Tarquinia and Via Appia. Regina Viarum

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Tarquinia

   Tarquinia sits on a hill a few kilometres inland from the Tyrrhenian coast, in the northern tip of Lazio where the land starts to feel more like Tuscany. The town was called Corneto until 1922, when it took back the name of the Etruscan city of Tarchna that once stood on the neighbouring plateau. The old centre is tight, brownish stone, medieval towers, and a few good small piazzas; the main reason people come, though, lies on the Monterozzi ridge just outside, where the Etruscans built their necropolis.

   Read the complete Tarquinia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Tarquinia is where the day begins. Next is Vatican City.

2. 2. Vatican City

   The smallest state in the world is about forty-four hectares of walled hill on the right bank of the Tiber, and somehow it contains the largest church in Christendom, one of the greatest art collections ever assembled and a population that would barely fill a village. The Vatican exists as an independent country since the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between the Holy See and Mussolini's Italy, but the popes have been building here for far longer. St Peter's Basilica stands over the traditional site of the apostle's grave, and its dome, designed by Michelangelo, dominates the skyline of western Rome. Bernini's colonnade, sweeping round the square like two great arms, was meant to embrace every visitor who arrived.

   Read the complete Vatican City write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Vatican City comes up 89 km in. Next is Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 90 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

   179 km in you reach Via Appia. Regina Viarum. Next is back through Vatican City.

4. 4. back through Vatican City

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Vatican City write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Vatican City, late in the day. Next is Tarquinia.

5. 5. Tarquinia

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Tarquinia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Tarquinia. That is the ride.