Living the Good Life: Spring break around the walls

With all of the interruptions and restrictions from lock downs and changing school schedules spring break was a challenge. My original wish was to go to Venice for the week. But then we weren't allowed to leave the region. Second, third, and fourth options, go to one of the towns around Rome with thermal springs, villas, quaint towns or something interesting to explore. Then we weren't allowed to leave our municipality and My Girl's school moved the spring break week to reduce the days of online school so the kids didn't have the same days off.

Plan D.... Walk the walls... twice, once with My Girl and the next week with My Boy.

For work some friends of ours go with groups of people coming to town for training on tours of the city. One of the big ones for families is the wall walk around walls of Rome. This is mostly the Aurelian walls with a bit of Papal wall on the west side. They shared a copy of their directions and commentary on historical spots along the way and we were off.

It is about 22 km (13.7 miles) all around. It can be done in a day, but we weren't in a hurry and wanted to sleep in. If we couldn't leave town, at least we could sleep in. So we divided it up over a couple of days.

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We started at Porta Latina near our house and went along the familiar parkway where people walk their dogs and exercise in the mornings. Porta Latina is the gate for Via Latina, one of the oldest roads in Rome. Some sources say it is older than the more famous Appia Antica.

This is the gate My Boy uses to get to school. He follows Via Latina until it joins the Appia Antica on his way to school near Circo Massimo. The busy parts of the roads are now modern and paved, but I love to think about the thousands of years people have walked along these roads.

Starting out near Porta Latina

Our first rest stop was at San Giovanni in Laterano. This is one of my favorite churches and is quite near our house so we have visited often. I've written about it before so I won't say much now. I love the baptistry, the obelisk, and the sculptures of the apostles. My Girl hates the monstrous creepy baby faces on the ceiling. It is all very baroque as you would expect for a major church in Rome, but the nave is simpler and lighter than most thanks to the design of Boromini. Thankfully, he saved the Medieval Cosmatesque floors. We stopped for the easily accessible modern plumbing.

Inside San Giovanni

Outside San Giovanni

From here we followed the walls to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. As you approach the church you can see a round wall near the gate. This wall was part of a three story amphitheater in an imperial palace complex. (Watch here from 8:58, but the whole thing is good.)

Easter was sandwiched in between the two spring break weeks. So it was appropriate that we visit the relics inside the church. The church itself isn't that spectacular, but there is a chapel at the back where there are relics including thorns from Christ's crown, splinters of the true cross and the cross of the good thief, and the Titulus which reads, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Are they authentic? I don't know. There are probably enough cross splinters in churches around the world to make several crosses if they werere all brought together. If you believe or not, it is a nice place to contemplate what they represent and what it means to you.

The next stop was Porta Maggiore. In 52 AD this double arch was built to celebrate the completion of the aqueducts. Over the years the walls and gates were modified many times to what we see today. At one point cars drove through the gate, now it is a scruffy little park. At the top you can see the openings from the ruined aqueducts incorporated into the walls. In the neighborhood surrounding the gate you can see the aqueducts going off in different directions. The aqueducts and a temple to Minerva, or maybe Hercules or neither, (a nymphaeum?) got us off track the first time through and we ended up on the wrong side of the train tracks. The second time we did a better job following the walls to the east side of the tracks to Termini.

Porta Maggiore

The baker's tomb

In front of the gate, and predating the wall, is the tomb of Marcus Virgilius Eurysaces, a baker and freedman, and his wife. He must have been a very wealthy baker to have had such an elaborate tomb. The exterior is interesting because of the reliefs depicting the process of bread making, from checking the grain to sending out the loaves.

Along the east side of the city you can see the inside of the walls as you ride the trains into Termini station. Here the outside of the walls are visible along a quiet street. You can see houses incorporated into the walls.

In the north east corner is the area called Castro Preatorio. This was originally a barracks for imperial guards. The walls for the barracks were incorporated into the city walls. It was abandoned by the Roman military in the 4th century, but is now a base for the Italian armed forces.

Along the north side of the city the walls are clearly visible. Porta Pia is a gate designed by Michelangelo near the British embassy. The road now goes around the gate instead of through. We laughed at the section of wall is part of the enclosure for the British embassy. It is neat and well maintained. A few yards before that the wall is being held up by some very haphazard scaffolding and all sorts of plants are growing out of the holes. Quite a contrast.

Wall with scaffolding and later the walls on one side of the British embassy

Porta Pia

We stopped at the beautiful and green Villa Borghese for our picnic lunch and a little break.

Lunch stop at Villa Borghese

Villa Borhese

19th century Water clock

View of Piazza del Popolo from Terraza del Pincio in Villa Borghese

Same view a week later

From here we walked down the switchback trail into the piazza and called it a day. It was an easy metro ride home.

Walking along the Tiber with Castel Sant'Angelo in the back

On the second day we started where we left off. We walked from Piazza del Popolo to the Tiber. The walls in this area are long gone, but it is a nice walk. You can walk along the sidewalks under the trees at street level or along the walking path at river level. During the winter these lower paths are often closed when the river is high and the area floods.

Ponte Sant'Angelo

Next stop is the Gianicolo, or Janiculum, a hill between the Vatican and the Trastevere neighborhood. I had already seem much of where we had already walked, but this neighborhood was new for me. From the Vatican you can take Viale delle Mura Aurelie along the base of the walls or Passeggiata Gianicolo along the top of the walls and see the view overlooking the city. We took the high road and were rewarded with spectacular views.

Steps up the Gianicolo

View from the Gianicolo

At the top of the hill are monuments to many 19th century notables and revolutionaries, including Anita Garibaldi. On her monument she is riding a horse, carrying a baby, and firing a pistol all at the same time. She was the Brazilian/Portugese wife of the Italian nationalist revolutionary, Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose monument is just down the road.

Anita Garibaldi monument

Memorial garden on the Gianicolo

Porta San Pancrazio

Next up, Porta San Pancrazio and Villa Sciarra, one of John's favorite haunts as a boy in Rome. What goes up must come down. So down we went into Trastevere. We crossed the river at Porta Portense and had lunch in Testaccio. We passed Monte Testaccio, not really a mountain, but a really big pile of neatly stacked broken pottery. These amphorae were used to import olive oil from Spain and North Africa centuries ago. The oil soaked into the clay and would go rancid, so the massive jugs could not be reused. Instead they were broken and stacked near the Tiber river where they had been unloaded from their barges.

Down to Trastevere

The last major site on our walk is the Roman Pyramid. Romans had long admired Greece, but they also went through a phase where Egypt was all the rage. This pyramid is the tomb of Cestius, a Roman, from about 15 BC. It was only a few years earlier that Rome had conquered Egypt and the obsession began. Around this time massive obelisks and other works of art were brought back as spoils of war. The Romans loved them. This pyramid survived in part because it was incorporated into the city walls next to the Porta San Paulo.