This first section is a brief explanation of my Italy blog posts, which were inspired by my 2-week trip to Italy in May, 2025. Feel free to skip this section if you’ve read it before.
Dear Reader, If you read my Italy posts in the order in which they’ve come out, it may seem as though we hopped back and forth all over the country, but I have decided not to write these posts sequentially. I want to write about the things that interest me most, as the spirit moves me. For some topics, I may even combine cities. I hope that by doing so, you’ll find it a lot more interesting than if I just give you a tedious day by day description of our itinerary, as if I were your Aunt Mabel forcing you to sit down and watch all her Super 8 films of the family road trip to Niagara Falls from 1966.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about how I’m approaching this travelogue-within-a-blog, please let me know in the comments below!
Our last full day in Rome (which also happened to be our last full day in Italy) felt as bittersweet as I had anticipated. We had reached that point we do in every substantial vacation where we were longing for home but also dreading the end of this glorious experience. That’s why I had arranged for us to spend that morning exploring what felt like the Italian countryside: part of the Appian Way.
Built between 312 and 264 BC, it is one of the oldest, most important roads that the Roman Republic built. It stretched about 404 miles, from the Roman Forum all the way to the town of Brindisi on the southeast coast of what is now Italy, where Roman ships sailed for Greece and Egypt. In other words, it spans half the country, and was the gateway to the rest of the Roman world.
I have always been intrigued by old roadways. They carry so much history. They make me wonder what motivated the builders to take on such monumental tasks. Where were they going? Why were they going there? And I think of all the people throughout the centuries who have come and gone along these paths, many not even considering how those trails are catalysts for change. Roads are opportunity. They are growth. They are exploration. They are connection. They are communication. They are ritual and sacrifice and migration. They are trade. They bring knowledge and advancement. They are war.
I always hoped I’d be able to make the pilgrimage from France, across Northern Spain, to Santiago de Compostela, but my body didn’t hold out while I waited for my finances to catch up. I fear that’s also true for the Inca Trail, the Camino Real, the Appalachian Trail and the Kings Highway. And my imagination has always been sparked by the Silk Road, the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and the Trail of Tears.
I have stood upon parts of the Chaco Road System as well as the Sacred Sacbe in Mexico. I’ve gotten my kicks on Route 66. I’ve laughed when rangers get annoyed by the traffic jams caused by the wildlife in Yellowstone Park. What did the park designers expect when they built the roadways on top of long-used animal trails? That the animals would suddenly reroute themselves?
But the roadway that has always captured my imagination the most has been the Via Appia Antica — The Ancient Appian Way. I probably first heard of it as a child while watching some 1950’s highly inaccurate and overly romanticized Hollywood movie about Ancient Rome. Perhaps it was then that I felt the first inner stirrings of the travel bug that has stayed with me ever since.
There are 29 ancient roadways fanning out from Rome, hence the expression “All roads lead to Rome,” but the Via Appia was the first and most famous. You can still find bits of the Via Appia here and there. Parts have held up so well that they are still driven on by cars. In fact, a 39-mile stretch of it still holds the record as the longest stretch of straight road in all of Europe.
In Rome, the first 10 miles of the road are preserved as a city park called the Parco dell’Appia Antica, where you can walk along the original paving stones, and visit mausoleums, monuments, catacombs, and the Quo Vadis Church. I couldn’t wait to get there. It would be another trip back in time that modern Romans probably take for granted.
I wonder how many locals realize how rare it is to be in a place with such deep historical roots. If someone who lives in Rome their entire lives suddenly relocates, late in life, to someplace like Dayton, Ohio, do they get this strange, unsettled feeling? Like the ground is not quite stable beneath their feet? Like the roots are so shallow that it all could simply blow away?
Yes, you can go to ancient ruins all over the world. But to be living in and around them, to have layers of them beneath your feet, and more yet to be discovered? That’s unusual. Many of the ancient sites in the center of Rome today have even older sites beneath them, and people busily going about their daily lives above them. It’s not hard to imagine present-day Rome becoming yet another layer 500 years from now. It will probably never have skyscrapers, for better or for worse, because no building is allowed to be taller than the Vatican.
