BLUE


And what about the sea? Water routes too mark the stages in man's royage, which goes beyond the limits of written history, wrapped in myth.

In the province of Latina, the promontory of Circeo, where Homer's hero Aeneas paused on his travels, is an undying myth: a blend of environments, archaeological traces makes this habitat a place unique in its kind.

To the south is Terracina, the old town that the Volsci called Anxur, dominated by a rock on which the temple of Jupiter once stood. Then there is Sperlonga, a town of white buildings on a high spur, and Gaeta standing next to Monte Orlando which, according to legend, split at the moment of Christ's death.

The real apotheosis of the sea is in the islands of Ponza, Palmarola, Zannone, Ventotene, Gavi and Santo Stefano, which form the Pontine Archipelago. Drawn and modelled, crushed and layered, Ponza lies in a sea of indefinable blue. Next to it is Palmarola, an island without myths, that has remained intact for thousands of years.

Ventotene is the island which, in the first century A.D., the emperor Augustus turned into a golden prison for his daughter Julia, guilty of immorality and licentiousness. The remaind of the prison villa, conceived for person of exclusively imperial rank, are still to be seen at Punta Eolo. Roman presence is felt throughout the island. A sheltered harbour was built here, and a fish pond with open and closed tanks, in caves hollowed out of the tufa. This was used especially for raising eels, an activity carried out also on Ponza. All around there were, and still are, a series of little boles placed close together, forming a deposit for salt obtained by natural evaporation.

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