With Easter the tourists came to Rome, the city is full and now remains so. Colosseum and Vatican are fully booked, so let’s go to the Via Appia! The trunk road to the south, laid out from 312 BC. BC under the consul Appius Claudius Caecus, actually began at the Porta Capena on the inner city wall. As a perfectionist, you take an earlier start, starting at the Circus Maximus.
It takes time, past the Caracalla Baths, through the Porta San Sebastiano in the great Aurelian Wall and quite a bit further, until the Via Appia unfolds its charm. The thoughts fly. Isn’t it said that this is where Jesus met Peter, who was fleeing Rome, and persuaded him to turn back? The thousand-year-old grooves of the wagon wheels are traced in the stone by hand. Leaving early Christian catacombs on the right and the tomb of Caecilia Metella on the left, he doesn’t want to stop running, hour after hour, now well sheltered by the broad pines.
If you close your eyes, you might hear the pounding of the legions that marched to Rome on the “Regina Viarum”, the queen of the roads. Later it was the East Roman general Belisar with his elite troops fighting the Goths, and in 1943 the US rolled in here -Tanks to the city liberated from fascism. The view goes far into the country. The wildflowers are blooming, the nightingale is singing, sheep are crossing, fellow hikers have long since stayed behind. The path and the heat sapped your strength when a meadow unexpectedly opened up behind a hedge with Federica Gianni’s canteen truck. A sandwich has never tasted better than it does now.