Home»All Photographs»TRAVEL»Travel: Italy, Lazio, Dec 2015-Jan 2016

Lazio (the region around Rome) is probably one of Italy's least travelled regions, at least by foreign tourists.
Pick any travel guide in which the whole of Italy is described, and you will find that Lazio gets precious little attention, especially considering that about 90% or more of the pages that cover the region will probably be dedicated to Rome itself.
Romans know better : for them, Lazio is a province filled with great destinations for short trips, all within a few hours' drive from Rome, with mountainous terrain and Etruscan heritage to the north and the Castelli Romani to the south-east.
Mostly in summer, they head for great holiday spots at the Tirenian seaside on the coast south of Rome towards Napoli, with more mountains as a curtain around all that.
We took an out-of-season winter trip around the capital, in a clockwise movement from Fiumicino airport, with December stops in Tarquinia, Viterbo and surrounding villages and their palaces (including Bagnaia, Cività di Bagnoregio and Caprarola).
I should not forget to mention several volcanoe-created lakes and the eponymous (and a few more) villages perched above them, all visited with Viterbo as "home base" : Lago di Bolsena and Lago di Bracciano.
On Jan 1, we continued southwards over the Castelli Romani to Gaeta, our next home base for a day trip towards Monte Cassino. Finally it was back north again through the reclaimed Pontine marshes and along the coast, with Sperlonga, Sabaudia and Anzio.
Pretty much for a week, but that is what we do. This gallery consists of two parts. First up are 54 postcard-like shots from most of those places in landscape orientation. Obvously, winter is a good time for catching early and late sun, without need for the day schedule of a monk...
Starting with photo 55, the chronology recommences, with other crop ratios, different views (also more art and interiors) and photos from encounters with people. (Earlier 2015 shots from Rome, Milano, Slovenija and Vienna are also still on my shelf - travel is such hard work...) :-)