Tired of the hustle and bustle of Rome? Check out our quick guide on the legends, myths, and nature of the Castelli Romani with a particular focus on the Via Sacra of Monte Cavo. The older and lesser-known Via Sacra on Monte Cavo (RM), dear to the Latin tribes of Southern Latium, is the perfect destination for a day-trip to the Castelli Romani, an escape from Rome's hustle and bustle. Enjoy this quick guide on the history and nature of this unique place.
Rome: when speaking of Via Sacra (holy street), you might immediately think about the one that runs from the Capitoline Hill through the religious sites of the Forum to the Colosseum.
The traditional route of the Roman Triumph, the road that provided the setting for many deeds and misdeeds of Rome's history, the solemn religious festivals, the magnificent triumphs of victorious generals, and the daily throng assembling in the Basilicas to chat, throw dice, engage in business, or secure justice.
There's more to the Via Sacra, and you will find it in the Castelli Romani Regional Park area, snaking up Monte Cavo and immersed in a luscious forest with magnificent views.
This other Via Sacra that pre-dates the more famous one in Rome, is located on the tallest mountain south of the city: Monte Cavo or Mons Albanus as the ancients called it. The mountain has an elevation of 949 meters (3,313 feet), making it the tallest peak of the ancient and now dormant Latium volcanic complex.
Monte Cavo is visible for miles from the plains surrounding Italy's capital and was regarded as a holy place - somewhat like Mt. Olympus in Greece - by the Latin League people, local allied villages that pre-dated Rome.
According to legend, Ascanius (said to have reigned 1176-1138 BC), the legendary king of Alba Longa and son of the Trojan hero Aeneas, founded the temple of Iuppiter Latialis.
The temple was holy to all the villages, towns, and cities that were part of the Latin League who once a year celebrated the Feriae Latinae in honor of the victory of Tarquinius Priscus against the attempted invasion by the Etruscans. The importance of this pre-Roman holiday was such that all wars were suspended during the celebratory period, just like the Olympics celebrated by the Hellenics.
The Via Sacra was over 30 kilometers long. It also ran through the town of Nemi, home of the temple of Diana Nemorensis, and reached the foothills of Monte Cavo, where a basalt paved stretch of about 6 kilometers led to the top of the mountain, the location of the sacred temple of Iuppiter Latialis.
As Rome gained its political and strategic power, so did the cult's popularity of Iuppiter Capitolinus, always devoted to Jupiter but focusing on Rome.
However, the temple on Monte Cavo retained its importance through time. The builders of the city's religious structure decided to safeguard the cult's continuity taking care that the Capitoline temple faced the temple on Mons Albanus.
Quick fact: Did you know where the word 'Ovation,' comes from? It comes from 'ovis,' the sheep that was offered as a sacrifice, during the celebrations in Monte Cavo's temple. These ovations constituted the triumphs paid to those winning generals who were not granted the triumph at the Campidoglio in Rome (it is no coincidence that the sacred road on Monte Cavo was also called Via Trionfale.
The most significant triumphs and ovations celebrated on Monte Cavo were those of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus. Latin writers report that Marcus Claudius, winner of Syracuse, in 212 a. C. climbed the route with eight elephants and all the loot of treasures and war machines (even those invented by Archimedes).
Lucius Aemilius Paullus - conqueror, in 168 BC, of Macedonia is said to have paraded - for three days - his war treasures, prisoners, and King Perseus (along with his family, who had been enslaved) on the Via Sacra of Monte Cavo.
Today, nothing remains of the ancient temple except for a few boulders brought to light during the excavations in 1929.
Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, hypothesized that the reason for which we don't have any "important" remains of Jupiter's temple is because there might have never been an actual structure resembling the temples we find in Rome, Athens, Sicily, etc. It is more likely that the area at the top of the mountain was the sacred site itself, more of a thick wooded area or Nemus in Latin.
On the other hand, the road is very well preserved and can still be easily accessed from the base of Monte Cavo, along the Via Ariccia in the town of Rocca di Papa. The basalt slabs that pave the road are still in place and intact all the way up to the top of the mountain. The road, 2.55 meters wide, snakes up the western slope through a thick forest, now part of the Castelli Romani Regional Park. Contrary to the Via Sacra in Rome, you will also notice that the pavement does not have the typical ruts created by the wheels of horse-drawn carts. This was a holy road and, besides a few exceptions, one could only walk it on foot.
As they were built in layers, they took the name of viae stratae, hence the Italian term strada the English street, and the German straße. The level of Roman engineering was such that we still find relatively well-preserved remnants, like the Via Sacra, all around the so-called Roman Empire. Romans knew the importance of building a long-lasting infrastructure to secure efficient commercial networks and give the armies an unprecedented level of mobility and speed, allowing legionaries to March for 36 kilometers a day.