But meanwhile, through it all, running southward out of town, is the Via Appia Antica, which, at least for the 10 miles within the city park, has held up surprisingly well. The closely fitted basalt rocks never formed potholes as our modern day roads do. There were capped ditches running along either side that effectively drained standing water. Sadly, the raised sidewalks that ran along each side of the road during its heyday are long gone.
In the days of the Roman Republic, it was forbidden to bury people within the city proper, so all the roads that lead to the city, including the Via Appia, were lined with tombs and mausoleums, and the Christians and Jews had vast catacombs underground. I’ve always wondered what it must have been like, as a visitor to Rome, to first pass by miles and miles of these memorials. Was it creepy? Intimidating? Impressive? Did it make the city seem so established as to be all but immovable? I’m sure some of the more elaborate mausoleums were beautiful.
So it was with all these thoughts in mind that we hopped on bus #218 to get off at the Appia Antica/Quo Vadis Stop. I’m glad we didn’t rely on busses much during this trip, because they’re very confusing and unreliable. But we managed to find the bike rental place where we had reserved our bikes. If you decide to do this, believe me, you will want a mountain bike. The Via Appia is so bumpy that attempting to use a regular bike would rattle the fillings out of your teeth. We even went one step further and reserved electric mountain bikes, and I for one was quite grateful that we did. As it was, it was our rainiest day in Rome, and while we are from the Seattle area and therefore used to powering through a certain amount of rain, a slow pedal through it for hours would have been a miserable experience.
We didn’t have time to explore the entire 10 miles of the park, but we did make a respectable dent in it. Our first stop was the nearby Quo Vadis Church. This tiny church was rebuilt in 1637, and its façade was rebuilt again in 1700, but the original sanctuary stood on this site since the 9th century, and in fact there may have been an ancient temple standing there before that, as this area was a sanctuary for the cult of the god Rediculus (no, not Ridiculous, Spell Check). He was the God of the Return, whom travelers would pray to before taking a long, dangerous journey, in hopes of returning home safely.
This is supposed to be the site where St. Peter, who was fleeing from Rome to escape persecution by the emperor Nero, was said to have seen the risen Christ. He asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” (“Domine, Quo Vadis?” which is kind of interesting, since Jesus would have spoken Aramaic, not Latin, but, I suppose, when in Rome…) and Christ is said to have replied that he was going to Rome to be crucified again. He then disappeared, leaving his footprints behind, permanently etched in the stone.
St. Peter took this as a sign that he should return to Rome. If you ask me, this was not his best idea, as he was eventually crucified there, upside down, sometime during Nero’s reign. But hey, he got a fancy basilica named after him, right on the crucifixion site in Vatican City, so that’s something.
In this little church, you can see those very footprints in a marble slab, but they are only copies. The originals are housed in the Basilica of San Sebastiano nearby. Even though they’re replicas, they’re still protected by rebar, because, you know, people will steal anything. If they are Jesus’ footprints, I have to say, he had some big feet. He could have played basketball.
Another thing you can find at the church is a plaster cast of the sculpture “Cristo Risorto” (Risen Christ) by Michelangelo. The original is in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, which I blogged about here. I’ve got to say that this plaster cast does not do the original justice. When I looked at this one and noted that Michelangelo’s name was associated with it in a sign in Italian (which I could not read well enough and had to translate later), I was confused and disgusted. Michelangelo would never create thighs like those. I was greatly relieved that this… thing… wasn’t really done by him. Nice of them to want to honor the original, though, I suppose.
Another item that holds pride of place in the church is a bust of Henryk Sienkiewicz, the Nobel Prizewinning author of the book Quo Vadis, which also inspired the Hollywood movie. So, Jesus’ footprints, a Michelangelo nightmare, and an author’s bust. What a fascinating church.
Next, we hopped back on our bikes and headed to the Catacombs of San Callisto. There are three catacombs in this park. The Jewish one can be visited by appointment only, and permission is very rarely granted. That’s a shame, because it sounds like that one is the most fascinating. The other two are both Christian, and according to Rick Steves, either one is good. They’re relatively the same. We chose this one, because some popes had been buried down there.
