{"id":1631,"date":"2017-08-15T16:11:09","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T21:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=1631"},"modified":"2025-03-03T19:57:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T01:57:04","slug":"the-pontine-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/2017\/08\/15\/the-pontine-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pontine Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pontine Islands<\/p>\n

August 15, 2017<\/p>\n

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the case, our visit today should be worth over 100,000 words, since I took over 120 pictures on our two trips to the island of Ponza, the biggest island in the Pontine chain. I\u2019ll try to make writing about it shorter\u2026.<\/p>\n

In some ways, it\u2019s a fitting summary of our ten days at sea.\u00a0 It\u2019s our last full day at sea before we embark on the land portion, which will take us from Rome to Florence.<\/p>\n

T\"\"<\/a>he two-plus hour tour circling the island revealed the power\u2014and beauty\u2014of volcanic action; the shapes and colors were spectacular. 100 of my pictures were from this part of the day (and I\u2019ve only used 122 words so far!), with every kind of lava, ash, colors we\u2019ve seen, all in one place: white, black, yellow, and brown; some of the formations dripped and dried, sort of like sand castles at the Indiana Dunes. \"\"<\/a>There were caves and grottos that made me wish there were possible potential dive spots to see the wreck of the \u201cwater ship\u201d that supplies fresh water every day to the 4000 permanent residents (and the 20,000 summer visitors). When we went back \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>later, I quipped, \u201cIf we pool our water bottles, we might be able to buy the island.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s for sale, but we did pass an island that a family had bought, and put the only house atop the cliffs on that island.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ll try to post some pictures on Facebook so you can understand why I took what would have been three rolls of slide film (for those of you who remember film!)<\/p>\n

When we got back, the captain offered us a treat; we\u2019re anchored offshore, and he created a swimming area behind the boat, so those of us who wanted to jumped in. \u00a0Having brought my diving mask, I couldn\u2019t resist the temptation.\u00a0 The water was cool; I confess I was expecting the bathtub water of the Keys.\u00a0 It was, however, clear, but there wasn\u2019t much to see underwater. I can cross off \u201cswimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea\u201d from my to-do list.<\/p>\n

If volcanic activity and its results have been one constant, especially since Sicily, the historic tour of the city (generously termed!) of Ponza was a reminder that the Greeks and Romans really influenced the area.\u00a0 In Roman days, it was a resort for wealthy Romans, and something of a fish farm.\u00a0 Grottos, cisterns, and tunnels provided both freshwater and a farm for eels, apparently part of the Roman diet.\u00a0 2000 years later, current Italians are importing water from the mainland.\u00a0 Having seen many Roman ruins, I think Europe technologically is still struggling to get up to the civilization that disappeared when Roman civilization gave way to the dark ages.<\/p>\n

I walked to the top of the hill, overlooking the town. It now houses a church, naturally, but it was the site of a Roman villa, and the headquarters of a Roman<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The prison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

fleet. Next to the church is a naval headquarters, and behind it is a cemetery where Roman graves have been found. Along the way, I passed a Roman necropolis, a battlefield from the Napoleonic wars, \u00a0and a tower, remnant of the Bourbons as Kings of the Two Sicilies. The island was used as a prison, ironically, by Mussolini, who was housed here when Italy changed sides in the second world war.<\/p>\n

Too pretty for prisoners, Ponza now brings loads of tourists in the summer from Naples and Gaeta, a port of Rome, and where we disembark tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pontine Islands August 15, 2017 They say a picture is worth 1,000 words.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the case, our visit today should be worth over 100,000 words, since I took over 120 pictures on our two trips to the island of Ponza, the biggest island in the Pontine chain. I\u2019ll try to make writing about … Continue reading “The Pontine Islands”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malta-and-italy-august-2017"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1631"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8544,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631\/revisions\/8544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}