Swallow's adventures

We feel very privileged to have experienced a winter in such a welcoming place as Gaeta; the town and inhabitants will always hold a special place in our hearts. I can see why this coastal area is a popular all year round holiday destination for the Italians.

Gaeta has seven beaches along a stunning coastline; we have spent lots of time, in all weathers, down on the beautiful Serapo beach (ten minutes’ walk from the marina). This beach is great for swimming and is very shallow. Serapo is overlooked by Monte Orlando Park on the peninsula where there is so much to discover: Roman ruins, Split Mountain with its chapel and church, Turq’s cave, an Aragonese castle, the Mausoleum of Lucio Munazio Pianco, old batteries and tunnels, roman cisterns, birdlife and Mediterranean vegetation- we found some wild rosemary. As you descend the other side of the peninsula you come to Gaeta Medievale which is the old town gently sprawling down the hill accessed by many sets of steps and very narrow streets, at first it seems as though you are wandering into people’s back yards. Most of the houses have roof terraces with spectacular views. There are many old churches here; we have visited the beautiful St Francis of Assisi which dates back to the thirteenth century, this church, with its magnificent outside staircase , overlooks Gaeta Medievale, the views are wonderful. The cathedral, with its 17th century crypt and imposing bell tower, is stunning. The Annunciation church holds the Golden Chapel and is also worth a visit. Of course none of the churches are open in the middle of the day when we were usually exploring, so we did have to make a concerted effort to go and visit them first thing in the morning or late afternoon! Every time we go out for a walk we discover something new about this town, which is so full of history. There are loads of wild cats wandering around here, which, if you know me well, you will appreciate that this is my worst nightmare; they are protected and very well fed and like to take their afternoon nap on the parked up mopeds! You can be fined thousands of euros if you persecute these creatures. Luckily Paul loves cats and makes a big fuss of them so they leave me alone.

Christmas in Gaeta starts in early November with the turning on of the festive lights which certainly puts our hometown of Southampton to shame- we’ve never seen anything like it; it seems that the mayor’s popularity is largely based on his decision to stage such a spectacular display each year, coupled with the firework display every weekend for nine weeks running! This certainly brings in the tourists, who arrive in coachloads at the weekends. As well as overhead decorative lights in just about every street there are also various impressive installations, such as a large ape, Manny the mammoth, an igloo scene with penguins, fish, shells, a train and a colour changing Christmas tree in front of the town hall, with an ice rink and a Christmas market. Via Independezia was also lined with poinsettias. The old town also has a nativity scene and Christmas grotto for the children; there is also a family games room with giant versions of popular games such as drafts and ludo. We were lucky enough to have a visit from our little 20 month old grandson in November and he was mystified by it all! Christmas day , and in fact all that week, was sunny and fifteen degrees here so we put our beef in the slow cooker and enjoyed an early afternoon walk along the beach, as we got back to the marina the town slowly came to life and some of the surrounding bars and restaurants were open. Scarlet joined us aboard Swallow and I managed to produce a delicious roast dinner with all the trimmings- unfortunately we couldn’t source parsnips, but hey we did have sprouts and homemade cranberry sauce. The Italian’s don’t eat turkey at Christmas, instead they have either capon or fish; they also seem to celebrate Epiphany, 6th January , in a big way; friends we have made here, who live in Rome, told us that the Italians have adopted the 25 December and Santa Claus from Northern Europe, the old tradition is that the good witch would bring presents on the eve of Epiphany but she would deliver a piece of coal to the naughty children, hence, Via Independezia was full of witches on broomsticks after Christmas. New Year’s Eve was predictably well celebrated here too, we certainly had to pace ourselves as the partying didn’t kick off until 11.30pm; we had dinner aboard Scarlet and then ventured out armed with our Prosecco for midnight- everybody is popping corks in the street at this time! There was music, dancing and fireworks everywhere- not to mention constant bangers going off around us; the ice rink was packed too. Everyone was in good spirit and there were no police around, a pleasant contrast to other busy places at New Year; there don’t seem to be any alcohol related incidents here maybe because apparently it’s not the ‘done thing’ to be drunk in Italy, especially if you are a woman; this town, however, is very traditional and I’m suspecting it’s probably a different story in Rome, for example. We managed to last ‘till 3am but the town was still rocking long after we were pushing up zeds!

