Day Trip to Bracciano

 

The view from the castle ramparts.

It took us decades of living for months each year in Rome finally to get to Bracciano, the lovely town with its astounding castle overlooking the lake of the same name - Lago di Bracciano. Over the decades, we've hiked all around the lake, dallied in the lovely town of Anguillara (named for the ubiquitous native eels that have clogged some of the aqueducts over time) at its southeastern end, scootered around it, including on its windy volcanic lip. But visited the town? Never until last year. Maybe it was its attraction to celebrities that made us stay away so long (among those married in the castle were Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Italian singer Eros Ramazzotti and Swiss model Michelle Hunziker, and Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini).

Now without scooter, we figured out the train timetables and took the almost 2-hour-long ride - stopping almost 20 times along the less than 50-mile route. Worth it?  Definitely! (It's the F3 interurban train that can be accessed at Stazioni Tiburtina, Ostiense, Trastevere, etc.)

Right, our first view, from the narrow streets of the old town, of the Orsini-Odelscalchi castle.

The castle is in wonderful condition and you are allowed to roam all over it.

Built in the 15th century by the wealthy Orsini family, the Orsini bear sightings are many. ("Orsini" means "little bears"). The family crest sports both the bear peaking over the top, and a rose.

The town and castle were also the focal points of many conflicts between wealthy families, some connected to Popes. The Colonna, Medici, and Torlonia were involved. In 1948 the castle was purchased by a prince of the Odescalchi line. Hence the full name: Castello Orsini-Odescalchi. (See photo of map below of the extent of the Orsini family rule when they started the project.)

The armaments room (photo above) is particularly impressive, as is the painting showing the various comings and goings of the families controlling Bracciano (close-up below). In case you are not into weapons, you'll also see the kitchens, bedrooms, frescoed ceilings, courtyards, and rooftops. You won't go away wanting for much. The website also features private tours of many varieties, including a kids' tour with a "princess" and re-enactments.  Website here. We couldn't get the English version of the web site to work, but you'll get the idea, or use an online translator.

A few more photos are at the end of the post. (We haven't included too many so you can enjoy the sight first-hand.) We don't want to leave out our trek down to the beach (a path for locals will get you there fairly easily), and some great seafood pastas. We also strolled along a beach area clearly designed for night-life, with one place even called "Movida" (the Italian word for the crowds that move among the hot spots in the late evening, the bane of residents' existences in some Roman neighborhoods like Trastevere and San Lorenzo).

The lake and beach from the castle grounds.

A few families ventured out on this sunny May weekday (right).

The "Movida" club, photo at left.  Near here was also a boat scheduled to take people across the lake. Some Brits were waiting for it, but it clearly was not going to show. Advice: don't depend on it.

Dianne

Above, map of Orsini holdings. Lake Bracciano is the small light blue spot towards the lower left. They had property in and out of the Papal states. Virginio Orsini lived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The castle has many explanatory panels in both Italian and English.

Walking the (Aurelian) Wall II: Porta Metronia to Porta San Paolo

"City walls, to a properly constituted American, can never be an object of indifference; and it is emphatically 'no end of a sensation' to pace in the shadow of this massive cincture of Rome....even to idle eyes the prodigious, the continuous thing bristles with eloquent passages."  Henry James, 1873

The Aurelian Wall near Casa del Jazz.  Here, from the outside, a sloping giant, with doors and windows added
later, perhaps to serve "inside" residents

Thwarted. Inside of wall not accessible here

Each section of the 3rd-century Aurelian wall has its own pleasures and mysteries and delivers its own lessons.  RST blog readers may recall we are on a mission to walk the entire (once 19 km, or 12 mile) wall.  On this section, going (roughly) south and west from Porta Metronia, we discovered how much of the wall is inaccessible, especially from the inside. [Update:  a Google map includes this itinerary.]


That lesson was delivered immediately, when, exiting Porta Metronia, we found ourselves barred from the inside of the wall by a gate (and inside, a half dozen plastic dishes and cartons--someone is feeding the area's cats).

Seems like suburbia, except there's a wall

We returned to the outside, which here skirts one of Rome's newest and best kept urban parks: benches and fountains, joggers, walkers, thinkers.  How long, we wondered, could we sit on a park bench without a book, a newspaper, or a cell phone?

Old scaffolding inside the wall/no access

At Porta Latina, through which runs the ancient via Latina, we peek inside and hope for access, just a fence and yards of year-old scaffolding.  Outside, the wall is sometimes marred by a fence (presumably to protect passers-by from falling bricks) and marked by the Papal families who restored it at various times: here, the Barberini family, with their bees on the shield.

Remnant of an aqueduct

The next porta is a handsome one: Porta San Sebastiano, through which runs (well, not now, it's closed for repairs, to reopen in the next century), via Appia Antica.  Just inside (besides a guy taking a leak) is another arch, and a grand one.  Not part of the wall, it's one of few remnants of the Aquedotto Antoniniano, which once fed the baths of Caracalla.  On the porta itself, we found some chiseled crosses and the date 1622 - ancient graffiti?  This porta is the entrance to the one part of the wall where one can walk inside: the wall museum, an RST Top 40 site.

Maybe they own horses

The next opening in the wall is door-to-door automobiles, but it is, indeed, a porta: Porta Ardeatine.  EUR is a couple of miles to the left, connected by the multi-lane viale Cristoforo Colombo. The baths of Caracalla are a half mile downhill to the right.  We're still looking for access to the wall's inside, and we're still being denied: on this side, a fence guards a long, maintained field, someone's private estate we would guess, legal or "abusive" we can't say.

Homeless "shelter"/locked gate to inside of wall

And on the other side of viale Cristoforo Colombo, another locked gate, a cat, and a primitive plastic shelter used by the homeless.  On we go, still outside, past the Casa del Jazz (taken from the Mafia as part of a legal penalty, years ago).  The grounds on this section are better maintained, and the wall is designed differently, with wedge-shaped cutouts wedges at its top (see photo, top of this post).  We noticed several ground-level doors--certainly not part of the original defensive system, perhaps once used as exit/entrances by families living on the inside.

Florentine Pope advertising wall work

At a sharp right turn, more evidence of Papal interest, this time the Medici of Florence (all those fleurs-de-lys)  And further on, the brick façade removed to reveal the tufo--of different colors, perhaps different eras--beneath.

Stairway into upper San Saba

Finally, at the next porta, we can tuck ourselves inside.  Immediately, the wall shrinks--we're inside now, on higher ground.  As we follow the wall around the corner and down the hill, we enjoy peeks through the wall at soccer fields and, to our right, views of the little-known and curiously isolated community of San Saba, constructed in the early 20th century.

Porta San Paolo (and at left, the Piramid)

Ahead, the wall is simply gone, victim of Rome's automobiles, and then beyond, the magnificent Porta San Paolo, out of which runs via Ostiense (the road to Ostia); today this porta, too, houses a museum.  Historically, the piazza is well-known as the site of short-lived but furious resistance to the German occupation of the city in 1943.

Cafe' du Parc. Table service, but order inside.  

Even downhill, this wall-walking is hard work, and so we treat ourselves to a glass of wine at one of our favorite redoubts, the Café du Parc, with its long, now fenced-in outdoor space.  From our table, we enjoy a view of the Ostiense Post Office, one of four designed by noted architects during the Fascist era. This one--worth looking at from the front, and inside, too--is the work of Adalberto Libera and Mario De Renzi.  When it opened in 1935, Mussolini was there.

Bill

Inside the wall, San Saba just ahead; the wall seems short here, but it's because the ground is high.  The wall
is much higher on its "outside."