Hiking: Tivoli to San Polo, 10 miles, 2300 feet, great views

One view from the long ridge between Tivoli and San Polo de' Cavalieri.  The hill town at center is Castel Madama.
We've hired near it too in the past, encountering one of our more brutal brier patches.

As the body ages, long rides on the scooter become less enticing.  And so we've taken to doing some of our hiking from train depots.  On a hot Sunday in early June, we scootered in the a.m. to Piazza Independenza in central Rome, walked 10 minutes to Termini, and caught the train for Tivoli (takes about an hour, less on the return).  Our plan (we've done it twice before) was to hike from the Tivoli train station to San Polo de' Cavalieri, a small hill town roughly 5 miles distant.  10 miles total.  Varied terrain, delightful views.

Monte Cattillo, seen from the Tivoli bar,
with requisite beer, after the hike. 

The hike goes up over the shoulder of Monte Catillo (seen here from a bar after the hike).  The trailhead is about half a mile from the train station: exit the station right, downhill to the roundabout, take the road right, up to the arch, and turn right up the road, where you'll find the marked path around Monte Catillo).  Then uphill through scrub to a lone oak (this much we described in an itinerary in our first book), through a lovely grove of oak trees and onto a long ridge, finally pitching down off the ridge, then up on a road and some other tracks to San Polo, where we ate the tramezzini we had purchased in a Tivoli bar in the morning.

Benches line the right side of the street in San Polo.  

We sat on one of the benches on the town's main street.

Bar Centrale.  Quiet, but open, on a Sunday afternoon. 

Or you could buy lunch at Bar Centrale.











Or, from San Polo, you could go on to Monte Gennaro - another 6 hours or so!  We've climbed Gennaro half a dozen times, from several directions, but never from this one.  Tivoli and San Polo are in the Lucreteli, and Monte Gennaro is the highest mountain outside Rome.  The Tivoli to San Polo hike gives you the flavor of the Lucretili and some small town and farm ambience as well.

The ritorno (return) is a reversal of the andato (no good translation, sort of "going" or "the way there"): down from San Polo, steep climb up a hot road to the ridge, more or less flat journey along the mostly open ridge (great views on both sides, especially left), descent through the oaks, the scrub, and along the shoulder of Monte Catillo and down into Tivoli.

There used to be a lot of cows in these pastures, and bathtubs were used as rural fontane (fountains) to provide the animals with water.

Dianne at the oak grove, on the descent.  Several years ago, during a drought,
we feared the oaks might die.  Today, they appear healthy.  Red and white trail
marker on the tree.  A clear path.

Descent into Tivoli.  The white triangle just below the horizon and about 2/3 of the way toward the
right side of the frame, is Santiago Calatrava's famous, but unfinished and unused, swimming pool.  

A short section of road at the beginning and end of the hike. 

The numbers are hours and minutes estimated to reach the
destination, not distance.

Grateful for the shade. 

The trail is well marked (above, a typical sign) in a way it wasn't some years ago, when we first did the hike.  There are just a couple of places where one can go wrong: on the way to San Polo, having passed the lone pine, bear to the right and slightly upward at the fork (the intersection is marked).



Then, about halfway to San Polo, be careful to avoid pitching downward to the left (that's another trail, and a shorter hike) and stay more or less on the ridge.  There are some lovely and cool shaded stretches.







The total dislivello (elevation gain) is about 2300 feet (total for both directions, which involve ups and downs both ways).  That means this one's for hikers, not walkers.  Lots of rocky paths, so hiking boots are highly recommended.  There's water at the Tivoli train station (look for the eagle fountain at one end) and at the fountain in San Polo's main square--but none on the trail, with one exception that's quite close to San Polo.

Water is available at the eagle fountain on the north end of the Tivoli train station.  
You'll be headed for Monte Catillo, whose top is marked by the cross in the center
of this photo.  You can go to the top or across the shoulder on the way to San Polo..

We described another hike from the Tivoli station to the higher Monte Sterparo in 2016. That blog post includes some photos of our "cow map" that has part of this hike on it as well.

We've been partial to Tivoli for a long time, not only for hiking, but also for just the feel of this small, very old town (dating from the ancient Romans), the magnificent 19th-century Villa Gregoriana (#6 on the RST Top 40) and the more famous 16th century Villa d'Este with its fountains (the wild and the ordered, respectively, were compared in Rome the Second Time).

Bill

Rome: Not Always Eternal; the Changing Itineraries of Trastevere

Right in the middle of Modern Rome's  Stairs of Trastevere walk.

Suggesting itineraries for visitors to Rome is a hazardous activity.  In some ways, yes, Rome is eternal and some things have not changed for 2,000 years - and more.  But in other ways, Rome changes all the time.

We discovered the latter principle recently when we decided to use some of the stairs in an itinerary in our last book - Modern Rome: 4 Great Walks for the Curious Traveler.  The itinerary plays off of the popularity of stairways walks in the US, especially on the West Coast.  It's titled: The Stairs of Trastevere.  Ooops!  We were greeted by the nemesis of all Rome walkers: orange netted fencing.

