Danie's Italy: my day at Nemi

Ciao,
Sorry I haven't done my blog for a while but I haven't done any sight seeing since Sunday. On that day , my friend Marco took me to 2 lakes. The first one was called lake Nemi. It is named for it's biggest village and it is famous for testing Roman battleships. In fact, Emperors Caligula and Tiberius often sailed on this lake, and ordered the building of these ships.They were very advanced for their time and just recently archaeologists found some remains of one of these ships. Engineers decided to build a replica of it based on the remains and it sailed perfectly. (Archaeologists are always finding more and more ships to study). The second Lake was called Albano. This lake is home to the Pope's summer house, which is called Castle Gandolfo. I guess when you are the pope it is only right that you live in a castle =] Lake Albano is most famous for hosting the rowing and canoeing events at the 1960 Olympics. Ok, now you know the facts, now it is time for me to tell you how much FUN I had!!!!!!!!
I kept telling my dad that I wanted to see an old Roman village and I finally did because.Nemi is a medieval village. It looks old and the streets were all cobble stones, pretty cool huh? It is also a sacred place for the Goddess Diana, there is even a temple built in her honor, but we didn't get to see that =[ When we first arrived at Nemi ( we really didn't get to go that close to the lake) ) we went to the village and saw some folk dancers having a festival, they werw all dressed up and dancing away. After watching the dancers for a while, we got hungry and we found the BEST GELATO EVER!!!!!!!!!!(see the picture) Nemi is known for it's strawberries called "fragoline di bosco" which are very small, wild strawberries. Naturally I had to have some......uummmm....very sweet and tasty. We also saw a pizzeria that offered some unusual toppings (I took a picture of the menu so you can see what we could've had to eat, instead of strawberries and gelato). Nemi lake was beautiful and surrounded by trees....everyone was very happy, I am glad Marco was able to take me here. My next visit was to lake Albano,(it was a very short visit, but it was still nice to see all the green trees and blue water this close to a big city like Rome). Something I learned from Marco, about Lago Albano, is that when the Pope is at his summer home, no one is allowed on the lake, must be nice!
When I was there I saw a funny plane that could land on the water and, of course, Castle Gandolfo. It really was a nice relaxing day and I finally got to see an old village!
Ciao