I hadn’t climbed a hill in weeks so today I took myself up Monte Circeo (750 from Torre Paola then descending via the Direttissima), something special to break the bad spell.
Why is Monte Circeo so special? At 540m it is certainly not the highest of peaks in the Lazio region, that title is claimed by Monte Gorzano far to the north. Nor does it compare favourably in that respect to the Volsci mountains, which lie closer. There Monte Semprevisa towers majestically in comparison, at 1536m. In part, in this dissimilitude lies Monte Circeo’s appeal. It stands alone, some 20km from anything remotely resembling a hillock, and its mass rises improbably, seemingly out of the sea like some coastal Uluru. It is connected to the land, but by a low plain segmented by saltwater lakes, and tessellations of commercial greenhouses and solar farms which shimmer at the slightest provocation from the sun.
From almost anywhere in this region, this craggy promontory, whose obstruction no doubt plays no small part in preventing the flat area that were once the Pontine Marshes from being fully swamped by the sea, is what the eye is drawn to. And the closer one gets to it, the more its delicate and fragile proportions become visible. You make out patches of limestone through the beech and holm oak blanket; you distinguish Picco d’istria, a foolish sentinel-like affair which may catch out the unwary climbing from the west, as the summit itself, rather than a precarious prelude. The route ahead from this point, which I took today, presents itself as the challenge of traversing the top of a concave precipice that drops straight into the sea, and following that a long hand and foot scramble up the tangled neck of the beast to arrive at its slightly ponderous head.
This ugly little giant is, of course, the subject of legend. But if you fail to be taken in by the Homerian myths as to this being the home of the enchantress Circe, it is hard to deny it has that effect. It cannot be avoided. In truth the historical facts about this place are even more beguiling. That it was inhabited by Neanderthals for a longer period of time than modern humans have even existed, is testimony, not just to their brilliant skills, resourcefulness, and highly evolved sensibility, but to the magic of this place. They chose to be there. Wisely. And today when walking first through the forest, its black earth covered in cyclamen like the way bluebells carpet our woods at home, and occasionally bursts of snowdrops where the sun manages to shine through, it was nice to feel a part of it all.