Via Francigena del Sud Day 1: Rome - Castel Gandolfo - Albano Laziale

Road to from Rome 2021, Day 1:  Rome  - Castel Gandolfo - Albano Laziale (25.5 km walked) 

12.09.2021

25. 5 km

Appia longarum... regina viarum

The Appian Way, queen of the long roads

- Publius Papinius Statius 

Day 1 walking with the Road to Rome 2021 group! And what a day! 

But let me back up a bit. I arrived in Rome yesterday afternoon, by train, and walked from the station to my hostel in Trastevere, zig/zagging along the way to see the sights in the amazing light of early evening. 

By this roundabout route I eventually came to my hostel, Spitale della Divina Provvidenza in Trastevere. Though located in one of Rome's most popular areas for wining & dining, the hostel is an oasis of tranquility, enclosed within the walls of a convent complex. 

After a walk around the neighbourhood I dined in the hostel with the other pilgrims. It was a mixed group: some had arrived at the end of their walk and were about to head home, while others were planning to continue on further south - after a day exploring Rome. But I was the only one setting off walking in the morning. 

The Road to Rome group arriving at the Circus Maximus

A word from the president of the European Association of the Vie Francigene before we set off

I met up with today's large group of walkers at the Circus Maximus, where a group of 60 to 70 walkers assembled, many of them representatives of local associations and/or residents of Rome joining in for the day. It being Sunday, we met plenty of hikers, joggers and cyclists enjoying a day out on the Via Appia Antica, the Roman road built in 312 BC and later extended all the way to Brindisi. The whole area is now a park, a popular destination with locals as well as tourists. We walked 17 kilometres (11 Roman miles) along the Via Appia Antica, passing by catacombs, baths and any number of Roman funeral monuments along the way.

A word about the Via Appia Antica

In the year 312 B.C., Roman censor Appius Claudius Crassus Caecus ordered the construction of a new road connecting the capital with the south. Originally built to transport troops and military supplies during the wars against the Samnites, crossing the Pontine marsh, a malarial mosquito-infested swamp that had until then formed an effective barrier between Rome and Capua, the Samnites' capital city. The new road allowed the Romans to move soldiers quickly, and keep them supplied, turning the tide of the war and leading the Roman victory in the Second Samnite War in 304 B.C.

Measuring 4.10 metres wide and almost always dead straight, the Via Appia was built by first levelling the dirt, then laying small stones and mortar over it, followed by a layer of gravel topped with interlocking stones that provided a level road surface which is still perfectly visible and usable, 2333 years later! The two-way street had sidewalks on either side and milestone markers, earning it the epithet regina viarum: queen of the roads. Even today, it contains the longest straight stretch of road in Europe: 62 kilometres. The first five kilometres of the road are now used by cars, but after this it becomes a quiet, pedestrianised street through the Parco Regionale dell'Appia Antica.

Numerous funerary monuments were built along the Via Appia, due to the prohibition of burial within the pomerium defining the boundaries of the city of Rome. Tombs of patrician families, cemeteries of paupers who died destitute and were given a decent burial thanks to the charity of one of the confraternities which, already in those days, took care of the sick and dying, and columbaria housing the remains of particular religious or ethnic minorities (the famous catacombs) follow one upon the other along the Appian Way as it leaves Rome behind.  

In 268 B.C. the Via Appia was extended as far as Benevento, and by 191 B.C. it reached Brindisi on the Adriatic Coast. 

Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Via Appia was not only abandoned, but used as a quarry from which to obtain blocks of stone for building, conveniently squared-off and ready for use. By the turn of the first millennium the land around the road belonged to the church, which later sold it off to powerful local families. The Counts of Tuscolo made the Tomb of Cecilia Metella their fortress, and Pope Boniface VIII assigned to his own family, the Caetani. The Caetani family's imposition of steep tariffs on anyone using the road further contributed to its abandonment and the construction of a new alternative route, the Via Appia Nuova, began as early as the 16th century, and was completed in 1784. The monuments along the Via Appia Antica, reduced to a secondary suburban road, fell prey to collectors in search of ancient artefacts, until it was first suggested that the area be protected and made into an archaeological park in 1931.    

