In the Eternal City there is never a dull moment, we know. Every nook and cranny seems to tell a piece of our history: court intrigues, conquests wrested from the enemy, bloody wars, popes and kings who made their way to build a piece of history that we can still proudly tell today.
And the Via Appia Antica is an example of this, with the bastion of Porta San Sebastiano leading into the Appia Antica Regional Park and its 16 km of open-air history.
A unique cultural wealth that can now be visited on foot or by bicycle, in the company of a guide or independently, to unveil the secrets of our past.
To understand the size of this archaeological area, suffice it to say. the Ancient Appian Way also incorporates the Aqueduct Park with the Caffarella Valley, the estates of Tor Marancia and Tor Fiscale, and the Park of the Tombs located on Via Latina, to the area known as the Divine Love: an area rich in archaeological sites, ancient churches and museums that is impossible to visit in a single day.
That is why throughout the article we will propose a series of attractions to admire in a single day, visits to be planned and chosen carefully, for a walk of beauty, relaxation and culture.
A walk on the Appia Antica to learn more about Rome
The most beautiful way to visit this area is undoubtedly a walk in the fall and why not, on a beautiful sunny winter day, as the trees shake their leaves and the Tiber safely continues its course.
By parking the car in Via Appia Antica no. 50, it is possible to reach number 60, about one kilometer from Porta San Sebastiano. A strategic point to be able to start the walk and that will allow you to look at Rome from a very unique point of view.
If you intend to take a shorter walk to get an overview, we recommend making the first stop directly at the Catacombs of St. Callistus or St. Sebastian, starting right from the Basilica of St. Sebastian. It is better not to visit them both at one time, rather to choose one site by taking advantage of a local guide, in order to get a good understanding of their symbols and history.
After about an hour’s visit to the catacombs we continue to the Villa of Emperor Maxentius, where there is also the Mausoleum of Romulus, son of the emperor who died prematurely, and the majestic ruins of the circus.
The walk continues to where it meets the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, the Church of St. Nicholas, and the Medieval Palace with its Castrum Caetani basement. A magical and unique place from which to observe the lava flow from the Latium Volcano that allowed the extraction of leucitite, the material used to make the pavement of the Via Appia.
And it is precisely as you leave the Mausoleum that you can see an original section of the road, with the ancient paving stones from which the traces of the wagons that crossed them still emerge. Suffice it to say that there are very few examples of these basestones in the world, and only by going to Ancient Pompeii is it possible to find the same road, with paths leading back to the most glorious imperial era.
After a few meters you reach the Capo di Bove Villa, which houses the Cederna archives. In the outer area of this site camp the ruins of the baths that belonged to the villa of Herod Atticus, a huge extension that in the 2nd century AD reached as far as the Caffarella Valley. There is actually not much left of the thermal route, but it is interesting to visit the structure to understand the mindset and habits of the ancient Romans and their passion for mammoth structures.
The most interesting attractions to visit
From this stretch on, the landscape changes, becoming a succession of green areas, private villas, and ruins of ancient burials that reach as far as the Villa of the Quintiles. After the ruins, the hustle and bustle of the city, and the traffic lights found in the former urban area, we enter a more natural area, where walking becomes pleasant and the contact with the surrounding trees and greenery brings the mind back to the past, making for a truly pleasant experience.
This is the last stretch, so you also need to arrange the return if you do not want to call a cab. The best idea to make the route quicker is to enter the Santa Maria Nova estate and then take one of the buses back to the parking lot.
Before concluding the walk, however, it is important to choose the monuments to visit since accessing everywhere is not possible either because of time or fatigue that would not allow one to fully enjoy their value.
Among the must-sees are undoubtedly the Catacombs of St. Callistus and those of St. Sebastian with the adjoining Basilica: as many as 16 popes are buried in the former while both pagans and Christians are buried in the latter, with many anecdotes to tell and truly eerie corners.
Another must-see attraction is the Museum of the Walls, which has free admission and allows visitors to tour part of the walkway of the mighty Aurelian Wall.
The Domine Quo Vadis Church follows, recalling the episode in which the apostle Peter, fleeing Christian persecution, saw Jesus revealing his fears.
Villa Maxentius and the Mausoleum of Romulus are a very large archaeological area, if we also consider the huge circus that housed up to 10,000 people; while the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella and the Castrum Caetani remain the iconic site of the Appia Antica, especially if you are accompanied by a guide who tells the history of these places.
Villa di Capo Bove, on the other hand, is located at the end of the Appia Antica and deals with the thermal baths that Herod Atticus had built next to his villa and dates back to the 1st century, an archaeological area of great interest and takes about an hour to visit.
Finally, we recommend a visit to Villa dei Quintili, which belonged to the Quintili brothers who were slaughtered by Emperor Commodus, who wanted to take it over and turn it into an even more luxurious residence.
A walk through the Appia Antica: choosing attractions well
As anticipated, a walk along the Via Appia Antica takes the visitor about 5 km, and although the attractions are all very interesting, it is not possible to visit them in a single day. In addition, not all of them are free and there are some that are quite expensive, so it is necessary to choose no more than three or four of them in order to fully enjoy the atmosphere and reach the finish line without
