Freya & Us

The weather settled down very nicely and it's now summer - although the locals still seem to think it's mid winter wrapped in their woollies! It was sadly time to plan our departure from Gaeta. Our last few days were mostly spent scrubbing, oiling and eating/drinking too much as we said goodbye to our new friends - we'll miss you all!

We found time for a last walk around Monte Orlando to see the split rock. Legend has it that the mountain split on the day Christ was crucified. A visiting Turk doubted the story and God set his hand print in the side of the split as proof. We're not sure about that but there certainly is a huge split with a chapel nestled in it and what appears to be a hand print in the rock. We also managed to visit the cathedral which had always been closed when we passed (still haven't got used to the hours!). Most of it is quite modern (17th century I think) and we're a bit churched out but it's built around a medieval church and so inside there are ancient pillars visible within the newer structure. And the bell tower is spectacular dwarfing the old town and built with odd bits of Roman ruins at the bottom and decorated with majolica tiles.

We left Gaeta 3rd April on a lovely sunny day. There wasn't a lot of wind but we managed to motor sail, turning the engine off for an hour, to Ventotene, one of the Pontine islands. We were a little nervous about our arrival as we'd read and heard all sorts of horror stories about the narrow rocky entrance, and it was, followed immediately by a sharp right hand turn and then mooring in a very tight space - but in such calm conditions it was all fine and as the locals still think it's winter we had the port to ourselves apart from a few local fishing boats. The island is coated with tuff (like a volcanic pumice) and the Romans dug the port from this soft rock as well as lots of caves for storage. Around the port they also carved fish farms and salt pans including grills to allow the water to flow through while holding back the fish. It was quite amazing to be staying amongst all of that history.

The village was up a zig zag slope above the port and very pretty with all the narrow streets in all their pastel shades - although very closed this time of year! We had it to ourselves apart from a few locals. The island is just 3km long and so walking from one end to the other had to be done. The other end has been left undisturbed and it's a bird watchers haven as a migratory stopover. We met an ornithologist coming down with lots of wriggling bags around her neck and she explained that the birds flew into their nets, which we later saw, and were then taken to the centre to be recorded and tagged before being released. We were asked in no uncertain terms not to interfere with the nets which was very tempting when we found a poor LBJ struggling! The sea views were lovely as we sat on the edge of the cliff with our picnic.

After 2 nights we left for our next stops Procida...........

Click here for the interactive map of our travels