Sirmione: Grotte di Catullo and the thermal resort

Camping Baia Verde is at a distance of about 23 km by car to three quarters of the Grotte di Catullo Sirmione del Garda. “Grotte di Catullo” is a grand edifice of the Romanian era, belonging to a noble family in Verona, Valerii.
It is believed that this house for a short period of time belonged to the Catullus family, from which belonged the famous Latin poet and this, for around 50 B.C. Catullus himself wrote lyrics in which he sang the beauty of the landscapes of Sirmione. It is said that in the villa “Grotte di Catullo” stood for a short while Caius Julius Caesar who in that era was a close friend of the Veronese family of the Valerii. Catullus has never participated in the political life, on the contrary, he loved to write poetry almost as an entertainment for his friends who applauded the works, maybe for this very reason he chose he very Sirmione del Garda as a resident. But only around 800 years the first excavations were made, which lasted a long time and during which the original shapes, the rooms and the sizes of Catullus’s villa were possible to be outlined. It was stated that the villa had a rectangular shape and had had a perimeter of about two hectares, and even to reconstruct some rooms at that time great digging was performed in the stone rocks surrounding the area. Currently the highest level of the villa has been eroded by the passage of time and it almost disappeared, but the lower floors are still present and they can be visited by tourists. From the historic center of Sirmione at “Grotte di Catullo” you can reach in 15 minutes walking, or just during the summer with an electric train that leads visitors to this place rich in history and literature.

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