Freya & Us

Nettuno was very nice. The old town was lived in rather than touristy and the walk along the coast to Anzio was very nice. This is also the site of a huge World War ll battle and there is an American war cemetery and memorial as well as other memorials. Nearly 8,000 graves in this cemetery alone. Very thought provoking and moving.

What's very wrong at the moment is the weather - there's so much rain! It rained so hard one day it was like a waterfall over the boat and she looked as if she'd been pressure washed afterwards. The rain managed to get into the boat over Paul's bed which was soaked. Hopefully it's now sealed - and we have had more than a few downpours since!

We picked the only dry day to move on to Gaeta. It was a lovely motor and the coast is really beautiful again after the boring flat bits further north. Gaeta looks really nice. We went out yesterday but spent most of our walk sheltering from another huge downpour in a coffee shop and the next day was more of the same!

We did manage to see more of Gaeta - even had a couple of sunny days! It's a lovely ramshackle old city with a double castle and lots of history. Some of it is derelict and other parts are patched from different periods but it's still real and lived in. Near the boat is the main shopping street parts of which date to the 7th century. It's a mixture of the proper shops, the butcher, baker etc, but others are selling produce from their front rooms while there are also a few very smart clothes shops. There are lots of narrow alleys leading from it and one had an irresistible sign 'vino locali'. We walked down the alley to find ourselves in a small, untidy courtyard with several locked doors. As we turned to leave an old lady with very few teeth appeared saying 'vino' to which the answer is always 'si'. She produced a bunch of keys and went through one of the doors which was an almost empty storeroom saying 'bianco, rosso" - a simple choice. We went for bianco and she produced a 2 litre plastic bottle and charged us 2€ - amazingly it was really good! I think we'll enjoy exploring Gaeta and the surrounding area over the winter but for now we have to move on and will return in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday we had a weather window (no rain) so set off for our next stop. We had a lovely motor sail to Pozzuoli on the outskirts of Naples passing Ischia on the way. We could see Capri and Vesuvius ahead of us as we entered the bay of Naples. We have our final visitors of the year arriving in a couple of days.......

Click here for the interactive map of our travels