Tivoli and Sabine Hills

A 248 km loop

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Why this ride

A proper escape from Rome with roads worth waking up for. 248 km round from Riano - plan on about 4 h 31 of riding. It goes by way of Scenic stretch near Guidonia Montecelio, near Ardea and Selcetta. in San Cesareo is the high point. The line favours views over speed.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop near Riano fuel

   Fuel at 0 km.

2. Scenic stretch near Guidonia Montecelio scenic

   Scenic stretch near Guidonia Montecelio comes up 35 km in.

3. High point in San Cesareo pass

   This is where the road stops climbing.

4. Photo stop near Ardea photo

   Photo stop near Ardea, about halfway.

5. Near Selcetta finish

   You are in the southern suburbs of Rome, beyond the modernist boulevards of EUR and inside the sprawl around Via Laurentina, close to the little settlement of Selcetta and not far from Trigoria, where AS Roma has its training ground. It is not a destination in itself, but it is a sensible base for rides into the Castelli Romani and further east to the Sabine hills and Abruzzo, because it puts you on the right side of the city and close to the Grande Raccordo Anulare, Rome's orbital motorway.

   The landscape here is a strange mixture of city and countryside. Apartment blocks give way suddenly to fields, umbrella pines and ruined farmhouses, and the Decima-Malafede nature reserve, a stretch of rolling Roman countryside with woods and pastures, lies just to the south-west. On a clear morning, the Alban Hills rise to the south-east, a green volcanic massif dotted with towns like Frascati, Marino and Castel Gandolfo, and that is where you are going.

   The first part of any ride from here is about getting out of the city. Roman traffic has a well-deserved reputation, and the main roads can be chaotic, with scooters, buses and impatient drivers. Leave early, ideally around dawn, when the streets are quieter and the light is soft. Once you reach the Alban Hills, the roads become more interesting, winding around the crater lakes of Albano and Nemi, through chestnut woods and vineyards, with views back over the city to the sea.

   There are plenty of fuel stations and bars in the area, so getting coffee and a cornetto before you leave is easy. At the end of the day, coming back into the city can be slow, especially on Sunday evenings when everyone returns from the hills and the coast. Take your time and stay alert. In summer, the heat in the city can be intense, so a dawn start is not just a romantic idea but a practical necessity.

6. Fiumicino-Isola Sacra food

   Isola Sacra is a flat, triangular island at the mouth of the Tiber, cut off from the mainland by the river's natural channel, the Fiumara Grande, and by an ancient canal dug under the emperor Trajan. Most people know the area only because Rome's main airport, Leonardo da Vinci, sits just to the north, but the island and its surroundings hold a remarkable amount of history if you are willing to pause for it.

   This was the site of Portus, the great imperial harbour of Rome. The emperor Claudius began building it in the first century AD because the old river port at Ostia could not handle the enormous grain ships coming from Egypt and North Africa, and Trajan added a hexagonal inner basin whose outline is still visible today, now a lake inside a park near the airport. On Isola Sacra itself lies the necropolis of Portus, a cemetery of brick tombs with inscriptions and reliefs showing the trades of the people buried there: millers, doctors, shipwrights. Across the river, the ruins of Ostia Antica are among the best-preserved Roman towns anywhere.

   Fiumicino town, on the northern bank of the canal, is famous among Romans for its seafood restaurants, and people drive out from the city specifically to eat fish here. Grilled or fried, spaghetti with clams, or a simple plate of anchovies, it is all very good, and lunch by the water is a fine reward for a morning ride. The island side is quieter and more residential.

   As riding goes, this is flat coastal country, with straight roads, roundabouts and plenty of traffic, especially around the airport and on summer weekends when Romans head to the beaches of Fregene and Ostia. The roads are not always in good condition, with potholes and patched surfaces, so keep your eyes open. Fuel, food and everything else are easily available. The sea breeze can be refreshing in summer but strong in winter, and in the evenings the sunsets over the Tyrrhenian Sea can be spectacular. Inland, the roads soon lead to the hills, where the Castelli Romani wait.

7. Manziana, on the way back swim

   Just north of Lake Bracciano, in the volcanic hills of the Tolfa and Sabatini, lie Manziana and Canale Monterano, two quiet towns in a landscape of chestnut woods, sulphur springs and deep tufa gorges. It is only an hour from Rome, but it feels much further, with cows grazing in clearings and the smell of wet leaves after rain.

   The great sight here is Monterano Antica, a ghost town on a rocky spur above the Mignone valley, abandoned at the end of the eighteenth century after it was sacked by French troops. Its ruins are dramatic: a ruined palace with an arched aqueduct, a fountain with a lion carved into the rock, and the roofless church of San Bonaventura, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The whole area is a nature reserve, and the walk in from the car park takes about half an hour through woods and past bubbling sulphur pools. It has been used as a film set many times, and once you see it you understand why.

   The swimming is a short ride south at Lake Bracciano, a large, round, clean volcanic lake where motorboats are banned, so the water stays calm and clear. There are beaches and lidos at Trevignano, Anguillara and Bracciano itself, and the water is warm by late spring. Around Manziana, the Caldara is a volcanic hollow where gas bubbles up through pools of water in a strange, silent landscape, worth a short stop for its weirdness rather than a dip.

   The roads here are lovely: narrow, winding through woods and over small bridges, with tight bends and occasional rough patches, and very little traffic outside summer weekends. The road around the lake is busier but offers great views, especially in the evening when the sun drops behind the hills and the water turns gold. Watch for wild boar at dusk, a real hazard on these roads.

   Manziana has fuel, cafés and food shops, and Bracciano, with its huge castle overlooking the lake, has more choice. Try fish from the lake or a porchetta sandwich, a Lazio staple, if you see one, and keep an eye on the clouds: storms can build quickly in summer over these hills.

8. Back to Tivoli and finish

   Here you are north of Rome, close to Riano, in the broad Tiber valley, on the volcanic plain between the river and the Sabine foothills. It is the other end of the day for a ride that left Rome by the Via Flaminia or Via Salaria, and the character of the land is gentle: fields of wheat and sunflowers, old farm towers, olive groves on the first low hills and always, to the north, the shape of Monte Soratte.

   Soratte is a limestone ridge that rises abruptly from the plain to about 690 metres, an isolated whale-backed mountain that seems to have been dropped in the wrong place. The Roman poet Horace wrote of it covered in snow in one of his odes, and in the Second World War, German forces dug a vast tunnel complex into its rock, which later served as a nuclear shelter for the Italian state. In the middle ages a monastery stood on the summit, and monks gave the place a long tradition of pilgrimage. It is visible from nearly all the roads around here and makes a good landmark.

   The riding is pleasant and not demanding. The old Via Flaminia, built in 220 BC and the main road from Rome to the Adriatic, runs just to the east, and the Via Salaria, the old salt road used by the Sabines, passes through Monterotondo and over the plain. Both roads are straight and busy, but behind them lie quieter lanes through villages with a church, a bar and a fountain, and on a clear spring morning, with the poppies out, they are lovely. Mist rises from the Tiber in autumn. Heavy lorries serve the quarries and industrial areas, and you should keep your distance.

   Riano, a town of nearly seven thousand, is four kilometres away and has fuel stations, bakeries and bars. Nearby are plenty of places for a pizza by the slice or a plate of pasta, often in family-run trattorias that fill at lunchtime on Sundays with whole families. Roman drivers are fast and expect you to keep up, so stay alert in traffic. It is a gentle landing before the city, with the evening light coming across the fields.

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