There are lots of places to go for delicious locally cooked food here including of course plenty of pizzerias; our favourite is a family run business in an old Roman building, La Rete in Via Independezia, which has a great menu of not only pizzas but freshly made seafood dishes too; the owner has a boat here in the marina and takes a lot of pride in his restaurant. There is a great fried seafood place in Gaeta Medievale that sells the best takeaway fried calamari ever! Also near to that is Molo, where you can taste an amazing range of flavours of homemade ice-cream. The local pie, Tiella, has a range of fillings encased in a very light pastry made from pizza dough and is very tasty; we were lucky enough to have one made for us by Giussepina who owns the apartment which we have rented three times now for friends and family visits and when Swallow was hauled out, consequently, we have become friends with the lovely Joseph and Giussepina ; we have sampled lemons fresh from their tree and Joseph's delicious homemade wine, there’s plenty of that in Gaeta too! Just before Christmas we were invited to dinner at Anna’s house, she owns the marina with her brother Luca; this was a wonderful experience of Italian hospitality, fourteen guests, made up of family and friends, treated to Anna’s delicious cooking- just like a Dolmio advert! Anna also has mandarin trees in her garden and so she made us all a bottle of mandarin liquor for Christmas, hic!
After Christmas we spent five weeks visiting family and friends back in the UK; it's so easy to get home from here; you can reach Rome or Naples airport in a couple of hours. Our dear friends Drew and Jackie came to visit in March and we took a memorable daytrip to Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town which was destroyed in 79AD by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius; they didn't have much luck really as they had already rebuilt much of the town after an earthquake several years earlier. Excavations of this site began in the 18th century and are still continuing; as well as beautiful homes, shops and eateries,300 skeletons were uncovered on the shore- seeing these decayed people entwined with each other, trying to shelter from the ash was incredibly moving; this place is really worth a visit. The National Archaeological Museum in Naples holds many treasures from the excavations of both Herculaneum and Pompeii; sadly we didn't make it here, but it's first on our list when we return to Gaeta.

There is an American naval base in Gaeta where 1000 servicemen were once based, there doesn't appear to be a lot going on there these days but there are still a few American bars dotted around; so I was hoping that maybe St Patrick's Day would be celebrated here- as this day is my birthday we like to go and celebrate with a Guinness or two; sadly not the case here , we would have had to go to Rome for this. Instead we met up for lunch with local friends, Jen and Francis, who we stumbled across on one of our walks up to Mount Orlando; afterwards they invited us back to their apartment and made my birthday special with Guinness, Prosecco and birthday cake. Francis is American and his father was once based here and so had lots of stories to tell us about this area.

We are almost ready to leave Gaeta now; we had Swallow lifted out of the water and power washed in the Base Nautica Flavio Gioia yard; seeing Swallow up on the hoist always makes us rather nervous but all went well and we were very pleased with the professionalism of Tony and his team. Captain Paul has worked hard scrubbing and painting Swallow; being Copper coated he only had to anti foul the prop. Anchoring should be a lot easier this summer as he's fitted a new electric windlass, I assisted with laying the cable but apparently I take too many tea breaks! We also now have a new radio with a cockpit handset and a wind instrument; luckily Horst, a fellow sailor, was able to hoist Paul up the mast to fit this. We've checked all of our safety equipment and as soon as the non slip paint is finished on deck we'll be ready to set off for Swallow's next adventure towards Sicily. As for Gaeta and the wonderful friends we have made here-we will be back!