Italy - The countryside of Lazio - land of olives and Merlot!

Blog 35

A trip to the region of Lazio in Italy:

Mount Etna

Our first excursion stop after exiting the Suez canal - three sea days in the Mediterranean and we turned north through the straits of Messina, the narrow strip of water between Sicily and southern Italy. It was early morning and the view of Mount Etna was majestic on our port bow.

Stromboli Island

A few miles north and the active volcanic mountain that is the isle of Stromboli appeared on our starboard side. It has been smouldering away and releasing its belly of lava continuously since 1932. Over 80 years non-stop and the island is still inhabited!  It is affectionately known as "the lighthouse of the Mediterranean" as it glows red from the top of the 900m peak at night.

The Tyrrhenian Sea brings us to the "Port of Rome", which is Civitavecchia. It's chilly and raining lightly (yes we are most definitely back in Europe on our home leg) when we dock in this historic fort city. Rome is 55 miles away to the south east where most of our fellow QM2 Guests are going, either by organised coach or on their own by the one hour train journey. Taking these port and fort pictures later in day as the weather improved a great deal.

We had decided not to go to the bustling seven hill City. We have both been to the wonders of Rome before and therefore we headed north to the region of Lazio which borders Tuscany to see some lovely countryside, the  walled town of Tuscania and then a lunch visit to hear the story of olives which are synonymous with this region and indeed southern Italy. As a bonus I might well be sampling the local Merlot wine and purchasing one or two for home use!..

WW2 damage to the old city wall

The modern port area

The Michelangelo Forte

QM2 docks at 7am and we are now in the province of Rome in the region of Latium. Civitavecchia means "ancient town", the harbour being constructed at the beginning of the 2nd century AD by Emperor Trajan. The Forte Michelangelo was built in 1535 to defend the town from pirates. The upper part of the large 'maschio' tower was completed by Michelangelo, thus providing the name of the fortress. This city suffered a great deal in WW2 and the vast majority of it is now a 'new' town and the heritage buildings and sites lost to the world for ever. 

Vineyards in the Countryside

We are very quickly driving into the rolling  countryside which is mostly green pastures, olive trees and vineyards. We are stopping at Tuscania, an early Etruscan town which has been here for well over 2000 years. The Etruscans were the local people here and were close neighbours of the Romans. Very slowly the Roman Empire expanded, its strong warriors capturing all the neighbouring territories in the 1st century BC. 

The old town of Tarquinia

Of course we all know the Roman empire went on to become one of the largest and most influential civilisations the world has ever seen and it all started around here with local skirmishes. The local city Tarquinia fell in 308BC and the main river here (the Marta) which in those days was navigable gave the Romans a way to the port at Civitavecchia. The river still flows here but is now only a stream. 

Etruscan
Pottery

Gladius sword

The Romans took on a lot of the traditions and skills of the Etruscan people, an example being the 'gladius' which is a small fighting sword. This is where the Gladiators derived from which provided the sport for Romans in the cities throughout their Empire. There is also the famous local pottery which is predominately 

black and white urns with dancing figures.

The walls of Tuscania

Roof tops of Tuscania

We stopped for an hour's free time to explore the beautiful walled town of Tuscania. There had been an earthquake here 40 years ago which caused a lot of damage. There is now a new town and the historic walled area which in itself has several new buildings intermixed with the classic Italian medieval layout. 

The views from the Monastery

I bought my first bottle of local Merlot in one of the few shops that were open in mid morning. This is a 'dolce vita'(happy 

life) village; let's put off till tomorrow or even later what we should be doing now! One busy cafe catered for the tourist who preferred to drink coffee rather than explore the twisting  lanes to the 

panoramic views up by the monastery. I am often amazed at why anybody wants to sit in a cafe when we only have one hour to look around, and that's after sitting on a coach for an hour! Human nature never fails to make me laugh inwardly. 

Rows of olive trees

Casale Bonaparte

We travel a short distance to a farmhouse dating back to 1600 

called Casale Bonaparte which we discover was the former hunting lodge of Napoleon's brother Prince Luciano. What a striking place it was and there were plenty of treats in store for us here. First up to learn more about one of my favourite delights - olives! There are 18,000 trees on the estate so they should know what they are about. The owner and our guide showed us how the trees are pruned and harvested and demonstrated the 'comb' that was used in days past to shake the olives from the trees. Nowadays it is done by machine and the olives fall onto a mat on the ground before being taken to be washed. 

Explaining the olive harvest

This estate produces award winning extra virgin olive oil. This is off the first press so the best quality oil. Second press is labelled "virgin' and the third press is light and the poorest quality oil. It takes 30kg of olives to produce a litre of extra virgin oil and that is a lot of fruit. The colour of the olives depends on when they are harvested. The harvest takes place between October and January - green is harvested early and black is a late picker; it is not a different variety unlike a wine grape. There must be no contact with the skin or hands when harvesting as this can create an acid and impairs the flavour hence the matting at the foot of each tree for the olives to fall onto. 

The lunch venue at the Casale

Lunch was a light sumptuous Mediterranean treat of various olive pastes and bruscetta dishes - aubergine - courgette - cherry tomatoes, all doused with oil, local cheese and of course the merlot, a wonderful meal finished with a dram of 'grappa' a spirit from the grape which tasted remarkably similar to malt whiskey. We purchased a pack with a litre of extra virgin olive oil and a quality bottle of merlot. We would have bought a few more I can assure you if we did not have to pack up all our belongings to go home!

Marchigiana cattle

The journey back to the port showed us more countryside, this time fields

Field of wheat for pasta

of rape seed and wheat for Pasta, another Italian favourite. We pass
Pianiano the smallest walled village in Lazio region south of the volcanic lake of Bolsena. There were a couple of fields of the fantastic and famed long horned marchigiana cows. Goodness you don't want to get too close to those if they are milkers!

View of the five masted clipper in the port

The day ended with a stroll around the fort and dock areas and catching up on emails in a wifi cafe. There is a rare sight of a five master clipper moored close to the QM2. A really pleasant day and now we are sailing for Lisbon.

I am looking forward to passing the Rock of Gibraltar. Another special happening will take place in Lisbon. This is the 10th anniversary of the QM2 and all three Southampton when the Duke of Edinburgh comes on board.

Queens (Victoria and Elizabeth) are meeting up to sail into port and convoy back for a birthday party in

I am going to try to get the Lisbon blog out before our destination and then maybe look back on the day trip before Petra. This was in Oman arriving at the port of Muscat and taking a coach trip through the desert to Nizwa Fort.

                                                                                         DKT