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Story and photography by Manos Angelakis
additional photographs courtesy Aeneas’ Landing
Aeneas’ Landing Hotel Villaggio
Via Flacca km 23,600 04024
Gaeta (Lt) 04024
Tel: 0039-0771-741713
Fax: 0039-0771-740228
Email: hotel@aeneaslanding.it
Virgil’s epic poem Aeneid, written in 19 B.C.E., glorifies the origins of the Roman people. The poem, composed of almost 12,000 lines, tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a prince of Troy, who traveled to Italy after the fall of the fabled city, and became the ancestor of the Romans. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas’ travels and Rome's Trojan past.
Since the Roman times the Lazio coast, south of Rome and before Naples, is inundated with this mythology. The area is called “the Ulysses Coast” and numerous references are made to the Odyssey and the Aeneid. One example; we were served a lovely white wine that is named, Circeo, i.e. wine of Circe, the beautiful sorceress that transformed Ulysses’ sailors to pigs by serving them charmed wine. As a female friend commented at the time, “you do not really have to be an ancient sorceress to achieve that, just give them enough wine and you can repeat the trick at any time”!
Another reference was the name of the hotel, “Aeneas’ Landing”. Located in a beautiful cove on the Tyrrhenian Sea and surrounded by a golden sand beach, it is an exclusive, luxurious resort village. This is an ideal location on the Gulf of Gaeta, for a demanding vacationer looking for an oasis of comfort where no detail is overlooked.
As you start walking from the entrance down a steep hill, you see pine trees and  Mediterranean vegetation intermingling in a planned garden fragrant with pine, thyme, myrtle, eucalyptus, and multicolored bougainvilleas and jasmine. Clay Roman-styled planters surround the buildings, planted with a profusion of colorful geraniums. A man-made waterfall cascades into a mineral-spring fed swimming pool by the bar. The stone walled, Mediterranean farmhouse-styled bungalows that contain both single rooms and suits with rustic furnishing and interiors, have sculptural elements from ancient Roman buildings incorporated in the stonework; they all face the sea, as do the indoor dining room, conference rooms, and the panoramic terraces. The rooms and suites are built around open-air, flower-filled courtyards, very much in the manner of ancient Roman housing.
The magic of this property is the golden sand private beach, studded with elegant  reclining chairs and market umbrellas. The temperate waters of the cove, protected by forested outcroppings falling precipitously toward the sea, afford the guests long swims from April to October. Fiery sunsets produce a view with a priceless spectacle of the gulf. The beach-bar serves excellent espresso, and I first had a double, then spying a bottle of Picolit single-vineyard Grappa from Nonino, I decided to ask for an “espresso coretto” a very Roman coffee-drinker’s potion. The barperson, a lovely dark haired woman that looked a little like Gina Lollobrigida, asked me whether I would like my espresso corrected with Grappa, Sambuca or Galianno. I assured her that Grappa was preferred, and I had my Roman-coffee looking at the sea lapping the golden sand of the cove.
© February 2010 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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