To reach Genzano you have take the metro to the end of line A and then catch a COTRAL (Lazio bus system) bus to Genzano. Times for the buses are not readily available (nor are they accurate) but they leave about every hour or so. I went with to of my roommates who had never been to Genzano and liked the idea of escaping the city for an afternoon. We got off the bus around 11:30 and started following the slow, but steady, stream of people walking toward the center of town. The first signs of anything special going on were the typical white tents set up for a fair, small booths with local products; wines, cheeses, oils, meats etc. There were a few interesting places, but for the most part they were selling small touristy trinkets, cheap clothes and cheap housewares.
When we reached the central piazza we looked up to the left and saw the main street lined with flowers...
The images ranged from abstract designs, to portraits, to religious images to architectural settings. They were all executed with flower petals and various other plant materials. The colors were dazzling. The image below is of a famous Italian singer who died a few years ago, can't remember his name though.
When we reached the top of the street we wondered around the back of the church at the top and came upon this view of the volcanic lake (Lago di Nemi).
From there we tried to go back around the church on the other side and came across a street, alley really, that was so small we thought we had reached a dead end. I was skeptical and went to take a look. The street managed to get even smaller as I passed a door open on a family enjoying lunch, then another door encased with the smell of jasmine. I rounded a corner and the street opened up just enough for a women to have set up a table to sell wine and sandwiches. She had in front of her a large pig from which she was slicing pieces of porchetta, roast pig with a variety of seasonings. We had been discussing options for lunch but when we smelled the porchetta and she offered us a taste of homemade wine, we were sold. We each had a sandwich, so full of meat we had to keep them wrapped in a napkin to prevent them from falling apart, and a glass of red wine. While we stood there and ate our sandwiches we chatted with the woman a bit and she made fun of my Italian accent, imitating the guttural American pronunciation. This is something that has not really happened to me before, and at first I was slightly offended but then it occurred to me that it meant I was speaking pretty well if I had accent to make fun of.
Here's the pig...
After lunch we took a free shuttle down to the lake where there is a museum of Roman ships. In the 1930's, under Mussolini, fragments of a Roman ship were discovered along the shore of the lake. He had the entire lake drained, through a tunnel the Roman had built, and two large ships were discovered sitting on the bottom of the lake. The both came from the time of Caligula, (verified by his official seal on the piping found on one of the ships) and the hulls were well preserved partially in the mud at the bottom of the lake. They were excavated and moved to a museum built specifically to house them on the northern shore of the lake. The architect was Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo, who designed the original pavilion for the Ara Pacis. The structure itself looks likes like the inside of a boat hull turned upside-down, with massive ribs and spanning two wide open rooms that housed the boats, which were built solely as pleasure palaces for the Emperor to cruise around the lake on. Sadly, during World War II the boats were burned as Nazi forces were being driven south of Rome, the Allies blamed the Germans and the Germans blamed the Allies. Among the pieces that remain are two sets of window shutters complete with hinges, some metal roof tiles, four marble columns, lead pipes that heated the baths, a large anchor and other small metal pieces such as door handles.
Below is one of the anchors, along with my roommate Domenico to give a little sense of the size.
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