Path looks okay here - note the grotto-like effect.

But, as we looked more closely, we could see there was an easy entrance in spite of the fencing and signs, and that we wouldn't be the first people to use the stairway. These particular stairways use the rough, country-ish, 'grotto' look so prized in the 19th century - ala Tivoli's Villa Gregoriana.  And, they continued to seem that way to us.  Then we saw that the rocks were falling from the supporting walls.

This could be seen as just more authentic looking grotto effect,
but the city likely closed the stairway because of these rocks.

 And, no doubt that danger is what has closed the stairways.

There had been some heavy rains recently; so we guessed the stairways had just been closed and would reopen soon.  Think again! The signs posted said the stairways had been closed since Fall, 2014 (not long after Modern Rome was published), and the residents were sick and tired of waiting for them to be fixed and re-open.

It looked as though no one had tried to get through this fence.
So we didn't try either.

A second set of stairs has no opening and appears to be completely unused.  Better not to try that one.

So for the hundreds of  people trying this stairways walk (p. 70 in the print version, right before the heading "A Fascist-Era Ossuary"), go ahead and walk up the stairs after the hairpin turn.  But when you cross the road to get to the second set of stairs, well-blocked off, turn left instead and walk up to the U-curve and take the stairs in front of you as you round the curve (under the original itinerary you would have been coming down the road to that curve and these steps were  on your right). You'll miss 52 steps.  BTW, we did walk the rest of the itinerary and it's all good.

Lessons learned:  Don't expect any itinerary to stay the same.  Sometimes you can get through barriers, but we don't recommend it unless it's fairly clear others have done so.  Once closed, a monument or site won't reopen anytime soon.  Going off-itinerary isn't all bad.  When the going gets bad, have a coffee or glass of wine.

Bar across from first closed stairway.  It's better than it looks in
this photo.  Lots of nice outdoor tables, fairly large inside.
"Il Baretto" - "the cute little bar."

Other people (that's not RST there) were using this stairway;
a clue that it's fine to use it.

Dianne

Teens Gather: Park of the Aqueducts

Teenagers get together everywhere.  But in Rome they often do so in remarkable places and settings that give these meetings a grace they wouldn't have if they were to take place outside, say, a Wilson Farms store.

We recently published a photo of one such gathering, at the Museo della Civilta', amid the enormous columns of Mussolini's EUR.  In this one, we're at Parco degli Aquedotti  (Park of the Aqueducts), with our teens displayed along one of the park's aqueducts, low here because it's going to ground at this point (toward right), soon to be fully underground. 

The name of this aqueduct is Acqua Felice.  Though not of ancient origin, it's old enough (Hillary), constructed in the late 16th century under Pope Sixtus V.  The Parco is fully described in Itinerary 1 in Rome the Second Time, along with a good story about Sixtus (not the nicest man) and Acqua Felice, which didn't work right when it was turned on.  Those teens in the photo probably don't know the story, but they're making good use of the structure, which still carries water to Rome.
Bill

And here's a link to a Google Maps version of Itinerary 1's map: 

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rome,+Lazio,+Italy&msa=0&msid=115234173574934358486.00048bfd318d41d8b7cb1&z=15  Google Maps versions of all 16  maps in the Book (accessible by hyperlinks in the ebook versions) are in a document at right (under the Book Updates document), also available by this link:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/56172132/Google-Maps-Versions-to-Rome-the-Second-Time-book-maps

Dianne

Updates to Itineraries in Rome the Second Time

see sidebar at right... a couple new ones...



the Anita Garibaldi statue on the Gianicolo is swathed in scaffolding and opaque sheeting - don't go there until it's unveiled (but we're glad they're restoring it).... photo of what you're missing at left, but from across the street you still can see her head, gun and an infant's arm in the air (below).







our favorite tiny restaurant in the Appio Latino neighborhood, Mithos - la Taverna dell'allegria - is now closed Sundays and Monday through lunch (but open on Weds) plus the prices are about 15% higher than in our Rome the Second Time - but still a deal. Plus we were too optimistic saying you might be seated at 7:30 - don't even think about it until at least 8:10 - until Mario dons his apron. And you can get fish on days other than those listed (we had a wonderfully sauteed orato last week). FURTHER UPDATE - Mithos is now located in the nearby Piazza Scipione Ammirato.  We plan to do a full post on this, our favorite restaurant in Rome,  shortly.  Updated info:  address - Piazza Scipione Ammirato, 7; phone + 39.067840034. email - info@mithostaverna.it.  All Italian, all the time, not Greek.







many of the stairways to the Tevere are blocked off (some ala' Romans - you can still get through) as the comune continues to work on the river "walks" - such as cutting down trees [the comune seems to be on a tear for cutting down trees this year] and making the walks unpleasant, especially in the heat.





Bar Gianicolo is closed Mondays.