Naples Roman Resort of Baia

The Bay of Naples ~Baia, Naples and Vesuvius

Just north of the city of Naples lies ancient Baia. It is a quiet little town on the Mediterranean with a small bay of sailboats and motor yachts. Life is laid back and simple here. Families gather at the waterfront park to cheer on a game of water polo while friends and couples share a meal of pizza and espresso at a small cafe. The single lane roads wind up and down over the hilly terrain accompanied with walkers more often than cars. A mecca of peace. But this wasn’t always so.

Did you know that Baia was the playground of the extremely rich and wealthy from the first to the third century AD? Baia far surpassed Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Capri as a desirable resort full of hedonistic temptations. Rumours of scandal and corruption filled the palace halls and baths. Julius Caesar, Nero, Hadrian and Caligula had spacious pleasure palaces built along the shoreline. Much of the town was considered imperial property under Augustus.

What was the big attraction to Baia? To begin with, Baia sits on an active volcanic area known as the Phlegrian Fields. During the Roman empire, engineers constructed a complex system of chambers that brought heat beneath the surface into bathing facilities that became saunas. These baths were used for medicinal purposes as well as relaxation. Remains of a thermal bathing complex can be seen today close to the water where the land rises on a hillside.

Remember the Trojan Horse? It was Baius, also known as Oddysseus, who came up with the whole strategy of building and hiding his Greek warriors inside the wooden horse. After they entered Troy, they came out from hiding and fought. Baia was named after this heroic figure, who is believed to be buried there.

Have you heard the legend of Baia? It was in 39 AD that the new emperor Caligula ordered a temporary floating bridge to be built from Baia to the neighboring port of Puteoli. Roman historian Suetonius states that the bridge was over three miles long. Sand was poured from various ships in the area to make the bridge passable. It is said that Caligula, clad in a flowing gold cloak, crossed the bridge on his horse in defiance against the Roman astrologer Thrasyllus who predicted that he had “no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Gulf of Baia.”

Whether the legend is true or not, what became of Baia? Where are all those luxury palace ruins? Because of the volcanic activity of the area, most of Baia is now underwater in the Bay of Naples. Very little is left of these palaces, but a glass bottom boat operates regular excursions out to view these ruins in shallow water.

Today Baia is an archaeological playground. It was here the renowned Roman writers Virgil, Cicero and Horace hobnobbed with the wealthiest. Baia, the metropolis of hedonism, washed away by the waves of time.

Roman Baia, Forgotten Paradise of the Rich and Famous

Bay of Baia near Napoli

Once the exotic playground of Roman emperors Julius Caesar, Nero, and Caligula, the one-time seaside resort of Baia just north of Naples enticed and tickled the fancies of the first-century elite. Horace described it as “Nowhere in the world is more agreeable than Baia.” Pliny praised the medicinal qualities of the water.

Rich Romans built magnificent villas along the coastline that have since become submerged under water. Because the land of Baia and its surroundings are a volcanic area, the land has dropped six meters

Lake Como: Mingle with the Caesars and the Stars

Bellagio overlooking Lake Como

“I love the way life is spent in Italy….It’s really nice to sit down and have a two-hour lunch, which the Italians do. I realized that I had spent 15, 20 years standing up and shoveling food down my throat. It’s not about wealth; it’s about taking time and actually enjoying things.” Anonymous

Tranquil, peaceful, serene, romantic.…these words describe one of the most beautiful places on earth; Lake Como in Lombardy, northern Italy. Tall stately cypress provides pomp to the transcendent villas that populate the shoreline and hillside. Boats seem to glide across glass suspended above fathoms of deep blue water, turning a shimmery silver as the sun sets. Lake Como, steeped in history from ancient times, has become a paradise today for the rich and famous.

Villa del Balbianello

My love affair with Lake Como began the day I stepped foot off a boat and onto Como soil. A world of palatial elegance enveloped me immediately, and I imagined that I was one of the wealthy Villa dwellers, if only for a day.

Lake Como has been on the map for centuries. Julius Caesar, in the first century BC, sent 5,000 Romans to settle in Como to develop and protect the trade route between Rome and Reastia (Switzerland). In the first century Pliny the Elder and Younger both took up residence at Lake Como. Pliny the Elder is famous for his writings on natural history. He observed the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, only to get too close to the event and die in the aftermath. Pliny the Younger, his adopted nephew, wrote about the eruption of the volcano.