The luscious vegetation that can be admired along the route is comprised of Field Maples (up to 25 meters high, stunning during the autumn months), Mountain Ash (up to 12 meters in height and well known by the local ancient population, which prepared a sauce with its fruits and used the pulp from the trunk as a filler in bread during famines), and hazelnut trees.
The most common species in this area is definitely the chestnut tree. Many locals flock to these forests during the fall to pick the chestnuts - castagne or caldarroste - which are usually roasted in a pan by the fireplace. They are a delicious treat that nature keeps on giving us every year.
These trees change colors throughout the seasons, and if you have a chance, you shouldn't miss out on going for a walk on the Via Sacra to admire the vibrant red, yellow, and orange colors of the leaves carpeting the foothills of Monte Cavo.
As you keep walking towards the summit, you will also be gifted with stunning views of the two volcanic lakes (Lake Albano and Lake Nemi), the countryside south of Rome, and the Tyrrhenian coast. On clear days you can also see as far as the Pontine Islands of Ponza, Ventotene, Palmarola, Zannone, Ventotene, Santo Stefano, and all the way to the Circeo National Park. At an altitude of about 800 meters, you will start running into majestic Beech trees up to 35 meters in height, renowned for their wood's strength and used for railroad sleepers (now made of reinforced concrete).
Once you reach 900 meters, you will find Mountain Maples larger than their Field relatives and reach heights of 40 meters. This particular Maple is the longest-lived among its relatives, and its wood is excellent for building strong furniture and musical instruments. Last but not least, Hawthorne is fairly common near the summit; it flowers between April and May and has restorative, antidiarrheal, hypotensive, and cardiotonic properties.
This lesser-known Via Sacra of the Castelli Romani is a site you must visit if you're around Rome and have an afternoon to spare (especially during the springtime and the fall). The history, the spiritual aura, nature, the views, and the fresh air make this a truly exceptional place to visit. Also, if you're into mountain biking, you can enjoy dozens of trails running down the slopes of Monte Cavo and connecting with the nearby towns of Nemi and Castel Gandolfo, their relative lakes, as well as the famous Via Francigena. If you're into food, you'll find local delicacies such as porchetta in Ariccia, IGP artisanal bread in Genzano, wild strawberries in Nemi, the wine festival in Marino, and the peach festival in Castel Gandolfo. It's a truly unique area at a stone's throw from Rome, and we, at Cohubitat, can't wait to share more of the Castelli Romani with you.
It's been a few months since I relocated from Florence to a small town on the hills just south of Rome, and I couldn't be happier.
After spending the three-month-long lockdown cooped up in a 1 bedroom apartment in the heart of Florence, I finally had a chance. I decided to relocate to the small town where I grew up. During the lockdown in Florence, I started to miss the simple things I gave for granted when growing up in the Castelli Romani area near Rome.
I spent my youth in a truly awesome place: two volcanic lakes, parks, forests, and hiking trails, clean air, perfect climate, panoramic views extending all the way to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and a starry sky at night. These are all things that I almost forgot about when I was living and working in Florence, things that were unknowingly so dear to me but the city-life had in a way obfuscated.
City-life is hectic, no matter how big or small the city you live in is. I have traveled to, studied, worked, and lived in places ranging in size from 17,000 inhabitants to 28M people, from Arcata in California to Shanghai in China. I've always felt more at home in smaller towns rather than in the bigger cities.
Don't get me wrong, big cities do have their pros, of course, but I feel like they do take a toll on you in the long run. Life is hectic, expensive, messy, and polluted, and I never felt like I belonged there.
I never thought to myself, 'Ok, this is it, this is home to me, and I want to live here for the foreseeable future.' Somehow, I knew that the "concrete jungle" would always be a temporary situation for me, and maybe it's because I didn't grow up in one.
So here we are; a few months have passed since I moved to the countryside south of Rome, back to where I grew up, closer to nature, smart working, and best of all, "smart living."
Since the beginning of the pandemic, many of us have had the luck to work from home, and I've experienced both the curse and the blessing of this new way of life.
Smart-working was definitely a curse when I was living in Florence as I worked longer hours, didn't get out as much except for essential grocery shopping and walking my best friend Daisy, a 5-year-old Border Collie mix that I picked up from the streets of southern Italy when she was 3 months old.
So when did smart-working become a blessing? Well, it became a blessing the moment I moved to the countryside, to the place where I grew up. Life has changed for the better; life is smarter and healthier, both for Daisy and me. We now have the luxury of going for long walks in the woods, swim at either one of the lakes, enjoy the fresh air and eat healthier food, all while being more productive at work and being more involved with the local community.