There are other catacombs scattered around the outskirts of historic Rome as well. Many of them can be visited by paid admission, on a guided tour. But you’ll be quite glad for the guide, because these places are multi-level warrens that would be quite easy to lose yourself in. Sadly, pictures are not allowed once you enter, but I was able to take these photos topside, which show replicas of some of the old decorations to be found below. Back when it was dangerous to be Christian in Rome, you had to be sneaky about it, and use symbolism. Like the fish, the anchor, the shepherd, the three kings, and the dove.
Christians believed it was proper to bury the dead underground, and it was also safer in those times, to create those catacombs beneath the property of some of the few Christians who managed to own land at the time. It was also more economical at a time when Christians were often quite poor.
These catacombs had about 20 kilometers of tunnels on five levels and at one time housed a half million bodies. It was said that the grave diggers were constantly digging down there, so it was forever changing. When people came to visit the graves of relatives, they would have to ask the grave diggers for directions. They could easily find them for you based on the date of burial alone.
In later centuries there was so much vandalism going on down there, because the vandals mistakenly assumed that there would be a lot of gold and treasures in the graves, that the pope had the bones moved to an ossuary. While you can still see occasional artwork and graffiti, and random sculptures here and there, mostly what you see are rows upon rows of empty niches, each large enough for a body, stretching as far as your eye can see, both horizontally and often vertically, too. You can tell which niches were for children, and there are many of those. It was heartbreaking.
I got the sense that the catacombs guides were, perhaps, volunteers and/or missionaries. They were all young adults from third world countries with accents I could not place, and our guide, in particular, seemed extremely misinformed in a sort of fundamental way. He had no idea that there were Jewish catacombs nearby, and he was under the impression that the Romans left all their dead just lying on the side of the road to rot. He claimed that the Christians, being, of course, Christians, would collect these bodies and give them a Christian burial in the catacombs.
He knew nothing about the tombs and mausoleums that used to line this very road. Apparently he heard the (unfortunately true) stories about Romans leaving unwanted babies to die of exposure, and he somehow conflated that to all dead bodies being just thrown out like so much refuse. He used it as an example of how uncivilized they were, in an isn’t-it-so-much-better-to-be-Christian sort of way. That prevailing message, along with the gift shop full of pope memorabilia, gave me a strong sense of the agenda of this place. Still, it was well worth the visit just to be able to go down there and explore. I am glad our guide knew where he was going, though, or we’d still be down there.
We hopped on our bikes again. Despite the rain, the ride itself was pleasant. We were traveling the same route as Julius Caesar and St. Peter. The landscape was lush and unmistakably Italian. It was peaceful and bucolic, but lest we forget, Roman legions often marched through here on their way to conquering vast territories, and at one time, 6,000 of Spartacus’ army of rebellious slaves were crucified along this road. During WWII, the Germans streamed down the Via Appia in a (fortunately unsuccessful) effort to retake Anzio. History. Everywhere.
Our next stop was the ruins of the Villa and Circus of Maxentius. We did not bother to enter the grounds as the ruins are quite ruinous indeed, but you can tell from the drawing below that it must have been quite impressive in its day. This Circus should not be mistaken for the Circus Maximus which we all saw in Ben Hur. That one was 120 meters longer, and its remnants can still be seen in Rome’s city center. This one was founded in 306 AD, but was only in use for 6 years, because Emperor Maxentius was defeated by Emperor Constantine in 312 AD.
From there, we went to what I believe is the crown jewel of this park: The tomb of Cecelia Metella. But that, Dear Reader, was so impressive that it deserves a post all its own. So, at this point, I’ll simply tell you that we pedaled back to the bike rental place in the rain, and the whole time I was thinking that on any other soggy bike ride I would be looking forward to its end, but this was our last full day in Italy, and my last moments, probably ever, to traverse this, the most formidable and beautiful ancient roadway on earth, and I didn’t want it to end.
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