Gaeta attractions

Gaeta's attractions are a mountain between two beaches, a Roman tomb and a fortified old town.

Monte Orlando rises between Gaeta Vecchia and Serapo, and it carries the single most striking ancient survival: the mausoleum of Lucius Munatius Plancus, consul in 42 BC, built at the end of the first century BC and still an impressive monument inside a large clearing within his villa, which overlooked the gulf.

The old town is walled. The circuit dates to Roman times and was extended and strengthened in the fifteenth century, especially under the Kingdom of Naples.

Elsewhere in the comune the Roman villa layer continues: the remains of the monumental villa of Lucius Marcius Philippus, stepfather of Augustus, lie in the Arcella area, and an aqueduct that supplied the town from the Conca hill survives near the villa of Hortensius.

And the beaches either side of the promontory are the reason most people come.