Nemi Lake

In the territory of the Castelli Romani, the village of Nemi has always been immersed in the greenery of a forest. The Latin word for forest is "nemus", which explains the name and its age very well. Much more recent but no less deserved is the country's recognition as an Orange Flag of the Italian Touring Club, complying with the strict environmental and tourism quality requirements set out therein.

By the ninth century, Nemi was little more than a castle of the Counts of Tùscolo. Although over time that castle became the Renaissance Palazzo Ruspoli, the original castle tower still towers over the town. Here, the main tourist attraction is the lake itself and the surrounding greenery, to which you descend via a footpath or the Via del Tempio di Diana: once down, you can walk along the entire perimeter of the water for a total length of about six kilometres. Culturally speaking, however, you must not miss out on paying homage to the Roman Ships Museum.

The 1930s shed where models of the two ships can be seen together with important archaeological finds is distinctive for at least two reasons. The first is that this is the first Italian case of a museum building built from scratch to house its contents and not vice versa, and the second that the contents preserve the memory of something truly unique. As early as the 15th century, it was well known that at the bottom of the lake lay the hulls of two gigantic boats from the age of ancient Rome: the great Renaissance architect and theorist Leon Battista Alberti had identified them. These were two ornate building-hulls where the emperor Caligula held festivals or perhaps celebrations of the cult of Diana, to whom the lake was sacred. Recovering them about a century ago unfortunately proved to be in vain: in 1944 the two hulls burnt to the ground, apparently due to neglect or the deliberate will of the occupying German troops. Despite everything, the museum is still extremely impressive.