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Home > Travel Italy > Italy Destinations > Gaeta
Gaeta
Italy, officially the Italian Republic or Repubblica Italiana, is a Southern European country comprising of the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. It is shaped like a boot and for this reason Italians commonly call it lo Stivale, the boot or, due to its prevalent peninsular geographical nature, la Penisola, the Peninsula.
Gaeta is a city and comune in the province of Latina, in Lazio, central Italy. It is set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta. It is 120 kilometer from Rome and 80 kilometer from Naples. As of December 31, 2004, it had the population of 21,522 and area of 28 square kilometers. The town has played a conspicuous part in military history. Its fortifications date back to Roman times and it has several traces of the period, including the first-century mausoleum of the Roman general Lucius Munatius Plancus at the top of the Montagna Spaccata.
It is the ancient Caieta, situated on the slopes of the Torre di Orlando, a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean. Gaeta was an ancient Ionian colony of the Samians according to Strabo, who believed the name stemmed from the Greek kaietas, which means cave and probably referring to the several harbours.
In the classical age Caieta, famous for its lovely and temperate climate, like the neighbouring Formia and Sperlonga, was a tourist resort and site of the seaside villas of many important and rich characters of Rome. Like the other Roman resorts, Caieta was linked to the capital of the Empire by Via Appia and its end trunk Via Flacca, through an apposite diverticulum’s or bye-road. Its port was of great importance in trade and in war, and was restored under Emperor Antoninus Pius. Among its antiquities is the mausoleum of Lucius Munatius Plancus. Gaeta is one of Italy’s most popular destinations, and is well known for the quantity of cultural related attractions and monuments that the city has embraced.
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