Now I set a timer for work hours, and I feel like I am more focused and can get more done at work than in Florence. Maybe it's because I can actually disconnect from work when I'm done with it for the day, and I am sure that immersing myself in nature has a lot to do with this.
The Japanese know this very well, and they even have a word for it: shinrin-yokuor forest bathing. Shinrin in Japanese means "forest," and yoku means "bath." So shinrin-yoku means bathing in the forest atmosphere or taking in the forest through our senses.
Our current society model has, in many ways, 'divorced' us from nature, and future projections aren't looking so good. It looks like by 2050, according to U.N. research, 66% of the world population will be living in large cities, and according to research sponsored by the American Environmental Protection Agency, the average American spends 93% of their time indoors. How sad is that? How uncool is that?
We need to fix this problem, and smart-working might just be the answer to this. Who says that the countryside can't be 'cool' again? Can we make rural cool again? Of course, we can!
Relocating to the countryside has its pros and cons, but speaking as a millennial has so much to bring to the table.
According to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C., millennials are on track to becoming the most educated generation in history, with around 39% of them having a university degree. We need to re-evaluate, shake up, and make the countryside appealing for future generations.
Big metropolitan areas are saturated with ideas, projects, ultra-competitiveness, and not much space for our imagination. The countryside has so much potential for us, and we should not miss out on this opportunity.
The countryside is definitely more financially appealing as rent and real estate is significantly less expensive than what you find in cities. For the price I was paying in rent in Florence's center, I can either rent or get a mortgage for an apartment 2-3 times larger, with a balcony, shared green area, and yes, a view!
I also have easy access to local markets, more sustainable food sources, cleaner air, less stress, more chances of immersing myself in nature, and more opportunities for physical activity - I'm sure my dog Daisy is also grateful for this.
Getting involved in the local community is easier to do here than in bigger cities. I recently started volunteering at the Italian Red Cross's local chapter, which has been an eye-opening experience. It's been a long time since I wanted to do this, but the busy life I had in Florence did not allow it.
I can now be closer to people and service to those in need. More importantly, I can share my experience to improve other people's lives. We can all do more to change rural areas for the better, applying what we've learned throughout our education, our international experiences, and our focus on sustainability and community.
So far, we've seen the pros of the rural living experience, but what are some of the downsides that I have noticed so far? Let's see the other side of the coin, as some say.
Public transportation really isn't as efficient as what you find in the city, so buying a car might be the solution. There aren't too many other ways of getting around, but who knows...why not start an eco-friendly car-sharing organization that operates in smaller towns just like what you find in bigger cities?
I can now be closer to people and service to those in need. More importantly, I can share my experience to improve other people's lives. We can all do more to change rural areas for the better, applying what we've learned throughout our education, our international experiences, and our focus on sustainability and community.
So far, we've seen the pros of the rural living experience, but what are some of the downsides that I have noticed so far? Let's see the other side of the coin, as some say.
Public transportation really isn't as efficient as what you find in the city, so buying a car might be the solution. There aren't too many other ways of getting around, but who knows...why not start an eco-friendly car-sharing organization that operates in smaller towns just like what you find in bigger cities?
International food and ingredients are hard to come by, especially if you live far away from bigger cities. I really enjoy cooking. After living in a few countries, I crave meals with nothing to do with classic Italian cuisine.
About once a month, I write down what 'alternative' meals I want, make a list of ingredients I must get, and go to Rome to find most of the exotic things I need, from miso to spices to corn flour for making Guatemalan tamales.
Rome's trip is usually a full-day affair, so I usually pick a Saturday and go back to the city. I really enjoy it, and I use it as an excuse to visit a museum or shop for other things I can't find in town but guess what? When I get home, I can feel how different the air smells, I can hear nature, and I feel like I'm back to where I belong. I'm back to where I can thrive.
Sure, there is no Opera, no large concerts, no big social events - COVID restrictions aside - but I've never really missed them. If I ever want to attend any of these events, I can just make the trip to Rome like I wrote above, pretty easy, right?
The area where I am living now, Castelli Romani, is quite particular because it is considered the countryside. Still, it is located at "a stone's throw" from a major city like Rome. You get a healthy alternative lifestyle without necessarily having to fully renounce some of the perks that a larger city has to offer. The towns of the Castelli Romani are also relatively connected to Rome and the airports with public transportation.
In the end, smart-working during the pandemic has turned from a curse to a blessing in disguise. I am genuinely happier, and I am more productive at work, I feel healthier, and I can finally and concretely give something back to society, and so can you.
What are you waiting for? Make your move, shake things up, and make rural cool again!
