Via Francigena del Sud Day 9: Fondi - Formia

Road (to) from Rome Day 9: Fondi - Itria - Gaeta - Formia (27.5 km walked) 

I think whatever I meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me, I think whoever I see must be happy. From this hour, freedom!

- Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1856)

For reasons known only to the organisers of this four-month-long walking marathon, of which I am participating in the final month, today we condensed two stages of the Via Francigena into one day, and made this feasible by allowing those of us who didn't feel up to walking 40 km to skip a dozen kilometres of urban walking with a short bus ride. Even so it was a long and event-packed day, as we were received by the civic and religious authorities of four different towns and had plenty of natural and historic sights to see! 

Walking in Italy is best done slowly to allow plenty of time to see all the places of natural and cultural interest that you encounter along the way!

We began the day by gathering in front of the castle in Fondi for a group photo and the priest's greetings and blessing. 

Those of us who went to Ventotene yesterday had missed the tour of the town of Fondi, but had an opportunity to visit the Jewish quarter and the new museum in the former synagogue when we returned from the island last night. And to visit the new research centre for the Via Francigena opened by the Gruppo dei Dodici, which I shall write about in a separate post! 

With Herta, director of the research centre for the study of the Via Francigena 

Street art in Fondi

In the former Jewish quarter of Fondi

The wine of the region of Fondi, known to the ancient Romans as cæcubum, was praised by Pliny the Elder as well as by Horace, in his ode Nunc est bibendum encouraging the Roman people to celebrate the defeat of Cleopatra with drinking and dancing:

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero

pulsanda tellus

Now it is time to drink; now with loose feet
it is time for beating the earth

Horace, Odes, Book I 37 (17 B.C.)

Shortly after leaving the town behind, we came to an intact stretch of Roman pavement of the Via Appia Antica. It was a sobering thought that we were walking on the very stones trodden by St. Peter and St. Paul on their way to Rome; that we were walking the very road along which 6000 slaves were crucified in retaliation for the rebellion led by Spartacus in 71 BC. 

Resting at an ancient Roman post for changing horses

We are often accompanied by local groups of walkers and runners, such as Fondi Runners, who joined us today

A shortcut on a path overgrown with brambles took us, somewhat scratched but intact, onto the road to Itri, where the municipality offered us flasks of tea and biscuits, providing the energy we needed to face the steep climb on the road between Itri and Gaeta! 

Coming into the lower part of the town of Itri

The name Itri means Way, so it was appropriate that we paused there only briefly on our way

The castle of Itri

At the top after a long, steep climb

At the top of the hill a passing car stopped and the driver instructed us to stop and wait when we reached a certain point on the road. We did, and he came back with his wife, bearing bottles of water and a basket of fruit from their orchard. We got talking and Maurizio and Nila wanted to invite us to their home for lunch - all thirty of us! Unfortunately we had to decline their offer as we had an appointment in the cathedral in Gaeta, but the fruit and cold drinks were very refreshing! 

With Maurizio (holding the staff) and Nila

After a long stretch walking along a paved road without traffic with amazing views over the sea, we descended toward Gaeta, the town we had seen from the sea yesterday on our way to Ventotene. 

We stopped on the beach in Serapo to eat our picnic lunches, and some found the time for a quick swim! I contented myself with taking off my shoes and lying down on the sand, which was probably not a good idea as both myself and my backpack were covered with a fine layer of sand by the time we left! 

In Gaeta we were received by the head priest, as the bishop was off on the island of Ventotene to celebrate the festival of the island's patron saint, Santa Candida. The priest showed us how Roman columns had been incorporated into the cathedral, a basilica dedicated to St. Erasmus, and let us into the ornately decorated 17th century crypt added to the church by order of Charles V. 

The church of the Annunciation in Gaeta

Walking into Gaeta

Gaeta was not our final destination for the day, but by this time we had already walked 27.5 kilometres, including plenty of ups and downs, so we took the bus through what was in any case a highly urbanised and touristy waterfront area to the centre of Formia. Here, representatives of the municipality (which currently has no mayor, awaiting local elections) received us in the town hall, where we were joined by the President of the European Association of the Vie Francigene, Massino Tedeschi, at a meeting where we bloggers also had an opportunity to briefly introduce ourselves and talk about what we are doing. 

This was followed by refreshments and a visit to one of the ten archaeological sites in Formia, the Torre di Mola, a defensive tower built by King Charles II of Anjou, and adjacent Roman baths by the waterfront. Formia was founded by the Lacones and named Hormiai in Greek, meaning "landing place", becoming Ormiae and then Formiae in Latin; the sailors who landed here went directly to the baths to clean up and be refreshed after their long voyage. Which is probably what we should have done! It had been a very long day and a number of members of our group were too tired to participate in all the events the town had planned for our arrival, but those of us who did were rewarded at the end of the tour with a glass of a very unusual wine, an unfiltered fizzy white made from cesanese del piglio grapes, a rare local varietal, served with a selection of delicious snacks including tiella, a rustic sort of pizza pie stuffed with vegetables, olives and anchovies or octopus which is a specialty of the area. 

Tiella stuffed with green vegetables and olives

A word about the death of Cicero

Formia is perhaps best known as the place where Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and philosopher Cicero was assassinated after falling afoul of Mark Antony. As the two most powerful men in Rome, the pair had never got along well; but when Cicero dared to accuse Antony of taking liberties in his interpretation of the late Julius Caesar's wishes, and attacked him in a series of speeches known as the Philippics, they became enemies. Cicero's attempts to undermine Antony's power were doomed to failure when Mark Antony formed the Second Triumvirate with Lepidus and Octavian (Cicero's adopted son and heir). Cicero was proscribed as an enemy of the state, and hunted down and killed on December 7, 43 B.C. as he was being carried out of his villa in Formiae on a litter in an attempt to escape to Macedonia. Seeing the soldiers approach, Cicero, a true skeptic right to the end, leaned his head and neck out of his litter with the words: "I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and sever this neck, if you can at least do so much properly."  

The tomb of Cicero is a 24-metre-high monument enclosed in a large funerary precinct on the old Appian Way.  Unfortunately it is not on the Via Francigena, so we didn't see it: a great excuse to come back to the beautiful town and beaches of Formia!