Saturday in Nemi

On Saturday we took a day trip to Nemi, a town in the Alban Hills overlooking Lake Nemi,a volcanic crater lake, about 30 km southeast of Rome.

The 1,700 residents of the town live and work

in buildings dating from the middle ages to the 20th century.

The lake was used by the Roman Emperor Caligula for several luxury barges where he would entertain guests. One barge was actually a floating temple and another barge incuded a marble Roman bath complex. (Later in the day we went to the nearby Lake Albano below Castel Gondolfo and ejoyed some time in a paddle boat.)

This is a bust of Caligula in the town piazza.

A street musician greeted us as we arrived in the town.

We were tempted with displays of pork products.

We had a delicious pranzo (lunch) in a restaurant on the cliff overlooking the lake. Of course we had strawberries with gelato for dessert

Nemi is famous for its wild strawberries, which are smaller and sweeter than commercially grown varieties. Nemi's strawberries are grown on the sides of the volcanic crater, which creates a microclimate that retains the warmth of the sun and provides a wind shield.

Lago di Nemi

On Sunday, after getting sandwiches in the town of Genzano, we drove over the hill to Lake Nemi for a picnic. It is a 400 acre volcanic lake about 30 km south of Rome and named for the town of Nemi that overlooks it from the top of a hill.
We were sitting on the opposite side from where George Inness painted this picture in 1872, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

As we were driving to our picnic spot I was surprised to see a Naval Museum on the shore of this relatively small lake. I want to go back and visit the museum to discover more about the sunken Roman ships that were found in Lake Nemi. These ships were built by the Emperor Caligula in the 1st century AD. One of his ships was designed as a temple, dedicated to Diana. Another was basically a floating palace with marble, mosaic floors, and even plumbing for Roman baths. Mussolini had the ships pulled out of the lake (1927-1932) and after nineteen centuries the hulls were mostly intact. Tragically, the ships were destroyed by artillery fire in World War II.

A photo of one of the hulls taken before World War II.