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A Quick Tour Of Italy - Latium West Of Rome
I love touring Italy so much that I am doing a series on both the well known and the rarely visited tourist attractions of Italy's twenty regions. This short article explores sights in the western part of the Latium region of central Italy including some history, local food, and Latium wine. Please join me on this quick tour.
If you are looking for a European tourist destination, consider the Latium region of central western Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Latium, also known as Laszio, is the region that includes Italy’s capital Rome, the Eternal City. Because it is so easy to find articles describing the multiple pleasures of Rome, we are going to write about the lesser-known attractions of Latium. This article focuses on Latium east of Rome. A companion article describes Latium west of Rome.
Tivoli is the famous site of Hadrian’s Villa, a getaway retreat for that famous Roman emperor. He ran the empire from this villa during the latter years of his rule. The site exceeds a square kilometer (over 250 acres), It contains more than thirty buildings. The Vatican Museums contain much of this UNESCO World Heritage Site’s decorations and statues.
Villa d’Este is another UNESCO World Heritage Site in Tivoli. It is a beautiful water garden, reminiscent of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This villa was founded in the mid-Sixteenth Century by a son of Lucrezia Borgia. One ‘pathway’ is known as the Avenue of One Hundred Fountains. Be sure that you see the Fontana di Rome, a scale model of Ancient Roman, demolished but partially rebuilt.
The town of Ninfa was destroyed during the Fourteenth Century. For some six hundred years it lay in ruins, largely because of the malarial mosquitoes in the nearby marshes. In 1920 an aristocratic English artist, Ada Wilbraham, married into the Caetani family which had been given the city way back in 1297 by a Caetani Pope. Wilbraham started the restoration that has continued to this day. The site includes a bridge and seven Roman churches, a castle, and the city wall.
Anzio, a resort city of some 45,000 people was the birthplace of the Roman Emperors Caligula and Nero. In 1944 it was the site of a major World War II battle, Operation Shingle. Visit the Anzio Beachhead British Military Cemetery, the Beachhead Museum, and the American Military Cemetery in nearby Nettuno.
Latium cuisine is abundant. The best cuts of meat were reserved for the rich. The poor had to make do with the rest, including feet, heart, and the like. See our companion article I Love Touring Italy - Eastern Latium for a sample menu, additional information on Latium wines, and an in-depth examination of its tourist attractions. Today Latium is hardly known for its wine but in the distant past Falernum, a Latium red was the hit of Ancient Rome.