Cart tracks are visible in the ancient Roman paving-stones

With another Ragazza in Gamba, Jennifer, on the Via Appia Antica. Mote about the Ragazze in Gamba in an upcoming post! 

Jennifer is an archaeologist from London, and she deciphered this Latin inscription for us

We met a cowherd driving his cattle up the Via Appia. There were quite a lot of cows, but they politely moved aside to make way for us! 

When we came to the end of the 17 km stretch of the Via Appia Antica included in the archaeological park, the Roman paving-stones and the 19th century cobblestones that covered them in some stretches abruptly gave way to a 20th century highway. Here we clambered aboard a bus to drive a few kilometres uphill on a busy road that would not have been nice to walk on, to Castel Gandolfo, where we met with the mayor to admire the view over Lake Albano from the rooftop patio of the Town Hall. 

The Town Hall is right next door to the Pope's summer residence. Pope Francis has not been using it, but the mayor reported that when Pope Benedict was in residence, she could hear him playing the piano from her office! 

Castel Gandolfo's other claim to fame: the world's first letterbox! The pope needs to read his mail even when on holiday 

The Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo has been the summer residence of the popes since the 16th century. During World War II, Pope Pius XII opened up the grounds of Castel Gandolfo to refugees escaping the fighting taking place around Rome. Beginning in January 1944, 12,000 people, including many Roman Jews and other non-Catholics, took refuge on the property, often bringing with them their cows, horses, mules and sheep. During the time they lived there, 36 children were born, almost all of whom were named after the Pope who gave them safe harbour; the pope's private apartment was turned into a nursery (according to Wikipedia). 

But the location on the hills overlooking Lake Albano was the summer residence of prominent world leaders long before the days of the popes: Emperor Domitian built himself an enormous summer palace, the Albanum Domitiani, on the site. It is now part of the Pope's private garden, which is Vatican State territory. This means the town of Castel Gandolfo, and the neighbouring town of Albano Laziale, are in Italy but both border on the Vatican State. 

We walked downhill from Castel Gandolfo to Albano Laziale, believed to be Alba Longa, rival of ancient Rome in its early days as a kingdom, before the city of Rome became an Imperial power. According to one of the founding legends of Rome, the war between the two cities dragged on with no clear winner emerging, and so it was decided that the conflict would be settled by a battle to the death between three warriors from each city. Two sets of triplets, the Horatius brothers of Rome and the Curiatius brothers of Alba Longa, were appointed to fight the decisive battle. Two of the Horatius brothers were killed right away, and the remaining brother, Publius, realising he didn't stand a chance against the three Curiatii, began to run back and forth, so that the three separated to run after him in different directions; he was then able to attack and defeat them one by one, winning the battle for Rome.

The Oath of the Horatii (Jacques-Louis David, 1784)

The mausoleum known as the Tomb of the Horatii and the Curiatii is, however, actually of much later origin, dating from the first century B.C.

Albano Laziale, unjustly neglected by tourism due to being overshadowed by nearby Rome, actually has some very impressive ancient Roman sites of its own. After arriving at our hotel and taking a quick shower, those of us from the group who still had the energy met with the mayor at the civic museum, located in a beautiful villa built in 1831, and then went to see a couple of the town's top sights with a local guide. She took us to the Cisternone, an underground cistern the size of a large cathedral, built at the end of the second century of the Christian era to supply the Roman legionaries quartered in the camp that was built on the site of the town after Alba Longa lost the war to Rome. It's quite dark inside and so the photograph doesn't do it justice! 

From here we went on to the church of Santa Maria della Rotonda, which was originally a Roman nymphaeum, then a Roman bath serving the officers in the Roman legion quartered here. 

If you add to all those kilometres walked and all those amazing sights to see, all kinds of new people to meet and talk to and all sorts of matters to discuss along the way... You will get an idea of what a busy day it has been! I have not even addressed many of the topics I intended to cover in this blog but will save them for future posts. 

I hope not every day on the Via Francigena del Sud will be this intense, or I will never be able to keep up with reporting on it!! 😁