Gillian knows Best guide to Anzio
A favorite beach town near Rome
Last year in the dark cold days of February I was roaming around sunny Sicily and telling you about my favorite places for a pre-dinner watch the sunset after all day at the beach drink on Lido. This year I am home in Venice enjoying the foggy days and my underfloor heating and I am going to tell you about one of my favorite beaches near Rome.
Positano and Capri and Puglia and Sicily are the names and places that fill your Instagram feed and polished travel websites. Anzio is not that. It does not have pastel houses and vertiginous cliffs. There is no Chanel boutique and you probably will not bump into a Hollywood celebrity. Anzio is about an hour away from Rome by train and is one of hundreds of post-war Italian beach towns that line the Tyrrhenian coast with blocks of condominiums and rows of beach clubs. It has some of the freshest seafood and well priced restaurants in Italy. Like most things Italian it is also full of history. Once part of Antium, the capital of the Volsci, it was named by the son of Olympus and then conquered by the Romans to become a place for emperors to build lavish villas. Now you can nap and swim next to grottos that were part of one of Nero’s summer homes. Bookmark this post because you will want to this information on a crowded sweltering Roman summer afternoon. One of the easiest escapes is to the town of Anzio.
Paid subscribers have access to an annotated map of my favorite beach clubs and places to stay and shop in Anzio + Where to find WWII and ancient Roman history.
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