Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Tivoli it runs 206 km to Tivoli; allow about 4 h 28 of riding. The stops in between: The Via Appia in Rome, Appia. Regina Viarum, back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum and back through The Via Appia in Rome. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Mille Miglia Historic Route Core
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 35 km this is Mille Miglia Historic Route Core, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
Length
35 km
Named road
Mille Miglia Historic Route Core
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Villa d'Este
Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, son of Lucrezia Borgia, had expected to become pope. When that did not happen, he was made governor of Tivoli and consoled himself by turning an old Benedictine convent on the hillside into a villa with a garden that would astonish Europe. Built in the sixteenth century, the Villa d'Este is a hillside of terraces, stairs and fountains, all fed by gravity from the river Aniene: the Hundred Fountains, a long wall of spouting masks and eagles, the Fountain of the Organ, which plays music driven by water, and the Oval Fountain, with its cascade falling into a pool. The villa and its gardens are a World Heritage Site.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa d'Este is where the day begins. Next is The Via Appia in Rome.
2. The Via Appia in Rome
Rome's regina viarum, the queen of roads, leaves the city through the Porta San Sebastiano and heads south-east toward Capua and eventually Brindisi. It was begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, and the first miles out of Rome are now protected within the Parco Regionale dell'Appia Antica. The stretch of the old road is lined with tombs, ruins of villas, catacombs and umbrella pines, and the original paving stones, huge polygonal basalt blocks, still surface parts of it.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The Via Appia in Rome comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 37 km on.
3. Via Appia. Regina Viarum
The Romans called it the queen of roads, and in 2024 UNESCO agreed, listing the Via Appia from Rome to Brindisi as a World Heritage site. Begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, it was the first great Roman road, built to move armies south toward Campania and later extended to the port of Brindisi, the gateway to Greece and the East.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Via Appia. Regina Viarum. Next is Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 36 km on.
4. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa d'Este closes the day.
Leg by leg
Villa d'Este to The Via Appia in Rome
Villa d'Este → The Via Appia in Rome is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia in Rome to Via Appia. Regina Viarum
The Via Appia in Rome → Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Via Appia. Regina Viarum to Via Appia. Regina Viarum
Via Appia. Regina Viarum → Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Via Appia. Regina Viarum to back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum
Via Appia. Regina Viarum → back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum to back through The Via Appia in Rome
back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum → back through The Via Appia in Rome is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia in Rome to Villa d'Este
back through The Via Appia in Rome → Villa d'Este is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.