Italy - Minturno

View of Minturno from my hilltop perch in Pat and Mindy's apartment

Minturno, or the Comune di Minturno, is a beautiful city in between Naples and Rome on the Western coast of Italy in Latina, the same province as Rome. It's on the shin of the Italian boot, if you will. It's an ancient town that began as a Roman city along the Appian Way, which we'll look at more below. Today it's actually a group of cities, including the coastal district (Marina) and a shopping area (Scauri) and the city on the hill, which is where the ancient folks of Minturnae fled for defensive security as the Roman Empire was in decline.

If you want to visit "real Italy" where you'll need to learn at least some Italian to get around and experience the way Italians live outside the big cities, this is a great spot to do it. As I pointed out in an earlier post, I was lucky enough to have some relatives buy an apartment there where I could stay for the cost of utilities, so I had a beautiful place to stay and an even more beautiful view. If you choose to visit the area, there are plenty of places you can stay closer to the ocean, but be sure to travel up to the hill at some point and see the old city, where the "new" church is the one that St. Francis of Assisi founded. Check out Trip Advisor for some ideas on locations and see more things to do than we can cover here.

The "new" church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, built in the 1300s.

This was a unique trip for me in that I stayed in just two places instead of my typical pattern of moving around a lot, so I'll divide this trip up more by our visits to different spots by day than by city.

First up - a look at Minturno and the things to do there. The apartment I stayed at had a beautiful view and was in a very small town at the top of the hill. There are a lot of places you can check out. Pictures are worth more here than words. We'll start with food and then move on to some other things...

This is the margherita pizza at Roni's family restaurant, a small eatery that I went to on my first night there and had some rustic Italian food.

The Italian donuts were amazing... as was the cappuccino.

Dinner at B-52 pizzeria/restaurant, which was not as great as the other places. Don't get the tomato sauce pizza, get the B-52 pizza that I had with proscuitto and rosemary. Also, don't get to an Italian restaurant until 6:30 at the earliest, they won't be open!

Cappuccino and journaling was a great way to relax and chronicle the journey at the cafe was a daily stop.

I got this cool hat at the market... I swear this was the most touristy I looked the whole trip.

Wine was just 1.80 Euros per liter at the local fish shop (address Via Cordona 9) and it's very good. Bring your own bottle and they'll be happy. The lady there speaks a little English as well.

We went to Sunday mass while we were there and the town mascot (which we called "Yellow Dog") joined the folks for service. He's everywhere around town. I thought it fitting that a dog joins mass in a church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi.

Visiting with Yellow Dog after a day in Formia.

View of the simple interior of the church of St. Francis. It's a big contrast from the gaudier churches in Rome.

Minturno has some great beaches. Be sure to check them out if you go. Keep in mind that the public ones are very crowded though and that private ones, like this one, charge you to enter. It's worth it to pay. Lindsay Lohan visited a little bit before we arrived in town, or so I heard.

You can still see ancient Roman aqueducts heading towards Minturnae.

Be sure to visit the museum and ancient ruins of Minturnae, the Roman city that pre-dates "modern" Minturno. They still have local performances here.

A good look at a Roman Arch, which is what made their relative tall buildings possible. Most of the time they're filled in, as the arch is for architectural support, not for openings (like this one).

Some of the ruins of the Temple of Augustus.

This is a reconstructed arch in the Minturnae forum, where shops used to line the Appian Way in front of these arches.

Closer view of the forum and a look at the chariot grooves made in the Appian Way. On the right you can see where the store fronts would be set up for things like grain, wine, fish, and more. Local politics would happen here as well.

What the inside of a column looks like (and the outline of my cool Italian straw hat).

The city's communal bath house. A bench would be placed along the wall on top of those stone stools and the clean water would run along the ditch in front, where you could dip your sponge in to make the ancient equivalent of wet wipes... Also can see half of our personal tour guide, Mike - Pat's brother and accomplished architect. There's a better picture of him on our first post.

A view of the caste on top of the hill next to the town square (we're back in "Minturno alto" now).

I saw a musical performance by what appeared to be a pretty famous police band the night before we left for Rome. Great view from the cafe next to the square! It's easy to get places early in Italy. The concert "started" at 9, which meant that the band started getting on stage around 9:30.

This is a view before dark of the same concert, but one where you can see the canopy cover the trees provide for the town square park. This is a view from one of the local bars on the hill. If you were to look left from here you'd see the the church of St. Francis.

Head up the street from the town square and you'll find the cafe I liked and the older church in town, the Chiesa di San Pietro. This is the view from inside the Church of St. Peter in Minturno.

A look up at the ceiling in Chiesa di San Pietro

Once you've mastered the bus system and figured out how to get around, head over to the next town to the north, which is Formia. There you'll find a bunch of shopping and a nice museum (even if it's only in Italian). This city was bombed quite a bit during WWII, but there are still many things to see and plenty of shopping to do. Below are some of our favorite things.

View of the port where the bus drops you off, which is still heavily utilized.

Check out the National Archeological Museum in town for some cool statues. Unfortunately no English guide, but still cool to see all of the archeological finds.

There are a lot of things to see in Formia, including this 1st Century (BC) Roman Cistern.

The underwater remains of an ancient Roman bath are still visible from the port docks.

Be sure to stop by the visitor's center right next to the museum along the Via Vitruvio and pick up a map with local sites. This was the home of Cicero, so it has a lot more to see that we didn't have time to check out.

The church of St. Erasmus in Formia.

 

Lastly, a longer trip, and one that's definitely worth it, is to Monte Cassino. If you've seen the movie Monuments Men you will see in the very first scene George Clooney talking about lost artifacts and sites destroyed during WWII, including the hilltop monastery of Monte Cassino, which was also bombed heavily during WWII. And no, it wasn't Germany who did it, it was the United States going after the Germans, who we erroneously thought were hiding there. They weren't, although after we bombed it it made some nice bunkers for them. Nonetheless, they undertook what must have been a tremendous rebuilding effort and there is today a beautiful monastery again at the top of the hill, which serves as the site where St. Benedict and St. Francis both developed their monastic rules for their orders.

View of the square in the middle of the monastery looking down from the steps to the chapel.

Panaromic view from the monastery walls looking out. Helps you understand why so many monks choose to live here...

There are so many vibrant and beautiful mosaics to see here that you could spend a whole day looking at them.

Another beautiful mosaic in the church. Be sure to check out the crypt as well.

View of the church at the top of the monastery. Statues of popes line the walls.

Walking inside you can't help but look up at the ceiling.

View of one of the walls heading down into the crypt.

More beautiful mosaics down in the crypt.

I liked this "Fruits of the Spirit" carving on the wall.

The view looking up into the dome.

It is a monastery still, so you'll probably see a Benedictine monk walking around at some point. They make great limoncello and a not-so-great liquor that tastes like cough syrup. They also make great chocolate.

The main garden at the entry of the monastery.

After wrapping up our 4 days in Minturno, I decided to leave early and head for Rome to get a head start on sight-seeing there and hopefully have time for a day in Florence. Stay tuned for more...