Via Appia. Regina Viarum and Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tar

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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

   Via Appia. Regina Viarum 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 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tar.

3. 3. Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tar

   The Etruscans built their houses of wood and mud brick, which is why so few survive, and they built their tombs of rock, which is why we know them best through their dead. The Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri, north-west of Rome, is a city of tombs: great round tumuli covered in grass, cut into the volcanic tufa and laid out along streets, with chambers inside carved to look like houses, with beds, chairs, columns and beams. The necropolis, together with the painted tombs of Tarquinia further north, was listed by UNESCO in 2004, and walking its lanes is one of the most atmospheric experiences in central Italy.

   Read the complete Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 155 km into the recorded legs you reach Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tar. Next is back through Villa Adriana.

4. 4. 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 Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 74 km on.

5. 5. 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 at Via Appia. Regina Viarum. That is the ride.