bar and Gli Archi
Dining is a treat in this beach resort town. One of my favorite spots for coffee in the morning and then later in the day for aperitivo (a pre-meal drink) was Il Gorilla Cocktail Bar, a cute outdoor bar near the Port of Sperlonga with a tiny piazza of tables and chairs in a courtyard. Patrizia, the owner, was very friendly, and the tables were protected by the buildings from the hot afternoon sun. For dinner, if you are ever in Sperlonga, you must treat yourself with a dining experience at Gli Archi. The seafood, as you can imagine being so close to the sea, was extremely fresh and the setting in the courtyard provided the perfect ambiance.
Gaeta in the Province of Latina
The ride to Gaeta was beautiful because of all the olive trees growing along the road. Gaeta is known for its delicious olives. Like Sperlonga, Gaeta is a beach town, consisting of light and very fine, golden sand, clear water, and surrounded by lush vegetation. The stunning Castello Angioino-Aragonese which was used only as a prison, is open to the public. It is also known as the city with 100 churches. The city has a long and fascinating history. All the typical historical players where there, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Lombard, and Saracen invaders. As a result of the heat and dry conditions that day, I could see the glow of a wildfire across the bay as I walked the coastline. It made for a beautiful photo.
Now, I mentioned there are some steps in Sperlonga. The last day I was there, I decided to take a shortcut to the top of the city center. Well, I lost count of the number of steps; let’s just say I got my day’s work out by just making it to the top. Conquering the steps of Sperlonga was well worth it so I could enjoy this charming seaside town from a higher angle, and I look forward to returning someday.
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