The Queen of Roads, laid in 312 BC, still runs straight out of Rome between umbrella pines, cypresses and the crumbling tombs of Roman families. Walk or cycle its original paving past catacombs and a circus, then cut across to the giant arches of the aqueducts striding over the Campagna.
Roman law forbade burials inside the city, so the great roads leaving Rome were lined with tombs. Along the Appian Way they still stand: tower tombs, pyramids of brick, marble fragments in the grass and, below ground, the catacombs of the early Christians.
Today the road is the heart of the Appia Antica regional park. Beyond the old city gate of Porta San Sebastiano, a short stretch still carries traffic; after the catacombs it quietens, and beyond the round tomb of Caecilia Metella it becomes a country lane of ancient basalt slabs, ruts worn by Roman carts, sheep in the fields and the Alban Hills ahead.
A few kilometres out, the vast Villa dei Quintili was so grand that the emperor Commodus had its owners killed to take it. To the east, across the fields, the Parco degli Acquedotti is one of Rome's great sights: the arches of the Aqua Claudia, completed in AD 52, marching for kilometres across open meadow, golden at sunset.
On Sundays, when the road is closed to traffic, half of Rome is out here.
Straight out along the Appia; the aqueduct park is a 2–3 km detour east across the fields.
The best-preserved gate in the Aurelian Walls holds a small museum where you can walk along the ramparts. Beyond, the road passes the little church of Domine Quo Vadis.
The catacombs of San Callisto and San Sebastiano are visited on short guided tours through the galleries of early Christian tombs. Opposite, the ruins of the Circus of Maxentius stretch along a grassy valley.
A huge cylindrical tomb of the late Republic, later turned into a castle. The paving and the quiet begin here; so does the best cycling.
Its ruins rise from the fields on the left. Turn back here for a 12 km return, or continue among pines and tombs towards Frattocchie, 16 km from the gate.
From around the Appia's middle stretch, signed lanes lead east to the aqueduct park. Walk beneath the arches of the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Felice, then take Metro A back into town from Giulio Agricola or Subaugusta.
Bus 118 runs from Circo Massimo along the first stretch of the Appia and back. Porta San Sebastiano is about 25 minutes on foot from the Baths of Caracalla.
Bikes, including e-bikes, are hired from the park information point near the start and from a café near Caecilia Metella. The paving is bumpy: wide tyres help.
The road is closed to private traffic on Sundays, when families, cyclists and runners fill it. Weekdays are quieter but share the first stretch with cars.
Rome practical notes →Wikimedia Commons photographs are used under their licences; Pexels photographs under the Pexels licence.
