We drove to the Lakes, where the Pope had his summer palace at Castel Gandolfo. Pope Emeritus Benedict, who had recently stood down, was living in the summer palace, waiting for his new residence to be completed at the Vatican.
We stopped for lunch at a lakeside restaurant – pork and bread, olives and a mature sheep’s cheese. Porchetta is a famous delicacy from the area and is often sold from stalls along the roadside.
We drove down the Appian Way, an ancient Roman road that runs from the Colosseum in Rome to Brindisi in the heel of Italy.
We visited the catacombs at Fosse Ardeatine where we visited a beautiful memorial to 334 men shot by the Nazis in 1944 in retribution for an attack on the Germans by partisans. There were 334 tombs, carefully kept with fresh flowers on the graves.