Dramatic hillsides and deep ravines rise and swell with the shoreline of Lake Como. Many Romanesque churches dot the landscape, bringing to mind earlier times and rulership. Two of the most powerful and wealthy Milanese families, the Sforza and Visconti, ruled Lake Como during the medieval era.

Billa del Balbianello on Lake Como

Lake Como today thrives as a modern retreat with a good supply of converted castles and lovely villa’s offering luxurious accommodations. Don’t be surprised if you happen to bump into familiar celebrity faces. The lake is scattered with their elegant lakeside villas.

Villa Oleandra -George Clooney’s Estate on Lake Como

Carolyn of Brunswick, the estranged wife of the Prince of Wales, came to Lake Como in 1816 and claimed the huge mansion Villa d’Este as her home. Since then, the lake has seen many of the rich and wealthy come to settle. George Clooney owns two homes; Villa Margherita and Villa Oleandra, which he keeps up beautifully. Sting and Richard Branson, as well as the Versace family (Villa Le Fontanelle) keep villas on the lake as well.

“Lake Como (Lago di Como), lined with elegant 19th Century villas, crowned by snow-capped mountains, and busy with ferries, hydrofoils, and slow, passenger-only boats–is a good place to take a break from the intensity and obligatory-turnstile culture of central Italy. It seems like half the travelers you’ll meet have tossed their itineraries into the lake and are actually relaxing.” Rick Steves, “Italy 2013”

I did toss my itinerary into the lake and found myself melting into the land, the cypress, the deep blue waters that shimmer like a silver web at eventide, the winding pathways that spring under my footstep as I pondered those who walked before me. As I sat by the water’s edge, the rythmic lapping lulled me to sleep, cradled in the arms of the timeless mountains.

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Roman Falernian Wine, “The Toast of Ancient Poets and Senators”

 

“…the only wine that takes flight when a flame is applied to it.”   

Pliny the Elder

The year is 115 AD, with Imperial Rome at the height of its power. The Commissatio is just beginning. Banquets were commonly hosted by an upper  class couple in their villa, with several guests invited to partake of delectable feasting and conversation. Let me explain the commissatio as a cheerful game of toasts, after the banquet, which goes on late into the evening with almost everyone …….drunk!   There is a whole cast of wines available, from cheap to vile, which would come from Vatican Hill or Marseille. But, a high-class commissatio offered the most excellent wine to be had; Falerno, wine of the gods, produced in northern Campania, the region of Naples. Wine was poured into a krater, and goblets dipped into it to be hastily consumed in one gulp as part of a game. Pliny the Elder and Horace raved about this particular wine as supremo above all others. They lifted Falerno into a legendary status.

As legend goes, Falernus, an old Roman farmer, was visited by Bacchus on his humble farm on his mountain. Falernus prepared him a simple meal, and in gratitude Bacchus filled all the cups at the table with wine. When Falernus awoke the next morning, Bacchus had vanished. He looked over his land and saw that his entire mountain, Mt. Falernus, was covered with vines.

Bacchus

Falerno was grown in three vineyards on the slopes of Mt. Falernus, or Mt. Mossico (on the border between Latium and Campania). Today the area encompasses the Falerno del Massico DOC, where the primary grapes grown are Falanghina, Aglianico and Piedirosso.

Falerno, a predecessor to ice wine, was originally a white wine with a stratospheric  alcohol content of 16%.  It was produced from late-harvest grapes that had experienced a frost or two and let to dry. The wine was aged for 15-20 years in clay amphorae before drinking. It was amber to dark brown due to oxidation. Varro, in 37 BC, recorded the fact that Falernian wine increased in value as it matured. Pliny the Elder mentioned that Falernian from the famed vintage of 121 BC (vintage of a lifetime), was served to Julius Caesar in 60 BC at a banquet celebrating his conquest of Spain. This particular vintage was celebrated for decades.

Made from the Aglianico (red) grape and/or Greco di Tufo (white) grape, Falernian became a byword for luxury. Recorded as having a strong, fruity flavor, Pliny described Falerno as three types–“the rough, the sweet and the thin.”

Falernian stood the test of time well as a top-ranking Roman wine for at least five centuries. Popular among the emperors and the wealthy, not all of them thought highly of it. Marcus Aurelius, an emperor who usually shrugged at the finer things in life, kept a good perspective about this wine: “After all”, he wrote, even “Falernian wine is just juice from a bunch of grapes.”