San Paolo Fuori le Mura and The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. San Paolo Fuori le Mura

   The name tells the story: Saint Paul outside the walls. According to tradition, Paul was beheaded on the road to Ostia, and a Christian woman buried him in her family's cemetery beside the Via Ostiense, about two kilometres from the old city wall. Constantine built a small church over the grave in the early fourth century, and by the end of that century three emperors had replaced it with a vast basilica, the largest in Rome until the new Saint Peter's. In 1823 a fire destroyed most of the building, and it was rebuilt in the nineteenth century as a faithful copy of the old one, with a forest of eighty granite columns along the nave.

   Read the complete San Paolo Fuori le Mura write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   San Paolo Fuori le Mura is where the day begins. Next is Villa Adriana.

2. 2. Villa Adriana

   Hadrian never did anything by halves. Below the hill town of Tivoli, on the plain east of Rome, the emperor built himself a retreat that was less a villa than a private city: palaces, baths, libraries, theatres, gardens and long reflecting pools spread over more than a hundred hectares. Villa Adriana was constructed in the early second century AD, and Hadrian, a restless traveller and amateur architect, filled it with references to places he had seen, most famously the Canopus, a long pool lined with columns and statues meant to evoke the Egyptian canal of that name. Walking through the ruins today, among cypresses and olive trees, you get a sense of a man trying to bring the whole empire home.

   Read the complete Villa Adriana write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Villa Adriana comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 47 km on.

3. 3. Via Appia. Regina Viarum

   South of the Alban Hills, the Via Appia drops onto the Pontine plain and runs dead straight for mile after mile, as if the Roman engineers had laid it with a ruler, which in a sense they did. This was the Regina Viarum, the queen of roads, begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus to link Rome with Capua, and later extended to Brindisi. Here, near Sezze Scalo and Latina, the road crossed the Pontine Marshes, a malarial swamp that defeated would-be drainers from the Romans to the popes. Travellers sometimes took a canal boat alongside the road instead, and the poet Horace complained about the mosquitoes and the frogs keeping him awake on that very journey.

   Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach Via Appia. Regina Viarum.

4. 4. Via Appia. Regina Viarum

   Terracina is the point where the Via Appia, the queen of roads, meets the sea after its long straight run from Rome across the Pontine plain. The Romans built the road in 312 BC under the censor Appius Claudius, and for its time it was a marvel: paved, drained and as straight as engineering allowed, linking Rome to Capua and later to Brindisi. The stretch through the Pontine marshes was notorious for mosquitoes and malaria, and travellers often took a canal boat alongside the road instead, as the poet Horace describes in one of his satires.

   Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Via Appia. Regina Viarum, about halfway. Next is The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae.

5. 5. The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae

   The queen of roads, the Romans called it: the Via Appia, begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, ran from Rome to Capua and later on to Brindisi, the gateway to Greece and the East. Near Formia, the old road comes down from the hills of Itri to the coast of the Gulf of Gaeta, and a stretch of it, with its paving stones and roadside monuments, survives in the countryside. In 2024, UNESCO listed the Via Appia as a whole, and this section between the eighty-third mile from Rome and the ancient town of Formiae is one of its pieces.

   Read the complete The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae sits at 188 km, about halfway. Next is back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 47 km on.

6. 6. back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum comes up about 219 km into the recorded legs.

7. 7. back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 256 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum. Next is back through Villa Adriana.

8. 8. back through Villa Adriana

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Villa Adriana write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Villa Adriana, late in the day. Next is San Paolo Fuori le Mura.

9. 9. San Paolo Fuori le Mura

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete San Paolo Fuori le Mura write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 361 km.