Caligula's Boats

Sometimes you just go along with something and you get something cool. This past weekend was a family trip to the Castelli Romani area, just southeast of Rome. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, but sometimes cool stuff just comes ones way.

From the top of Rocca di Papa, this is Lake Nemi, in the crater of an old volcano. We had a hike down to it and ended in the town of Nemi.

The trail was on a pre-Roman empire sacred path. This is something fun!

So why is Lake Nemi so fascinating historically? Back in the 1st century AD, the Roman Emperor Caligula built two ENORMOUS boats that floated on this lake. One was a pleasure palace and the other a floating temple. Due to his "damnae memoriae" (that itself was controversial) everything associated with him was destroyed, or in this case sunk. The boats sat at the bottom of the lake for 1800 years.

In the late 1920's, Mussolini, in an attempt to associate himself with the grandeur of Rome had the ships removed from the water BY DRAINING THE LAKE!! The boats, or the structural remnants of them were in decent shape and historians were able to get a sense of the purpose and engineering. Then a museum was built to house the ships, right here on the shores of Lake Nemi.

Each boat filled this Facist era (style) this size. There are two halls, one for each boat. However, in 1944, either retreating Germans set fire to the boats or squatters set an unfortunate fire and the boats, as well as much of the building was destroyed. The boats we see here are 1/5 the size of the ones that were lost.

Myself and Gabi C. standing in front of what is called Boat 2. The black part is the boat itself and then you can see the brown cross planks. It was upon this platform the temple stood. How cool is that?