When summer arrives, celebrations of the solstice happen all over the world. In Italy, la dolce vita unfolds in Sperlonga, between Rome and Naples, in the middle of a coastal stretch called the Riviera of Ulysses. 

Sperlonga is set on a promontory, with a curve of beach clubs below, adorned with perfect rows of colorful umbrellas. Bordering the beach is an alluring sight: a giant cave opening to the sea. Recent discoveries reveal Sperlonga’s cave to be the location of an extraordinary astronomical phenomenon dating to ancient Roman times.